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You are here: Home / Down by the old (not the new but the old) Milhous

Down by the old (not the new but the old) Milhous

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Thus far, Obama’s approval rating is easily withstanding the white hot intensity of a thousand Watergates, but Real Clear Politics wingnut Carl Cannon (son of Reagan fanboi Lou Cannon) is seeing your ‘gate and raising you a Milhous:

Richard Milhous Obama…

I don’t think this one will catch on, but what do I know? Folks love to sit ’round the Applebees salad bars and swap jokes about presidents’ middle names, right?

(h/t reader J)

Reader Interactions

103Comments

  2. 2.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I thought we’d all settled on Adolf H. Obama. I remember distinctly being very angry about this because I thought my suggestion of Obama been Ploddin was far superior.

  3. 3.

    shortstop

    I always thought part of the genius of the Simpsons writing team was its habit of giving hilarious political names to characters: Milhous…Marge’s maiden name, Bouvier…am I forgetting any?

  8. 8.

    EconWatcher

    Obama is certainly the right man for the times. His natural posture (“play it cool and wait for them to make idiots of themselves”) couldn’t be better suited for the opposition.

  9. 9.

    Gex

    The demographics they need to win over think this is some sort of Simpson’s reference. I’m fine with them continuing to demonstrate loudly how out of touch they are.

  12. 12.

    schrodinger's cat

    How many Presidents has Obama been compared to
    1. Nixon
    2. Carter
    3. Lincoln
    4. Reagan

    am I missing anyone?

    BTW I have never heard of anyone with Milhous for a name.

  14. 14.

    Cacti

    The media especially is having a huge sad that the public doesn’t give two shits about the AP subpoena story.

    In other news, Glenn Kessler gave 3-pinnochios to the statement that Republicans altered Benghazi-related White House e-mails for political gain, based entirely on his own supposition that they didn’t really stand to gain from it.

    His explanation? “Inaccurate word smithing”.

    I really wish I was making that up.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    Add me to the list who immediately thinks “Simpsons” when they hear the name Milhouse. Just another sign of the Republicans being the party of old white guys who haven’t watched anything but “Matlock” reruns since 1982.

  16. 16.

    The Other Bob

    I am not sure how I feel about the whole Fox news reporter “investigated” story. Seems to me that reporters aren’t immune from prosecution when they traffic in classified materials.

    Does anyone read it different?

  17. 17.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I understand the latest “scandal” is that Obama’s COS didn’t tell him for a couple of weeks about the Inspector General’s report on the practice that had already been stopped in a regional office of the IRS. So Obama not knowing about the low-level bureaucrats slow-walking the applications of political groups seeking tax-exempts status is just like Nixon having personally ordered the audits of political enemies. Or something.

  20. 20.

    chopper

    and in response, every person in america under 40 says ‘what, that kid from The Simpsons?’

    seriously, one of the reasons all these invented scandals aren’t getting much traction is that goopers keep talking about nixon. half the people in this country couldn’t give less of a shit about a guy who was president before they were born.

  23. 23.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Could the Oklahoma Tornado be Richard Milhous Obama’s Vietnam?

    My head hurts now.

  27. 27.

    dww44

    Speaking of failed media experiments, but that blog ad over on the right with those over- the- top conspiracy oriented headlines (“Obama Movie Exposes Frightening Agenda”) is almost more than I can stomach.. Never wanted to try ad blocker before, but that one just may push me to do that.

  28. 28.

    PaulW

    Richard Milhous W. Bush has a more potent imprint.

    The Far Right are so terribly desperate to find a Democratic mirror version of Nixon, aren’t they? Given how the more severe Presidential scandals of the last 40 years – Watergate, Iran-Contra, Lying into Iraq and the Cheney Torture Regime – were all GOP.

    Whitewater? Pfft, bad land deal. Lewinsky? Scandalous but not on the level of criminality that defined Watergate and Iran-Contra. For all of Clinton’s sins, none of them matched the horrors the Republican Presidents since Eisenhower have come up with.

    To be fair, the Democrats have made their own share of scandals since the 1970s… but they were all Congressional f-ckups (the S&L crisis, bad checks, I think ABSCAM was mostly Dem).

  29. 29.

    Brian R.

    I love the comparisons between Watergate and Benghazi! made by the GOP.

    In Watergate, the president orchestrated a series of criminal activities that included breaking and entering, illegal seizures of documents, and wiretapping and then led a massive cover-up in which his administration lied to and/or abused the power of the top levels of the FBI, CIA, IRS and DOJ and sent cash bribes to low-level participants who had already been arrested, paying them to lie under oath and thereby effect the obstruction of justice in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Senate select committee.

