Amanda Terkel asks about and receives the real answer as to why Republicans killed gun control:
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) revealed that some members of his party opposed expanding background checks for gun sales recently because they didn’t want to “be seen helping the president.”
No foolin’? Blind hatred of President Obama and the Democrats is the chief motivation of the GOP and their base, as a NY Times poll finds…
“I’m for stricter gun laws, but the reason I favor the Republicans over the Democrats and the liberals on gun laws is because they have always been against the Second Amendment and the right to own guns,” said Jim Hensley, 69, a Republican from Grandville, Mich., in an interview after the poll was conducted.
“Yes, I believe the Republicans should have voted for background checks, and they should not legalize automatic weapons,” Mr. Hensley added. “I was against the repeal of the ban on automatic weapons, and I don’t support the N.R.A. But it’s like marriage. You stick with your wife no matter what, and you don’t just ditch your political party on one issue.”
Republican voters agree with gun control and want background check laws and even weapon ban legislation, but refuse to punish GOP politicians over this because Those Damn Liberals want gun control too?
Rick Buckman, 52, a Republican and an electrical engineer from Dallas, Pa., said that while he supported stricter gun legislation, he did not necessarily approve of the president’s approach. “I was really ticked off that the law didn’t pass,” Mr. Buckman said. “But I thought it was wrong of President Obama to get in front of the public and use people who had been damaged by gun violence as props.”
It’s a great bill and I wanted it to pass but to hell with President Blackguy McComingformyguns! Bonus points, title of that NY Times article is “Americans’ Unity on Big Issues Doesn’t Bridge Partisan Gap”.
And hey folks, as Anne Laurie points out, “Because it pisses off the liberals!” is a feature, not a bug of being a Republican in 2013. They do it, the voters reward them for it and will continue to do so. When they eventually get back into power nationally (because they are running amok at the state level) they’ll keep on doing it, because that’s all that matters to them. Voters just aren’t going to punish them, period.
Best part of all this is that given pretty solid evidence that The Great Bipartisanship can never be achieved (because by definition anything actually bipartisan, i.e. anything that both vast numbers of Democrats and Republicans support will be automatically killed by Republicans because it would benefit Democrats as well) the usual nonsense is to then blame both parties and Kanye shrug through yet another crisis that Republicans create. At some point we’re going to have our Village Elders openly ask all Democrats nationally to resign from office just to show that they’re “really serious about working with the GOP” because of course Obama can’t talk the lunatics off the ledge. It’s the same dipshit nonsense it’s been for the last four years now, and it’ll be that way for the next four at the bare minimum.
So all together now, kids: Both Sides Do It, Nobody Could Have Predicted, Hoocoodanode!
Morzer
Time for liberals to demand a ban on self-castration and wine and anthrax parties.
donnah
So, this is it, then. no meaningful legislation will pass unless the Republicans say so, and they won’t ever say so. Any good plans for health care, gun control, or the economy are null and void because the Republican Party is so stubborn, hateful, and heartless.
I used to think it was 99% racism on the part of the Republicans and their desire to shut down Obama. But now I think it’s about 50/50 racism and sheer hatred for the Democratic Party.
How do you beat that? When they openly admit that they’re willing to sacrifice the care and well-being of their country because of pride or pettiness, how do you fight them?
These pitiful confessions should be on every front page so people realize what the Republican Party now stands for.
Amir Khalid
It’s not that Obama won’t reach out to Republicans, or that he doesn’t know how to reach out to them. The Republicans don’t want to be reached. To let oneself be persuaded by Obama is to fail the Tea Party purity test. They fear contamination.
maya
I’m surprised the polls don’t ask the obvious: If POB used that skin bleach Michael Jackson used would that help you to…. overcome?
c u n d gulag
Toomey let the let the Red Elephant out of the bag, and into the room – where our MSM can promptly… well, do what always do, which is to continue to ignore it.
Morzer
I suspect that part of what is happening here is that at least some of the Republicans quoted don’t, in fact, support the gun control measures they claim to support. What they are doing is trying to sound ‘reasonable’ while conjuring up a specious excuse for not doing something that they never wanted to do in the first place. The excuse they turn to is extremely revealing, of course.
Hill Dweller
The careerists in the Village will do anything to avoid confronting the real problem, which is the Republican party. Hence, the constant obsession with Obama’s “leadership”.
eta: Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann meticulously laid out the Republicans’ radical behavior, but they’ve seemingly been blacklisted for doing it.
