Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

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

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

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

… gradually, and then suddenly.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

We will not go back.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

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

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

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Evening Open Thread: (Trying to) Charm the Offensive

Thursday Evening Open Thread: (Trying to) Charm the Offensive

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(Tony Auth at GoComics.com)

Alex Pareene, at Salon:

It is hilarious how much the centrist deficit-hawk Grand Bargain cheerleaders detest Obama and blame him for his failure to get a Grand Bargain, because he often seems like the only person in Washington who legitimately, sincerely wants one.

So Barack Obama did his “charm offensive” — he spoke, in real life, to Republican members of Congress — and everyone agreed that it didn’t count because he didn’t mean it. Reaching out to people in order to attempt to persuade them to support a policy goal only counts if you sincerely want to speak to those people, everyone knows that.

The problem isn’t actually that Barack Obama was insufficiently charming. The problem is much more simple: He is campaigning for policies Republicans don’t support. Barack Obama wants to cut the deficit. Republicans don’t care about the deficit. Barack Obama wants to cut the deficit by raising more revenue and cutting social insurance programs. Republicans hate taxes and don’t actually want to cut social insurance programs for old people. So, “charm” is not really the problem….

***********
Apart from watching President Obama gain useful experience in dealing with intransigent teenagers, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  2. 2.

    22over7

    74 degrees and glorious this evening. Grilling Cornish game hens and made the most incredible cherry-grand marnier-chipotle sauce EVAH. I want to throw out the hens and just eat the sauce with a spoon.

    Ok, maybe on good vanilla ice cream.

  3. 3.

    MikeJ

    @22over7:

    made the most incredible cherry-grand marnier-chipotle sauce EVAH.

    Recipe?

    And hooray for DST, regardless of what the nay sayers neigh. Nice to have sunlight for grilling. Although I’m not grilling tonight. Chicken pot pie. Have to have pie on pi day.

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    what’s on the agenda for the evening?

    HOA meeting. It’s probably going to be simultaneously boring and contentious, but I feel obligated to go anyway.

  5. 5.

    Hill Dweller

    The careerists in the Village don’t give a shit about anything but themselves. They’re the villains in this movie.

    As an aside, Samsung apparently shat the bed with their horrendous launch event for the Galaxy S IV today. Anyone who has ever watched one of these things knows they’re all pretty cheesy, but this one reportedly surpassed all the others in cringe factor. There were dancers and skits…

  6. 6.

    22over7

    @MikeJ:

    I forgot, it’s pi day! I have no pie. Sadface.

    I used a half-jar of cherry preserves, a good knob of butter, a splash of Grand Marnier, a couple scrapes of nutmeg, a tiny plop of vanilla, and about a half-teaspoon of ground chipotle pepper. OMG.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    So Barack Obama did his “charm offensive” — he spoke, in real life, to Republican members of Congress — and everyone agreed that it didn’t count because he didn’t mean it. Reaching out to people in order to attempt to persuade them to support a policy goal only counts if you sincerely want to speak to those people, everyone knows that.

    Cooper Union address, anyone?

    The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

  8. 8.

    Suffern ACE

    I was going to let my XM trial that came with my car expire, but now I’ve discovered a channel tgat plays French Canadians singing country western music. I might have a hard time letting go.

  9. 9.

    jeffreyw

    Preparing to stimulate the local economy tomorrow. Going to browse the gardening season preparation at the big box parking lots. We may eat Chinese. I may look at new dish washing machines. I need self tapping sheet metal screws and garden hose repair fittings. Lowe’s has the cutest little trailer – street legal but sized for my Honda Quad to pull stuff and things around the yard.

  11. 11.

    Chris

    The problem isn’t actually that Barack Obama was insufficiently charming. The problem is much more simple: He is campaigning for policies Republicans don’t support. Barack Obama wants to cut the deficit. Republicans don’t care about the deficit. Barack Obama wants to cut the deficit by raising more revenue and cutting social insurance programs. Republicans hate taxes and don’t actually want to cut social insurance programs for old people. So, “charm” is not really the problem….

    There’s no need to cut social insurance programs, unless they mean the handouts to the private sector masquerading as social insurance programs, like Medicare Part D, which are actually more expensive than if the government did it themselves.

    We’re in the current clusterfuck because of leaders who have insisted on combining large increases in defense spending with large tax cuts, thus exploding the deficit by both ends (done once under Reagan and then, after the mess had been fixed, once again under Bush). If you want to reduce the deficit, either cut military spending or raise taxes to the point that they can actually cover those fucking increases.

  12. 12.

    22over7

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Forgot all about it. Went to the ear/nose/throat doctor to follow up on my sinus infection from hell. I’m cured.

    Guess that’s good enough for a celebration!

  13. 13.

    Comrade Mary

    @raven: Huh. Not Bakshi, but Paul Gruwell (of Heavy Metal).

    This other link has some commentators saying that Gruwell is still around. And is “gracism” a thing?

    Edward Seeman collides head-on with Ralph Bakshi (now there’s a pairing) in this legendary cartoon by Heavy Metal animator Paul Gruwell. The song of course is by Cheech and Chong.

    Notable for incidents of gracism (race imagery without the usual malice), some brilliant in-betweening, and fairly quick and subtle comedy: the black geek eating the bag of Oreos (oh ha ha) was not missed by me since I’m a black geek; Tyrone farting in the bathtub; the Nazi supremacist bar patron; the nincompoop giddily boning his girlfriend; Cheech as Tyrone Shoelaces calling the basketball team’s owner a “honky” (goes by like a meteor and is easy to miss); the coach being somewhat offended at the owner touching him; the Howard Cosell and other sports commentator spoofs; the antiwar gags; the quick shot of airline terrorism (yep folks, that’s the era it started in); the Seventies underground animation cliche of the Jewish old couple smoking a spliff; and best of all, that Nixon Impeachment blimp.