    In Benghazi!, the president said “act of terror” rather than “terrorist act”.

    Clearly, one of these scandals is much worse than the other.

  31. 31.

    Shakezula

    Sorry, I got to the second paragraph and:

    My father, Lou Cannon, covered the White House with distinction for the Washington Post for many years, beginning in the Nixon administration. He employed an easy rule of thumb when fielding phone calls from anonymous tipsters:

    My daaaaaaddy was a big shot reporteeeeeer so you’d better listen to meeeeee!

    Now that is some funny shit right there.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Cacti: Besides the fact that Kessler is a dumbass and a douche, I find the whole “fact checker” phenomenon bizarre. As if the fact that some editor at the Wa Po gave Kessler that title or job means he has some special expertise or capacity for judgment.

    @The Other Bob: Jack Schaffer, who if memory serves is an avowed libertarian, has an interesting take. Short version: he doesn’t like how aggressive the DOJ is being in pursuing the journalists’ ends of these leaks, but Rosen’s conduct was clumsy and stupid, and the story he published, announcing to the world that the CIA had sources inside the North Korean gov’t, had little to no public interest.

  33. 33.

    David Koch

    How many Presidents has Obama been compared to
    1. Nixon
    2. Carter
    3. Lincoln
    4. Reagan

    am I missing anyone?

    He wasn’t president, but O get’s this comparison every so often.

  34. 34.

    David Hunt

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    With all the assault on the New Deal, FDR’s got to be in there. Of course, when Republicans make that comparison, they’re basically comparing him to the anti-Christ.

  35. 35.

    NonyNony

    @The Other Bob:

    I am not sure how I feel about the whole Fox news reporter “investigated” story. Seems to me that reporters aren’t immune from prosecution when they traffic in classified materials.

    The Valerie Plame affair showed us that reporters pretty much are immune from prosecution for the most part defacto, if not by law. They actually should be immune from prosecution in my mind because the person who leaks the information is the one violating his/her security clearance. Though if there is government wrongdoing involved, the leaker should be covered under robust whistelblowing laws that protect the whisteblower to the maximum extent possible.

    The Fox reporter story can pretty much be summed up as:

    1) NSA analyst is an idiot who blabs things he shouldn’t
    2) Fox reporter (Rosen) is an idiot who is so pumped to write a story about how North Korea might respond he leaks out sensitive information confirming we have operatives working in the NK government.
    3) CIA freaks out because holy shit we have operatives in NK and the NK government is totally known for their measured, responsible behavior towards American spies.

    Basically both the AP story case and in the Fox story case involve reporters showing NO responsibility for what they’re printing. They don’t stop to think “hey you know what – this isn’t actually an aspect of the story that people need to know about and it could get people killed”. Instead they just print it.

    Which is fine actually – we shouldn’t expect reporters to second guess crap like that. On the other hand, they should also NOT be surprised when the government comes calling to find out who needs to lose their job (because they have secret clearance and are blabbing to reporters about it) and possibly go to jail over it. Whstleblowing is one thing, but these “stories” have been universally about NOTHING other than blowing covers for operatives in sensitive areas – of course the intelligence agencies are freaking out. (And they need to start limiting who knows about these things even more – the world today can’t handle 700 people knowing a secret like that we’ve got an undercover al-Qaeda operative in Qatar. 70 is probably too many to hope that none of them will spill it accidentally.)

  38. 38.

    hildebrand

    They simply have nothing left, no good names, no more scary titles, the cupboard is bare, the quiver is empty, its all over, they have been reduced to calling him Commander Poopypants and Sir Boogerhead.

  41. 41.

    Poopyman

    Yup. First to mind is a geeky four-eyed cartoon boy, and I lived through Watergate during my college years.

  42. 42.

    schrodinger's cat

    OT but somewhat related. Did anyone read TNC’s latest post on Obama, where he calls him a scold, whose scolding is reserved only for black people. Is it just me or is TNC sounding more and more like Tavis Smiley or Cornell West, since Obama got reelected.

    ETA: I think both Obama’s supporters and detractors hold him to an absurdly high standard.

  43. 43.

    schrodinger's cat

    OT but somewhat related. Did anyone read TNC’s latest post on Obama, where he calls him a scold, whose scolding is reserved only for black people. Is it just me or is TNC sounding more and more like Tavis Smiley or Cornell West, since Obama got reelected.

    ETA: I think both Obama’s supporters and detractors hold him to an absurdly high standard.