Ted & Hellen
Can you point to any evidence you’ve provided that Republican resistance would be less intense if the current Democratic president were white? Other than conjecture, I mean. Thanks.
Marmot
“At some point we’re going to have our Village Elders openly ask all Democrats nationally to resign from office just to show that they’re “really serious about working with the GOP” because of course Obama can’t talk the lunatics off the ledge.”
That was the year 2001, when finally that disreputable Clinton left office — he was such a *polarizing* figure — and the return of Republicans to power in the form of the Bush Administration meant the adults were in charge again, and something could get done again in Washington.
Doesn’t anyone remember?
Chris
@donnah:
Racism and hatred of the Democratic Party => same thing. They hate the Democratic Party because it’s the party of These People. So it’s not an either/or thing so much as two sides of the same coin.
kindness
Guillotine yet?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Morzer: You sound an awful lot like Mark Davis, winger radio show person here in Dallas. This morning he was talking about how Collins coming out as gay was done because his career was ending otherwise. Now some team will have to take him as a player otherwise the league will look bad.
Zandar
@Ted & Hellen: A) I can’t make the President in 2013 be not black.
B) You’re asking me to prove a negative. Fuck right off, as usual.
C) See B).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Ted & Hellen: The president was black the last time I checked.
Morzer
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Puzzled by how you got that out of my comment. I don’t see any parallel between the two situations. I am saying that the GOP may talk about wanting gun control, but it’s all just a show to make them look reasonable. They done this for years on all sorts of issues – “We’d love to do X, but the Democrats went about it the wrong way.”
How you managed to compare that to the Collins situation, I have no idea, but I find it extremely offensive on your part.
El Caganer
If Pat Toomey, who has serious wingnut cred, is complaining about the intransigence of his own party, I would say we’re up the creek without benefit of paddle.
Davis X. Machina
Cold civil war. One-half of a nation doesn’t consider the other half of the nation, of the nation, nor any government they choose a legitimate government. This is the environment that produces Cromwells.
Marmot
@donnah: ” But now I think it’s about 50/50 racism and sheer hatred for the Democratic Party.”
I’ve been saying this for years now. Republican parents, you know. It got me accused of being a racist.
Morzer
@Davis X. Machina:
I suspect we might produce something much worse than Cromwell. Unlikable as he was in many ways, he was actually quite a good domestic ruler.
aimai
This whole post reminds me of the way Scott Walker escaped Recall in Wisconsin. They basically got on TV and shrieked “no do-overs” and “this is just tacky” until even voters who despised him and wanted him removed felt that there was something wrong with the very idea of the recall and didnt’ vote for it. This whole “it was wrong for the President to use people as props” is straight up agitprop from Rush and Fox. Its a process argument. Why is it that Democrats never win the process argument and Republicans can avoid the values/goals arguments by pushing these process arguments?
Marmot
@Chris: False. You’re not remembering the 90s.
The Moar You Know
@Davis X. Machina: Or, to provide a somewhat less dire prediction that also fits the scenario, the Bloc Québécois.
Morzer
@aimai:
Because process arguments appeal to the part of the wingnut mind that likes things codified in simple, absolute, emotional terms. Once the GOP can categorize something as “unfair”, “government stealing your money” or simply “taking away your rights” etc etc, it’s too late for the factual argument to make an impression.
Mike in NC
Rural over-50 assholes have royally fucked this country up.
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen:
Where is your evidence that says otherwise? Besides conjecture, of course.
Davis X. Machina
@The Moar You Know:
Ils ne sont pas aussi bien armés …
Davis X. Machina
@Mike in NC: It’s their country, not yours. And don’t forget it.
Cacti
Just an extension of yesterday’s post on Ted Cruz.
To teabaggers, it doesn’t matter if the Repubs can get anything done, so long as they act like assholes.
That was the source of fondness for Chris Christie before he committed heresy.
Morzer
@Davis X. Machina:
We are all illegal liberal immigrants, after all.
PIGL
@Davis X. Machina: it’s really a question of which side has the balls to make a deal with the armed forces and declare the second republic. I think Zandar’s analysis is correct, which implies that there is not other future.
Zandar
How bout “Bye?”