    All good fun and the kind of underground comix stuff I used to see hairy freek guys reading all the time in 1974! Long live Underground Animation and long live the Freak Era of the 1970s… the best time ever in America!

    Now featuring improved color and sound! The original posters are free to download this version and reupload it as their own. Performed as a favor. Thanks for posting this, guys!

  16. 16.

    Derelict

    Experience is only useful if you learn something from it. Since Obama is apparently incapable of understanding that Republicans despise him and will never, ever agree to anything that requires them to move one nanometer from their position, I’m pretty sure he’s not gaining any useful experience.

  17. 17.

    Ted & Hellen

    Barack Obama wants to cut the deficit by raising more revenue and cutting social insurance programs.

    Could someone explain why this Progressive President wants to cut the deficit when it is currently irrelevant, and why he is willing to cut social insurance programs when they are not a problem either?

    Has he just gone all in on Republican talking points and now actually believes them even though they don’t?

    WTF?

  18. 18.

    jamick6000

    pareene is the best, probably my favorite political writer.

    I am cooking a box of rice mix, to which I added a can of corn. I may also add some soy sauce.

  19. 19.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Teenagers isn’t the right analogy. We have ~300 North Korean despots who believe they were all brought down from the mountain by swans and deserved to be treated as such.

    The problem is, the last time we had conservatives who believed that their right to be superior over the rest of the country was paramount led to a civil war.

    I personally don’t blame Obama. Even if there were a lesson to be learned here that he didn’t already know, he still has to be president of the entire country. Would someone tell me what else he’s actually supposed to do? Even he’s telling Reid it’s time to fix the filibuster, but that doesn’t do anything to the House. Unless the correct 47% of the population suddenly dies, the Republicans feel no need to listen and accomplish anything. Remember, their voters will eat rat as long as their neighbor isn’t eating squirrel.

  20. 20.

    JoyfulA

    @Suffern ACE: XM seems to something for everyone. I gave my parents a stand-alone radio for the house years ago, and they’re still playing the 1940s music channel at every mealtime.

  21. 21.

    Hattie

    Young people had better defend social services for elders, unless they want to have to support their parents in their old age and then find themselves without benefits in their old age.

  22. 22.

    Dave A

    The Republicans know that they have a wuss in Obama. They are just holding out until he caves and hands them the Democratic parties balls an a silver tray.

  23. 23.

    aimai

    @Derelict:

    You know what? The first lady was recently on Twitter to discuss her work with children and health and she was bombarded with obscene, hate filled, ugly personal attacks on her and on President Obama that are so grotesque that I couldn’t read more than a few without feeling physically sick. I think you can take it for fucking granted that the President and the First Lady are well aware of how deep and how sick the hatred of the Republican party is for them. So fuck off with your “he doesn’t get it.” He gets it. He just is too grown up and too serious to let that get in the way of trying to govern the god damned country.

  25. 25.

    Hill Dweller

    @Derelict:

    Experience is only useful if you learn something from it. Since Obama is apparently incapable of understanding that Republicans despise him and will never, ever agree to anything that requires them to move one nanometer from their position, I’m pretty sure he’s not gaining any useful experience.

    Can’t you see the value of the President demonstrating that he will move off his position, while knowing that Republicans will never reciprocate?

    Obama is knocking down every bullshit excuse the Village has used to absolve the wingnuts of any blame for their behavior.

  26. 26.

    mai naem

    @Suffern ACE: Hey give Pete Dominic a try. He’s on XM 104 in the AM. He used to have a show on POTUS 124 in the PM but they swtiched him this month. He’s been on CNN as a contributor but I have only seen that a couple of times. Anyhow, he does what I call a radio version of a combo of Chris Hayes and Morning Ho. I only say Morning Ho because he will go off on non-political stuff. If CNN dumbasses had a brain they would have pair him up with Soledad or some other tvgenic female with a brain and have him do a morning show. He’s got a great stable of guests – Bruce Bartlett, Dean Baker, Will Cain(ugh), John Fugelsang, Eric Segal, Aaron Carroll, a HRC guy, David Cay Johnston, barry ritholtz, john avlon etc. This guy would give Morning Ho a run for their money.

  27. 27.

    dance around in your bones

    I’m hoping to bum a Xa.nax off a friend so I can fucking sleep tonight.

  28. 28.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    Reaching out to people the hardcore, bedrock crazy in order to attempt to persuade them to support a policy goal only counts if you sincerely want to speak to those people are willing to kiss their ruddy arses and give them everything they want no matter how hideous, everyone knows that.

    What’s the point of the polite double talk on Pareene’s part?

    Isn’t that what’s REALLY going on here?

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    @22over7:

    re cherry/grand marnier/chipotle sauce: yum. thanks.

    @aimai: one can only imagine.

    @mai naem: don’t have satellite radio, myself, but will pay more attention to Pete Dominic.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hattie:

    Young people had better defend social services for elders, unless they want to have to support their parents in their old age and then find themselves without benefits in their old age.

    It ain’t young people who voted for Romney and Ryan. If old people don’t want to have to live on the charity of their children, perhaps they need to vote for the party that’s not planning to turn Medicare into a voucher program.

    We keep trying to turn the country around, but then the over-65s hand the House over to the Republicans on a silver platter. And now young people are supposed to clean up the mess you created while you fight that clean-up kicking and screaming all the way?

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