  45. 45.

    srv

    I don’t have a problem with this, I’ve been saying Obama is the most liberal POTUS since Nixon for years. What else would we call the guy who passed Nixoncare?

    Milhous Jr. is only a hero because Teddy’s ego and Mr. Kaiser got in the way.

  46. 46.

    Jockey Full of Malbec

    @The Other Bob:
    Rosen called State Dept personnel using a State Dept phone in a State Dept building. There’s the reasonable expectation of privacy. And there’s just plain stupid.

    I’ve been wondering if privacy (like leisure time and being able to work from home– and access to health care, if ACA falls) isn’t in the process of becoming yet another ‘class marker’, separating the top from the bottom.

    Foreign billionaire who’d like to help out the GOP? Your anonymizing 501(c)4 awaits.

    Regular Joe who’d like to drink and smoke a little off-hours w/o his employer knowing, or post an opinion to Facebook, or not have his email read? “You have no rights in the private sector! Why do you hate employer freedom!?”

    It’s been clear that the Villagers have identified with the former group much more than the latter for quite some time. So it should surprise no one that the same journos who uttered not one peep during the Bush admin (with its numerous offenses) have suddenly all become First Amendment zealots.

  47. 47.

    eric

    @schrodinger’s cat: He is the Eli Manning of Presidents. Not as great as perhaps he could be or we want him to be, but far better than his detractors say and he as won the Big One twice.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    Real Clear Politics wingnut Carl Cannon (son of Reagan fanboi Lou Cannon)

    Drinking buddy with Luke Russert, by chance? Another case where the rotten apple didn’t fall far from the tree. These guys are incapable of earning an honest living.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Alex Pareene looks into the crystal ball of punditry:

    No matter the reason Obama was kept out of the loop, the fact that he was will definitely help Maureen Dowd write her next column about how “aloof” and “disconnected” the president is. “He is an aloof, disconnected, rudderless, shockingly weak President Bambi, something something something Michelle’s arms,” she will say. And important people across the Eastern Seaboard will nod, sagely.

    One of the funny things about the notion that Obama is using the IRS as a tool to punish his enemies. Obama doesn’t punish his enemies. You can argue about whether he should, or can (the political world has changed a lot since LBJ) , but he made Hillary SOS, opposed plans to strip Lieberman of his seniority, pretty much annointed Lindsey Graham as leader of the Reasonable Conservatives via dinner invitation even as Senator Pittypat was shamelessly demagoguing about Benghazi! Obama just is not a vindictive person.

  58. 58.

    gogol's wife

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    This. I am so sick of it. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. And don’t say Clinton, because Clinton actually did things that were scandalous.

  59. 59.

    Patrick

    @Cacti:

    In other news, Glenn Kessler gave 3-pinnochios to the statement that Republicans altered Benghazi-related White House e-mails for political gain, based entirely on his own supposition that they didn’t really stand to gain from it. His explanation? “Inaccurate word smithing”. I really wish I was making that up.

    Ever since Kessler labeled the Dem’s claim that the Ryan plan would end Medicare as lie of the year, I could care less what this Kessler person thinks about anything.

    Any reasonable person knows that the Ryan plan changes Medicare to such an extent that it no longer exists.

    Kessler’s claim about Benghazi is comical, to say the least. Then why the hell does Kessler think that the Republicans changed the wording of the e-mails? For fun?

  60. 60.

    sherparick

    @NonyNony: Yep, and the press is in total freakout about this is all about me, me, me. Where has this outrage been about Julian Assange and Bradley Manning? Unlike AP and Rosen, they did not actually leak information that could actually get someone else killed or compromise intelligence penetrations of terrorist organizations and of a Government with nukes that is still technically at war with the U.S. Assange and Manning leaked about actual fraud, corruption, possible war crimes and cover-ups, etc.

    Problem with all these stories.

    1st there has to be a crime. Faux news is trying to create new crime (for Democratic Presidents because IOKIYR), of press secretaries misspeaking with one of the hundreds of people on the White House staff keeps something back from them (White House Counsel’s Office knew on 22 April that there would be IRS IG report, but last week Carney stated President only knew on 10 May, a whopping 18 day difference. Please boys and girls, how is this a material fact?)

  61. 61.

    Keith G

    None of this will be a win for the GOP unless they are able to goad the Dems into taking attention away from the narratives that matter (which in some cases seems to be happening). People want/need a government that works – ask Oklahoma right about now. It’s up to our guy to make the case. If he is passive or low key, their noise fills the vacuum.

  64. 64.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Patrick: IT’s kind of funny that the press is so obviously frustrated at the broad public indifference to the AP affair even as they ignore or defend the at-best-stunningly-incompetent work of Jonathan Karl.