Anyway, where were we?
scav
Poor T&H. His Brothers of Sinew, Blood, Soul and DNA are being mocked and he must defend their upright behavior and perfect patriotism.
Marmot
@aimai: “Why is it that Democrats never win the process argument and Republicans can avoid the values/goals arguments by pushing these process arguments?”
Damn good question. They’re still killing us at propaganda. And with obvious diversions!
Chris
@Marmot:
Of course I am. My point is that regardless of the public face of the party, it’s still the party of These People. They may hate Obama because he’s a ni[CLANG], but they hated Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy and Truman because they were ni[CLANG] lovers. Racism is always a factor.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Since 2000, Toomey has received $83,169 in campaign contributions from gun rights groups. His voting record on gun control issues has earned him an “A” rating from the NRA.
Republicans can explain their opposition to gun control any way they want to. It’s also about the money.
Morzer
@Chris:
And, going back further, they loved the New Deal – until it was extended to .. why yes “those people”.
Hill Dweller
Last night, Jon Stewart was asking Kay Bailey Hutchison to justify the Republicans’ intransigence since Obama came into office, but she couldn’t do it. Although she did say the Senate had become a really awful place before she left.
Marmot
@Cassidy: Answer: the Clinton Administration. Next question.
Morzer
@Zandar:
Definitely another episode of Zandar against the Stupid.
Davis X. Machina
@PIGL: I don’t expect it to end well. Some guy once said that a house divided against itself cannot stand — he may not have expected the Union to be dissolved, he may have expected it to cease to be divided.
He got shot.
askew
On a positive note, it looks like voters are really pissed about Senators who voted against background checks and are ready to reward those who voted for it:
Via PPP:
I’d love to see Dems run on gun safety laws in 2014. It sure seems like the tide has shifted on that issue.
Elizabelle
@maya:
Silly question.
Answer: NO. Because Obama would still be (A) a Democrat and (B) thus the instrument of society’s “takers” and the not worthy.
People like Mr. Hensley can’t think as well as they suppose, but they’re ripe for sloganeering.
And they settled for marriage to a monster.
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
For all the misty eyed nostalgia for Lyndon Johnson, the fact is that he passed his two signature civil rights bills with 80% Republican support. He was dealing with a loyal opposition as opposed to the intransigent nihilists that form today’s GOP.
Morzer
@askew:
I really hope the Democrats have the courage to do this and tie the NRA around Republicans’ necks as hard as possible. Make the GOP scum answer for their votes in favor of the child-killers at every turn.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
The “I supported gun control but…” crew remind me of the “I’m not racist, but…”
Woodrowfan
@Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage): “some of my best friends are background checks!”
Villago Delenda Est
Well, DUH!
Cassidy
@Marmot: Sorry, no. That’s not gonna cut it.
Zandar
@Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage):
THIS.
Marmot
@Chris: I understand your point, but they oppose Dems on any subject, not just those related to race or safety nets. Hell, I’m so old that I recall Repubs harping on Clinton for not getting tougher on Iraq every time an anti-aircraft radar went on in the country. No sense to it, just blanket opposition to their political enemies.
I see them as choosing a villain for every situation, and smoothly shifting among the choices. Sometimes it’s minorities, sometimes Commies, now Islamists, and in 1996 it was “Volvo-driving, sandal-wearing, granola-eating elitists.” They can’t deal with questions that don’t feature a villain. They’re simpletons.
maurinsky
Haven’t we been in a mostly cold civil war since the Civil Rights Act passed? If not earlier than that?
Hill Dweller
@Chris: But, for the most part, Clinton was allowed to govern, and his executive/judicial nominations were cleared. He also could rely on a good number of genuinely moderate Republicans(and Ted Kennedy in the Senate).
Obama isn’t just hated. The Republicans have gone to unprecedented lengths(e.g. shattering filibuster records) to prevent Obama from actually governing, and brought the confirmation process in the Senate to a grinding halt.
No President, arguably since Lincoln, has had to deal with the level of obstructionism Obama’s faced.
Marmot
@Cassidy: Because you say so?
Cassidy
@Marmot: Because facts say so.
Villago Delenda Est
@Marmot:
Clinton was America’s “first black president”.
He was, horror of horrors, a “race traitor” for considering African-Americans to be human beings just like Italian-Americans, or (ultimate shocked expression here) White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
As Chris points out, the racism is always there. The Democrats, since the 1960’s, and the Confederates fled in droves, are now the party the Confederates love to hate.
