Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans in disarray!

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We’re not going back!

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / A Song for Issa

A Song for Issa

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This post is in: 

Jon Chait:

Do you remember how all-consuming the “Obama scandals” once were? This was a turn of events so dramatic it defined Obama’s entire second term — he was “waylaid by controversies,” or at least “seriously off track,” “beset by scandals,” enduring a “second-term curse,” the prospect of “endless scandals,” Republicans “beginning to write his legislative obituary,” and Washington had “turned on Obama.” A ritualistic media grilling of Jay Carney, featuring the ritualistic comparisons of him to Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler, sanctified the impression of guilt.

It has come and gone, having left barely a trace. To be sure, the Obama scandals live on in the conservative world, where the evidence of deep corruption and venality grows stronger and stronger. But that is merely the confirmation of suspicions of “Chicago politics,” ACORN and so on, that predate recent events and don’t require any particular facts to survive.

If Darrell Issa ever does find a real scandal, that boy has cried wolf enough times that it probably won’t be believed outside the Fox bubble. And fuck even the liberal Jon Stewart for losing his shit over the IRS scandal.

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    And fuck even the liberal Jon Stewart for losing his shit over the IRS scandal.

    He jumped on board with ACORN, also.

  4. 4.

    maya

    If only Darrell, or his other brother, Darrell, could locate that elusive blue dress.

  6. 6.

    Another Bot Splainer

    The IRS “scandal” is especially interesting. Issa asked for a narrow investigation and the Bush appointed head of TIGTA was only too happy to oblige. A setup all the way. And yes fuck John Stewart. The Dems are trying to get the head of TIGTA back under oath, I hope they waterboard the SOB.

  8. 8.

    Librarian

    I believe Jon Stewart is going to regret taking the summer off and leaving John Oliver, who is proving to be much better and funnier, sitting in for him.

  12. 12.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    OT: Can anyone offer advice (and if that’s not an invitation to disaster around here . . .) on whether I need to get a VPN before heading to China?

  13. 13.

    Hill Dweller

    @Another Bot Splainer: Also too, Lois Lerner, who eventually plead the 5th, planted a question in her initial press conference in order to apologize for “targeting” conservative groups. WTF was she doing?

  14. 14.

    ice weasel

    I tell you for the millionth fucking time, Jon Stewart, as entertaining as he is, is not a liberal. He’s not a progressive. He’s not a lefty. At best, he’s a Clinton centrist who loves bipartisanship just for the sake of it. Doesn’t make him bad. I’m not saying that at least just do not make the mistake of thinking he is something which he is clearly not.

  19. 19.

    Another Bot Splainer

    @Hill Dweller: Very strange. Its possible they had no idea what was reall going on and actually believed the audit and took it at face value.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    If Darrell Issa ever does find a real scandal

    I suspect that Darrell Issa chasing scandals is rather like a dog chasing cars: he wouldn’t know what to do if he actually caught one.

  22. 22.

    Violet

    OT– I see the Republican re-branding effort is still going strong:

    Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly has been making the media rounds recently to encourage the GOP to drop any attempts to reach out to Latino voters – especially through bipartisan immigration policy – and instead to focus exclusively on riling up and turning out white voters.

    Speaking with a Bakersfield, California, talk radio host last week, Schlafly further explained this view, claiming that Latinos don’t “have any Republican inclinations at all” because “they’re running an illegitimacy rate that’s just about the same as the blacks are.”

    She added that Latinos “come from a country where they have no experience with limited government. And the types of rights we have in the Bill of Rights, they don’t understand that at all, you can’t even talk to them about what the Republican principle is.”

    Nothing like a little racism in the morning.

  23. 23.

    mai naem

    @Librarian: Terri Gross did an interview with Jon Stewart a while back and I sure got the feeling that he was going to retire within a few years. He didn’t come across like a whiner or anything, but it seems like its not easy having an almost daily political comedy show and actually keeping it funny.