  66. 66.

    rea

    So, Obama didn’t learn about the IRS scandal until the inspector general completed his report? Shocking example of inaction!

    [In an alternative universe]: So Obama found out about the inspector general’s investigtion before he completed his report? Shocking example of interference with an ongoing investigation

  68. 68.

    jibeaux

    @schrodinger’s cat: I read it. I thought it was an overreaction to what the Obamas actually said. “Stay in school, kids, read some books and have a backup plan to professional sports” might’ve been said to black audiences, but they’re said to audiences all the time. Pliny the Elder probably had a stock speech like that.

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @rea:

    You’re forgetting his time machine, the one that was used to plant birth announcements in Honolulu papers.

  70. 70.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @Shakezula:

    Oh, Jesus, it gets worse:

    No evidence has been unearthed connecting Obama, or anyone under his direction, to illicit activities. But the absence of criminality isn’t the only test here. Nixon’s “enemies,” at least in his mind, also included vast swaths of the Fourth Estate. That apparently is how the current president operates, too.

    Barack Obama often displays contempt for the proper role of news-gatherers and, by extension, for the value of reporting that seeks to be unbiased. Often, officials in his White House or re-election campaign seem uncomprehending of the concept of straight reporting.

    “Unbiased”. “Straight reporting”.

    Let us know when you see any, ‘kay?

  71. 71.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    Often, officials in his White House or re-election campaign seem uncomprehending of the concept of straight reporting.

    The projection! It’s killing me! Someone do something!

  72. 72.

    Suffern ACE

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: One of the funny things about the notion that Obama is using the IRS as a tool to punish his enemies. Obama doesn’t punish his enemies.

    It’s kind of like complaining that Obama is using the DoJ to go after his enemies at the AP and Fox. For better or worse, the DoJ under Obama and Holder pursue leaks. Not just leaks to Fox News. This Rosen guy who is claiming that the DoJ was “spying on him” when it was investigating a leak isn’t being specially targeted because of his affiliation to Fox News. He actually was wrote the story in question. And in both the AP and the Rosen case, its kind of hard to say that the government is abusing “national security” to quash a story. Both the AP and the Rosen case are national security stories.

  76. 76.

    Suffern ACE

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: Add to the new crime of having a press secretary. The additional crime in a democracy of not handing your political oppenents all the weapons or trying to manipulate public opinion. Like that didn’t happen until 2009 for some reason.

    Theres a certain amount of this kind of stuff I’m going to put up with because we have officials who have to run for office. But honestly, they complaint (now crime!) seems to be that Obama didn’t attempt focus attention on his failings and didn’t leave poor Mitt Romney ALOOONE in a polticial campaign. The crime of not running your campaign for the benefit of Republicans I guess needs to be added to the consitution as soon as possible.

  77. 77.

    Patricia Kayden

    @chopper: All their constant jabber about Nixon does is remind the country that Nixon was the head of their party. Not sure how that is helpful to them.

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suffern ACE: so this imbecile equates criminality with Obama’s lack of respect for the Beltway media, and seems genuinely surprised that the White House holds him and his sacred brethren and sistren. The lack of self-awareness is like a car accident taht you can’t look away from, but it’s a car accident that’s been going on for some twenty years.

    I could write a book about my own contempt for the Beltway press, and just as a starting point I would use the press conference a couple weeks ago where not one of the unafflicted comfortable reporters asked about unemployment.

  79. 79.

    Bokonon

    Because if you want something enough, and say it enough times … it becomes true!

    But wait – I thought that the right wing considered Richard Nixon to be great and unfairly maligned president, brought down by a partisan vendetta by liberals, the media, and America haters everywhere. And now here they are, using comparisons to Nixon as a pejoritive, and a way to attack Obama. I am confused. Gosh … you don’t suppose that one or both of these positions are being offered in bad faith, do you?

  81. 81.

    Librarian

    Obama just is not a vindictive person.

    That would be news to Bradley Manning, Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou.

  82. 82.

    pamelabrown53

    @SatanicPanic:
    “…not being black I don’t know if it’s my place to comment”. I feel the same way although I’d like to note that I enjoy reading black oriented blogs and a lot of what I’ve been reading is a disdain for “blackademics” like TNC, for cherry picking an uplifting speech while ignoring the context and the big picture.

    From the pro-Obama speech side, I’ve read that Obama was trying to impart that things are different in a global economy and he wants to ensure the black community mentors and helps those in the community who are still young and making destructive choices. Does that make sense?