Marmot
@Morzer: Rich conservatives always hated the New Deal. They formed the (yes, often racist) Birch Society to fight it, and now that crew controls the Repub party.
Morzer
@maurinsky:
You can find a similar mentality in the people who hated FDR and thought he was a Commie. What they didn’t have was the infrastructure and support from crackpot billionaires to indoctrinate the gullible rubes 24/7. Plus, little things like the Great Depression and the fact that FDR was getting us out of it tended to trump other considerations.
Going back even further, you can find the slave states trying to shut down all discussion of slavery (and obstructing federal improvements) and so on and so forth. There’s always been a faction in this country that wants government of the fat cats for the fat cats. That those fat cats are intended by God to be white, male, Christian bigots is something that isn’t mentioned in the fine print – but it’s very much the default assumption.
Villago Delenda Est
@Marmot:
The New Deal saved the rich conservatives from the gallows.
They’ve always hated FDR for doing that.
Marmot
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m not denying the racism of Repubs. Clinton wasn’t black. The crazy wing despised him just for being president, and now the crazies predominate.
Cassidy
@Marmot: In the minds of bigots, he was/ is. That’s how those people think. You’re either one of them or you’re one of those.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai:
That was just amazing and horrifying to watch. Listening to people say that the couldn’t stand the guy but that he won fair and square…. Aargh!
Elizabelle
@Morzer:
I think the rise of television and mass media — used by rightwingers — has made our country less governable than FDR found it.
(1) FDR had Father Coughlin, who was an amateur compared today’s rightwing cable channels, think tanks and media outlets. Plus, it’s easier to send those execrable email chain messages out than to call or converse, one on one.
(2) Newspapers are in freefall and rightwingers have demeaned accurate reporting and deplore government — the only check on Big Business — at every turn.
(3) FDR’s social safety net improvements ensured that people did not fall as far as during the Great Depression, even while we have two economies and income inequality is soaring for reasons other than “merit”.
Marmot
@Villago Delenda Est: We are in full agreement here.
The Cons, they hate us all. That they hate minorities is more fuel for the fire.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
So pretty much we’re wholly screwed, because there’s simply no incentive for the GOP to behave. They know they’ll never get punished because ‘don’t switch horses mid-stream’ bullshit is endemic. Between the two-faced criticisms of Obama being a dictator and yet not willing to lead, plus the healthy dollops of ‘both sides same thing’ we get fed….
Fuck it. There really is no way to break this shit, is there?
Chris
@Marmot:
Yes, to all of that, but how do they choose their villains? You don’t think identity politics (if not racism then nationalism, fundamentalism, sexism, homophobia) plays a role in that? You don’t think, for example, the promise of equality and the preaching that all men are equals regardless of ethnicity or nationality has something to do with why “Commies” were chosen as villains (not to mention their inroads into the black community in America at a time when the official parties still wouldn’t go near them)?
It’s not as simple as “we’re idiots who need a simple story with a villain.” “Rich white people caused the recession” is also a simple story with a clear villain, but it’s not one that they’ll ever accept, because they don’t see these people as villains. To them, villains are described in tribal terms, either as “others” or as traitors.
Tom Q
@Hill Dweller: I think you can argue that, had the states of the Confederacy not chosen to secede, their Congressional representatives would have behaved toward Lincoln in precisely the same way today’s GOP is acting toward Obama.
Morzer
@Elizabelle:
I think that’s a big part of it – although I believe it will turn around and bite the wingnuts big time as liberals get better at using the new technologies. I think we saw that to some extent with the Obama campaign. It’s no longer possible to say hateful wingnut things and be confident of getting away with it as it was when the Birchers could get the folks on their mailing list whipped up into a frenzy – and as Ron Paul was able to do with his newsletters for a long time. To my mind, this is why the conservacrazies are now trying to sound “reasonable” while being even more obstructionist than before. I don’t believe Republicans who claim they would support gun control if Obama hadn’t pushed it, because to me it’s just another episode in the game of wingnuts lying about their beliefs to sound like ‘normal’ people.
Marmot
@Cassidy: This is our central disagreement. Much of my family is Repub, including my folks. And maybe they’re outliers, doubt it though. Occasionally I’d catch em saying or behaving racist-ly, but by-and-large I think it became gauche in the suburban conservative world. They always raised me to see other people as equals.