  24. 24.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Can anyone offer advice (and if that’s not an invitation to disaster around here . . .) on whether I need to get a VPN before heading to China?

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Are you going to be sending sensitive material over it? Then yes, although it would be better to avoid sending anything sensitive at all while you are there.

    If you’re just browsing, that’s another story. No need.

    Be prepared to have your laptop, and possibly your phone, imaged when you come back to the US by Customs. They aren’t doing it to everyone but they’re doing it more often than anyone should feel comfortable with, and it’s legal. I take only slicked, throwaway devices overseas with me these days.

  25. 25.

    Violet

    @mai naem: Even if he doesn’t retire, the long break and working on the movie may have a positive effect. Change of pace, refresh your outlook, that kind of thing.

  27. 27.

    VividBlueDoty

    @Hill Dweller: If she was part of the conspiracy to create a fake scandal (and I DO believe there was one), then the planted question and her pleading the 5th both make sense. She hid her own complicity while making the IRS/Obama Administration look guilty.

  29. 29.

    Botsplainer, fka Todd

    @Violet:

    Nothing like a little racism in the morning.

    Saw that earlier. Has that woman ever not been an asshole?

  31. 31.

    gene108

    @Librarian:

    People burn out. Keeping a show fresh for 14 years, as the host, is tough.

    I hope Jon either comes back refreshed or steps down as host.

    He had mostly a very good run.

    Introduced several comedians, who went on to bigger and better things.

    But part of me thinks it is over for him.

  32. 32.

    kindness

    Jon Stewart is a comedian, not a mouthpiece for liberal America.

    Yea, I wish he wouldn’t pander to right wing talking points which are full of shit but I also don’t think he deserves to be highlighted in promoting said memes. The man helps our side way more than he hurts us.

  34. 34.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Violet: I love Phyllis. She’s always been honest about what Republicans really think and want, none of this fucking around trying to “sell” the brand to anyone not already in the club.

    I welcome more statements like this from her, and hope that the media sees fit to give her more coverage. Perhaps her own show. I think she’d be an awesome replacement for Joe Scarborough.

  35. 35.

    Poopyman

    @Botsplainer, fka Todd: I assume that’s rhetorical, but as she comes from upper crust Scottish Presbyterian stock, I’d have to say “no”.

    Nothing against Scots or Presbyterians, just the upper crust part.

  36. 36.

    Punchy

    @ruemara: FFS, he’s not perfect, but he’s MILES above CNN, MSNBC, and local news broadcasts. He largely supports liberal causes, despises the GOP shenanigans, and makes it funny for the young people to watch and get engaged.

    Christ, must every pseudo-prog get smashed under the hammer of Non-Purity by the Emo Progs?

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ice weasel: I don’t disagree, but at some point in 2010, the failure of a bill to provided benefits to 9/11 emergency workers (of whom he is the self-appointed and self-righteous guardian) he started making a concerted effort to ‘get tougher’ or something on Democrats. And I think that for all his Reasonable Centrism he has a personal and firebaggery grudge against Obama

    @schrodinger’s cat: did you catch the invitation to Scalia he issued through Sandra D O’C? very sly and bold and self-congratulatory as if that were six minutes that would end El Nino. I guess Stewart didn’t see his stammery and helpless response to the cold-blooded sociopathy of Rumsfeld.

  38. 38.

    balconesfault

    Loving Jon Chait for this line …

    See Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rand Paul, Orrin Hatch, the National Republican Senatorial Committee via spokesblogger Jennifer Rubin

  39. 39.

    MattF

    Issa is just the latest right-wing hero who turns out, inconveniently, to be an amoral liar. Sometimes I even think that the media is catching on to this rise-and-fall pattern, but I realistically expect that a week from now the prevailing attitude will be ‘Who’s Darrell Issa?’

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Violet:

    I love the fake debate they’re having within the GOP.