  83. 83.

    pamelabrown53

    @Patricia Kayden:
    I read that article, Patricia, and I was saddened to imagine how much further along in our recovery we’d be if not for the crazy republican extremists.

  87. 87.

    Mike E

    @Bokonon:

    And now here they are, using comparisons to Nixon as a pejoritive, and a way to attack Obama. I am confused.

    ANY idea is as good as any other to a Movement Conservative.

  90. 90.

    Shakezula

    @Grumpy Code Monkey: Wow. That is … Jesus.

    Especially since Cannon wouldn’t recognize a lack of bias or straight reporting if they ran up his trouser legs, bit his balls off, ran back down his trouser legs and started shooting hoops with them.

    Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t pay for the privilege of watching such an event.

  91. 91.

    Redshirt

    @Mike E: It’s hilarious, right? “Obama’s as bad as NIXON!!!” Never mind he’s a Republican and basically the Father of the current Republican party, and they’re still fighting his fights and hell, many of his old gang just got done screwing the country, but, hey, “OBAMA’S BAD!”.

    Doublethink’s a hell of a drug.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Librarian:

    John Kiriakou

    Yes, poor, martyred John Kiriakou, who went on national television to tell us all that torture totally works and Abu Zubaydah was only waterboarded once.

    I still don’t get why torture defender Kiriakou has become a cause celebre for the left. Why, exactly, was he a hero for lying on national television and giving cover to the conservatives who claimed that we needed to torture people because it always worked? Is it because he eventually admitted that he lied about the whole thing and only said what he had been told to say?

    Otherwise, I don’t get why his brave, brave whistleblowing about the Joy of Torture (Which Always Works) is really something the left should be defending.

  93. 93.

    Mike E

    @Redshirt: Yep. Hell must be good for Tricky Dick’s phlebitis.

    You know the reaper is near when Bill Buckley, Lee Atwater and George MF Wallace disown their party’s tactics (or even walk back from their own doings, apologizing).

  94. 94.

    lol

    @Mnemosyne:

    Manning was just as reckless as Rosen too. He scooped up a ton of classified material without reviewing it for importance and gave it to a journalist so incompetent at security that he released the full unredacted cables into the wild. If no one died because of Manning’s leaks, it’s only because of absolute sheer luck. Like your average 4chan script-kiddie, Manning didn’t care if anyone might get hurt.

  95. 95.

    Robert Waldmann

    Makin fun of the preznitents middle name is outrageous. Some dwerps say it sounds odd. I jus wanna know hussein that ?

  97. 97.

    Person of Choler

    Playing cool, at least on the IRS “situation” is the perfectly sensible response to the wingnuts. For one thing, 47% of households pay no income tax, so the IRS has nothing to do with them, and as far as they are concerned, the IRS could something that goes “beep” while orbiting Mars.

    Next, we have the millions of taxpayers who file only from W2 forms. These folks see the IRS as the benevolent agency that magically sends them money some time after 15 April every year, not as some sinister threat to their freedom.

    Finally, there are the Social Security recipients, Medicare patients, SSDI consumers and other beneficiaries of Federal largess. Most of these people know in their hearts that none of their goodies show up without the Tax Man putting the Squeeze of Justice on the More Fortunate.

    Just keeping quiet will let the IRS “problem” solve itself.

  98. 98.

    Persia

    @jibeaux: I think TNC had a point that these speeches often get aimed more often at a black audience, and I can’t blame him for getting frustrated that the other challenges – the systemic ones – never get pointed out. (My rage at Lean In, let me show you it.) TNC rarely offers unqualified praise or criticism, which is one of the reasons I continue to read everything he writes.

  99. 99.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    It would be great, if it were even remotely clever. It’s like calling Rick Perry, Rick “John Wayne” Perry. It’s like calling Rand Paul, Rand “Michele Bachmann” Paul….well you get the drift. It didn’t take a lot of being clever to come up with this since the Gopers think everything is another Watergate.

  101. 101.

    Mnemosyne

    @Person of Choler:

    For one thing, 47% of households pay no income tax, so the IRS has nothing to do with them, and as far as they are concerned, the IRS could something that goes “beep” while orbiting Mars.

    Huh? I think you seriously misunderstood the claim the Republicans were making. They didn’t claim that 47% of households don’t file tax returns. They claimed that 47% end up getting refunds that mean they don’t end up paying any net taxes.

  102. 102.

    Original Lee

    @Redshirt: I think the Nixon tie-in is because Nixon was going to be impeached before he resigned. The GOP is trying to gin up something to impeach Obama on, so if they can get people thinking of Nixon and Obama together, impeachment will magically happen. Or something like that, anyway.

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