(Caveat: my home town was 70% Latino. )
Steve M.
@aimai:
Because Democrats waste time and energy on trying to be right about things, or at least right within the parameters of the possible. Republicans think about absolutely nothing except “How do we win?”
AxelFoley
@Hill Dweller:
Spot the fuck on.
Marmot
@Chris: I do think identity politics plays a role, but it’s context dependent. So, race, class, “respectability,” religion, social circles — the conservatives are already aligned with one faction in each of these categories, often just by birth. They’re handed villains, and they’re afraid. Oh, and they’re idiots. Drooling fucking morons.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
This is one of the things that the Founders (bless their holy names) would be up in arms about.
They believed in checks and balances, to keep society on an even keel. In their time, there were no huge corporations (they despised corporations, after dealing with the Honorable East India Company and its Crown granted monopoly power for so long) to be kept in check in late 18th century America.
But if they were here today, they’d see the danger. Jefferson was distrustful of banks, for example, calling them more dangerous than standing armies. These guys really loathed standing armies (see the totally forgotten 3rd Amendment), too.
The only check on corporations is government, seeing as they are by their very nature a creature of government. The monster is loose, and is threatening to destroy not only the country, but the planet itself.
flukebucket
Is the administration against morning after pills because they hope that will make the Republicans for them?
Marmot
@Morzer: I really, really hope you’re right about this. Sometimes I feel this is happening,even.
Cassidy
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: There is, but it gets a little messy.
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est:
I was always annoyed that when people said this, part of the joke was, “black president, LOL!!”
Morzer
@Marmot:
I think what’s happening is that liberals are figuring out how to use the new technologies more effectively and getting back some of the ground they lost to the GOP in the 80s/early 90s when it comes to communicating. I am mildly hopeful that this, plus the general public support for liberal policies plus demographics will turn the tide in our favor. That said, I think the next ten years are going to be a hell of a low, dishonest decade.
Patrick
Just curious; I wonder what Mr Buckman thought about bush when he used our military as props. What about the event on that military ship when they were doing the “Mission Accomplished”?
I don’t think for a second that Mr Buckman had a problem with Obama using “props”. He, like so many other Republicans, have a problem with Obama being African-American.
Chris
@Marmot:
Well, if nothing else, I can’t argue with that last assessment.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@flukebucket: I suspect Obama is against the morning after pill for kids because he has two daughters. If he were to write a gun ban, it would probably include a shotgun exception for fathers with daughters.
Hill Dweller
@flukebucket:
The administration isn’t “against the morning after pills”. They don’t want kids under 15 buying them without parental knowledge, probably for political reasons. I don’t agree with their decision, but it’s not hard to see their reasoning.
danimal
@Morzer: The GOP is lulling itself to sleep with the “six-year itch” expectation that they are soon coming to power. I just don’t think that the dynamics that cause “six-year itch” are there this cycle. The Dems have plenty of new ideas and energy for a fight,j which is why presidential parties usually get shellacked in year six.
The Beltway expectations game may help our side this time, as the lazy press and the obstructionist opponents fail to see the wave coming.
Yutsano
@Patrick:
Adjusted that. Becuz they’re totes not racist, but those people do need to know their place and all.
Patrick
@Ted & Hellen:
Very easy.
Compare the number of Republican filibusters during Obama versus Clinton. You will find that there were more during four years of Obama (black) than 8 years of Clinton (white).
You are welcome.
MattR
@Patrick: And Yutsano (though every comment of yours I reply to has been eated the past couple days)
It rally is amazing watching people twist themselves into contortions trying to explain why they agree with Obama’s policies but still can’t supoprt them.
nemesis
Gonna be jaw-dropping to watch the gop refuse to raise the debt ceiling in the next few weeks. They are willing to roll the proverbial dice. Their poll numbers suck ass, so whats to lose? If they can crash the US/global economy, then their shock doctrinesque methods can be activated. In this both sides do it environment, the gop will get a free pass. And Im not one of those who thinks the gop will balk this time.
Morzer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/rhode-island-will-become-10th-state-to-pass-gay-marriage.php?ref=fpb
A bit of good news: Rhode Island has now fallen to our jackbooted LGBT thugs who are free from today to impose their gay marriagifications on the Real Americans of that state.
Seriously, congratulations to the good people of Rhode Island for getting the arc of the universe to bend towards justice just a little more quickly.