    The elite GOP-friendly punditry and some of the Senators are pretending there’s some “outreach” planned, but it’s so completely obvious that the “rile up the white vote!” House members and state Republicans won that battle.

  41. 41.

    gene108

    I think maybe Snowden-apocalypse drove some of the attention away from all those impeachable offenses.

    We, on the Left, underestimate the damage the constant negativity does to enthusiasm of the casual voter to support Democrats.

  42. 42.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Baud: Stewart’s fundamental attitude is it’s all a shuck, that none of it matters, that it’s fundamentally not serious, or not cool, or whatever, and the appropriate response is to laugh at it, or not pay any serious attention to it.

    That both sides do it flows from that logically. It doesn’t even require any actually-existing instances of both sides doing it.

    I’m not sure that irony is just as destructive of an republic as tyranny, but there are times when it is seriously not helpful.

  43. 43.

    BIBLE_DUDE1

    I am glad the IRS scandal is going on the back burner.

    The REAL scandal — Bengahzi and the Muslim Brotherhood inflitration of the White House + fast and furious — was being buried.

    I would not be surprised if the IRS was a false flag set up by Obama and his Nixonian gang of cro0ks and THUGS to distract from this issue.

    I openly speculated about this on facebook ando ther message boards moths ago. Issa is a fool for taking the bait, but the truth eventually prevails. This is good news for the Republican party.

  45. 45.

    Bill in Section 147

    I am still a big fan of the Daily Show. I enjoy the style of humor and like the cast. I do get frustrated with some of the “centerista” efforts. Interestingly, to me, they seem to be done with a lot of effort. An attempt to show that TDS is not anti or pro something. Like the whole Obama proposes and demands Gitmo be closed over and over. It is obvious that Obama has made attempts to move that rock, maybe not as hard or as often as I would like but the main fault is not with Obama.

    I also do not like it when he provides non-confrontational opportunities for Bill O’Reilly, etc. But that is more me wanting to see MMA-style events when it comes to those folks. I suppose I would eventually get tired of tumbrels but I would rather look back and think I went too far then look forward all the time.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @gene108: We, on the Left, underestimate the damage the constant negativity does to enthusiasm of the casual voter to support Democrats.

    Well said, and very true about we the obsessively engaged (vote in every election) vs the casual voters who show up every four years.

  47. 47.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Violet:

    you can’t even talk to them about what the Republican principle is.

    It’s true. Just SAY the word ‘wetback’ and Latinos stop listening. It’s not like the Republicans aren’t reaching out and offering their message of white privilege to everyone!

  48. 48.

    Botsplainer

    Y’know, thing is, he actually looked like he was enjoying his job when Duckworth eviscerated that fake veteran on the disability set-asides.

    I know it may be too much to expect that he might have learned that he can experience greater emotional rewards by just doing his job the way it was intended and that he should embark on a pattern of greater responsibility, but it was nice to see anyway.

  52. 52.

    Bill in Section 147

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: Colbert, Stewart and comedians all over would say, from your lips to god’s ears. Love might not be what I would pick to describe it but I do like how she does not leave the pundits much room to spread debris over her tracks.

  53. 53.

    nancydarling

    My favorite video of Issa is him crying after spending a million dollars of his own money to recall Gray Davis, and then Arnold jumped into the race and sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

    His tears when he bowed out of the race were sweet to behold. He takes assholery to a whole new level!

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Davis X. Machina:

    It really was dopey of him to swallow it whole, though.
    The scandal was sustained by media by repeating endless combinations of two words; “Washington” and “targeting.”
    To buy it you had to give those two words the worst possible malicious meaning.
    They don’t mean anything sinister all by themselves.
    The worst part for him is he supposedly abhors “truthiness”, and this fake-scandal is really a great example of “truthiness.” They repeated the two words so often the worst possible interpretation has become “true”.

  55. 55.

    Ryan C

    Fuck Jon Stewart? A comedian? That’s your big concern? Christ, commenters here get more petty and pathetic by the minute. I’m done with all of you. I can’t take the stupidity anymore.