Chris
@Patrick:
Yes, but (with apologies to all for nitpicking in T&H’s favor), was it just skin color or was it the effects of another decade of wingnuts consolidating power in Washington (with all the sense of entitlement that goes with that), talk radio brainwashing (Fox was still just getting off the ground in the Clinton years) and, more generally, the effects of spending an additional decade drunk on their own bloody mindedness?
Not that I’m saying racism isn’t an issue; as I said, I tend to think it was always am issue regardless of the party’s public face.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@nemesis:
Pretty much. THere’s simply no incentive for them not to be whollly uncooperative and scorched earth. They’ve done their best, and the only person that seems to get any blame from the public is Obama.
Haydnseek
@Ted & Hellen: If the president were white, how many wingnuts would be calling him a muslim from Kenya? Game, set, and match. Now go die in a fire.
SatanicPanic
@Marmot: The Republicans are crazier than they were in the 90s AND they are angry about a black man being president. But in terms of governing, how much difference can it really make? They’d be saying no to 100% of whatever the Democrats decide to do regardless of who was prez, it’s probably just that much for satisfying for them to stick it to the black guy.
Morzer
@Chris:
Any contact with Head & Tellin’ is going to involve nits. Fleas, also too.
Patricia Kayden
“President Blackguy McComingformyguns”
Too funny! But that’s probably the nicest thing they call him.
ruemara
@flukebucket: How is expanding the access “against morning after pills”?
Marmot
@Patrick: This whole phenomenon happens all the time — one of my faves was a story I heard on totebagger radio. A Repub environmentalist was mourning Al Gore’s interference in the climate change debate. This dude said it caused Repubs to turn against the climate-change idea in droves. Al Gore, just by opining.
The guy was commenting on poll results showing collapsing support among Repubs for climate-change legislation, IIRC.
Patrick
@Chris:
Sure we can claim nothing is based on racism. But I don’t recall Clinton ever having to hold a press conference, showing his birth certificate just to prove to the racists (yes, that’s what they are. They never asked for McCain’s birth certificate) in the other party that he is one of us.
And just a reminder, in 1994 with the Contract of America and Newt Gingrich, the people on the right had certainly control of their party. That’s why they managed to shut down the government. But they never asked for Clinton’s birth certificate. They didn’t filibuster every fricking bill.
gocart mozart
I just drove by my local post office and a couple LaRouche’s were protesting. Impeach Obama, Stop WWIII, Pass Glass-Steagall?? Obama with a Hitler mustache and so on.
flukebucket
@Hill Dweller:
I thought the ruling was that the pill would be available to anyone 15 or older even though the company wanted them legal for everybody. Maybe I read it wrong.
bcinaz
Does anyone think things would be different if Hillary had won on ’08? Republicans are becoming dumber and lazier, they no longer construct legislation, they have ALEC for that. The closest they get to creating their own policy is the BS produced by Paul Ryan, and he has mastered the art of making budgets with no numbers in them. 2020 may be the most important census ever in the history of the United States, and guess what? those bastards are already attempting to marginalize the data we get by eliminating labor and employment data.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@ruemara: Apparently, somewhere in the firebagging world, word has gone out that the administration’s decision to appeal the recent court decision to lift age restrictions on OTC sale of the morning after pill means Obama et al have gone full bore anti-Griswold.
Marmot
@Patrick: “Sure we can claim nothing is based on racism. ”
Nobody here is claiming that.
Patricia Kayden
@Chris: I agree. The hatred against Bill and Hillary was palpable. I remember it well even though I was in Canada for the first three years of his presidency.
Don’t forget that they impeached Bill for lying to his wife about sex. And accused him of killing people (Foster for one. I seem to recall an African American cabinet Secretary who died in a plane crash as well).
Just wait until Secretary Clinton wins in 2016.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est:
Very good comment (#72).
Ed Kilgore (Washington Monthly Political Animal) blogpost on why Ted Cruz is as crazy as he wants to be.
(And apparently a former Jim DeMint staffer — Jim DeMint — thinks Cruz might be an unguided missile:)
Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/02/eyeing_16_ted_cruz_aims_to_seize_demint_mantle_118208.html#ixzz2S9VSUmJV
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter
Marmot
@Haydnseek: Wingnuts aplenty accused Clinton of drug-smuggling, murder (incl Vince Foster), and of course trying to make our country Communist. Please don’t tell me to die in a fire because I pointed this out.
Hill Dweller
@flukebucket:
There is a chasm between the administration setting the age limit at 15 and Obama “being against morning after pills”.
Yutsano
Did Special Timmeh just have his freedumbs oppressed?
SatanicPanic
@Patrick: They investigated the crap out of Clinton and eventually impeached him. I mean, I think these comparisons are hard to do, and we all agree that Republicans are the racist party and have been since the late 60s.
Morzer
@Yutsano:
We can always hope.
Haydnseek
@Marmot: I was telling Ted & Helen to die in a fire. If this was unclear, I sincerely apologize. The original point was strictly about race. None of the Clinton criticism was racist. How could it be? Obama gets all of the usual hate, plus a huge extra helping of vicious slander because he’s black, as all the birther bullshit clearly proves.
Patricia Kayden
@Omnes Omnibus: Wonder why that didn’t work for Governor Davis in California when he was recalled.
danimal
@Chris: The racism is just the secret sauce of conservative sputtering rage. It adds a different flavor, but they’ll sell the same burger without it in 2016. Or, more likely, if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, watch for blatant sexism to become the new secret sauce.
They have plenty of condiments in their kitchen cabinet.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@flukebucket: From FDALawBlog:
The court ruling eliminated the restrictions. Plan B One-Step can now be sold to anyone regardless of age and anywhere, not just in pharmacies.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
Special Timmeh really needs to piss off Khal Drogo and get his own crown of gold.
I might note that the entire GOP attitude about Obama is a pretty good case study in the ad hominem taken to absurd extremes.
Patrick
@Marmot:
Please see posting 8
Patrick
@SatanicPanic:
Perhaps they are more racist than the Dems, but there are a scary number of people on the left who are no better.
In the 2008 Ohio primary, 20% of the Clinton voters stated that the only reason they voted for Clinton was because of race.
And some of the scathing criticism Obama has taken from the left makes me wonder why Clinton/Carter, who accomplished less, weren’t criticized as much by the left.
Yutsano
@Ted & Hellen: Juicy. Birfer. Goodness. God you’re trite.
SatanicPanic
@Patrick: Sure, there are racist Dems no doubt. I wonder the same thing about some of the professional left.
Morzer
@Yutsano:
Head & Tellin’ – proud member of the ignorant trite-ass club
Marmot
@Patrick: Hm. You might be right. I didn’t originally read T&H’s suggestion that opposition would be just as intense with a white president as an assertion that racism is not a factor.
Frankly, I think it would be just as intense, though the racism gives Repubs another cudgel to use
NR
@Hill Dweller:
Gee, if only the Democrats could do something about the filibuster. If only the filibuster were a simple Senate rule that could be changed at any time by a majority vote, and not a fundamental, immutable law of the universe that is as old and permanent as time itself.
If only….
Djur
@Patrick: By what measure are you saying that 20% of Clinton voters were “on the left” as opposed to just “Democratic voters”?
Carter was primaried from his left, and Clinton had Nader in ’96 (and Nader ran against Gore in ’00 by running against Clinton). There were the WTO protests in ’98, which were generally leftist and strongly focused against Clinton and New Democrats in general. Stuff like This Modern World, which is a pretty good chronicle of what the left fringe of the Democratic Party is upset about at any given time, was much more personally and aggressively critical of Clinton than it has been of Obama. (I concede that this is probably in part because Perkins has calmed down with age.)
If anything, Obama has had to deal with much less organized opposition from his left than his two predecessors. It’s just more visible to us now because there are blogs.
NR
@Patrick: Clinton and Carter weren’t criticized by the left? What fucking planet are you on?
For fuck’s sake, Carter actually got a primary challenge. Nothing even close to that happened to Obama.
Wow. The disconnect from reality is just stunning.
RaflW
This slice-of-political-life moment from a few days ago in MN is exemplary. Gov Dayton is a Democrat and pretty liberal. He’s also a rich scion from the Dayton’s (Target stores) family. Shakopee is a middle-class Republican suburban Twin Cities town.
Dayton basically had to say to these childish citizens sit down, shut up, heads on desks for 5 minutes! Because acting like spoilt children deserves that level of response.
DavidTC
There’s a joke, in fact, it’s the first post on this very page, that Obama should call for banning extremely dangerous or suicidal things, and let Republicans respond by doing them.
Well, Obama accidentally stumbled across the _real_ version of this. He needs to keep pushing it. Let’s have a vote every two months from now on.
Likewise, the sequester. A few people are moaning about the left about losing leverage with the FAA, but I think that rather got it backwards. With that precedent, Democrats should be walking in and saying ‘Hey, we need to re-fund Head Start. Here’s the bill to do that.’. and then _destroying_ Republicans in the election for blocking it while allowing the FAA thing through.
Right now, the public is completely confused about the sequester. The Democrats attempting to repeal random parts of it, and getting shot down by the Republicans, make the Republicans _own_ that part.
Yes, the Republicans can do the same thing, but cuts for the military _in general_ are fairly popular among people. It’s just cuts to specific military bases and factories and whatnot they don’t like, so the Dems _in those districts_ can vote for undoing those, while the rest of the Dems vote otherwise. And the Republicans would be totally boned.
MattR
@DavidTC: The problem is that while 90% of the country favored increased background checks there is still a very large percentage of the country who would oppose refunding Head Start or making sure Medicaid patients get their cancer treatments because those things don’t affect them. I would love Democrats to attack in the manner you suggested, I just don’t think it will have nearly the effect that the gun control vote had (at least not in the short term).
Splitting Image
I think that part of the difference between the type of hate that Clinton and Obama get is that during the Clinton administration the Republicans still thought that they were the way of the future. They thought that it was unfortunate that a split in the GOP got Clinton elected and that he was standing in the way of progress, but up until 2004, I think they were sure that any liberal win was simply a setback on the GOP’s road to ultimate triumph.
Obama’s election punctured that illusion and now they are no longer sure (aside from Bobo) that movement conservatism will ever be nationally relevant again. Hence the sputtering rage.
DavidTC
I think you can make the argument with Head Start. We’re talking about children _actively removed_ from school.
But there might be something better. The trick is to find something that is the inverse of the FAA. Something that _does_ bother the vast majority of people, but does _not_ bother Congress, or, even better, the moneyed interests actively dislike.
Any suggestions, anyone?
Marmot
@DavidTC: Dude that’s a great idea. I hope the Dems do it, but for all my life they’ve been terrible at exploiting political openings. Wouldn’t be polite, or something.
Patrick
@NR:
Goodness!
Obama has accomplished a HELL of a lot more than Carter or Clinton ever did. Carter and Clinton deserved to be criticized. Yet, Obama is getting criticized much more than those two. Heck, the only reason Carter was primaried was that he didn’t even try to do health care reform. You know, the one that Obama got passed…
Patrick
@Djur:
People usually think of Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right.
I guess in the future I will need to say left/Democrats…
NR
@Patrick: You said that Clinton and Carter weren’t criticized as much by the left as Obama. This is flat-out false, as anyone with any knowledge of recent U.S. history can tell you. Now you’re trying to shift the goalposts and say that Clinton and Carter deserved to be criticized, while Obama does not. It’s hard to have any kind of productive discussion if you’re going to move the goalposts like this.
So, just so we can be clear on what your argument is before we continue, you’ve given up on saying that Obama has gotten more criticism from the left than Carter or Clinton did, and you’re now saying that Carter and Clinton deserved the criticism they got from the left, while Obama does not. Is that right?
Patrick
I give up. It doesn’t matter what I say. You are giving twist it to something I didn’t say anyway. Since it impossible to have a discussion that way, I give up.
Have a nice day!
rikyrah
it’s not called OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME for nothing.
notoriousJRT
@Mike in NC:
I’ve seen problems with rural under 50’s, too. I do not think this is all can be blamed on those over 50.
notoriousJRT
I don’t think we can ignore that Republicans just straight out do not believe anybody but a Republican is fit to make decisions about how things go in this country. This makes them obsessively bitter losers and exacerbates all their bad impulses – which are legion. This is why Harry Reid should rue the day he did act on some sort of reform for the fillibuster. They will road block everything with it as long as they are able.
eta: Everything with them is tribal. They care not about making good policy.
fuckwit
thanks. “cold civil war” is what i will use from now on to describe these times.
though techmically it wasn’t a civil war, it was a failed war of independence. but “cold war of independence” doesn’t quite cut it.
NR
@Patrick: I didn’t twist anything you said, I simply pointed out that what you said was factually incorrect.
You’d do well to learn the difference.