  57. 57.

    Shakezula

    The Smith’s “I Know it’s Over,” would also be dandy.

    I know it’s over
    And it never really began
    But in my heart it was so real…

  58. 58.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ryan C: ‘Bye.

    ETA: Smug cynicism, the cult of the savvy, and kindred attitudes are actually a problem. To the extent that Stewart exemplifies those, he is a part of the problem.

  61. 61.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @BIBLE_DUDE1: What you fail to realize is that Bengahzi is a false flag operation set up by Obama and Nixon to get people to stop using -gate at the end of scandals. But even that is a false flag operation to get people to stop talking about how Obama killed Nelson Mandela so that Obama’s trip to his homeland to burn his real birth certificate would be overshadowed. But even that was just a distraction just so that Obama could nullify all heterosexual marriages and force people to get gay married.

    It’s buttsecks all the way down.

  63. 63.

    slag

    The thing I don’t get is how otherwise intelligent people can throw out their rational judgment with such little justification. Back during scandalpocalypse, everyone I know was laughing about the whole thing because it really, truly didn’t pass the sniff test. None of it. Certainly not as it related to the White House or the president.

    The Obama Administration certainly has many flaws, but a propensity to play small ball just isn’t one of them.

  68. 68.

    ruemara

    @Punchy: Are you equating a comedy show with a news broadcast? You do realize Stewart himself would mock you for that. And I like him, but he’s not a source for news. He’s a source for jokes.

  69. 69.

    Ryan C

    @Omnes Omnibus: ah, meta-snark. Take your negativity one level higher, complaining about the negative, and you’re savvy savvy. Cynicism about the cynical is totally cool. That doesn’t make you a hypocritical asshole at all. It pushes you out into True Righteousness.

  76. 76.

    Mike E

    Me, Ima Colbert fanboi. Jon gets away with a lot with his cuteness, but Stephen is a once in a generation satirist.

    Mark Twain, Will Rodgers, Kurt Vonnegut & SC.

  78. 78.

    different-church-lady

    To be sure, the Obama scandals live on in the conservative world…

    But that’s who Issa was playing to from the beginning. Working the crowd already in the theater is all that matters to today’s conservative thespians. They don’t care what happens as long as they have their own crowd cheering.

    @BIBLE_DUDE1: KIODJ™.

    (*”Knock it off, Doug J.™” — lexicon it now!)

  79. 79.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah:

    If you would like to follow a live blog of the George Zimmerman trial…

    I would, but I’m too busy gouging out my own eyeballs with a spork.

  81. 81.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @Ryan C: soooooo, when you actually leaving?

    My favorite video of Issa is him crying after spending a million dollars of his own money to recall Gray Davis, and then Arnold jumped into the race and sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

    @nancydarling: Schwarzy didn’t even say “thank you”. And if we had to have a Republican governor he was the least bad option of the bunch. Issa would have turned California into an apocalyptic wasteland.

  83. 83.

    Keith

    @Librarian: Yeah, a full month without Oliver going “Oh, no, you di’nt!” or “Camera 3, let’s talk”. Jon Stewart’s schtick has been getting a bit stale for a while.

  85. 85.

    Chris

    @slag:

    The thing I don’t get is how otherwise intelligent people can throw out their rational judgment with such little justification

    Case of “tell a lie enough times and it becomes the truth,” or at least “and people start to think there’s something there?” Every Very Serious Person was out there telling us that this was a Very Serious Matter, and Obama was to blame for it.

  86. 86.

    pluege

    Jon Stewart is not that liberal. In the sane world he is called centrist. Sure he goes after fux nuz from time to time, but fux nuz is an insane asylum for sociopaths and misfit psychotics in need of professional help. He also has a penchant for treating the leading lights of the republican/conservative plague with dignity and respect, using his stage to let them spew their diseased flem on TV as if they were serious people with serious ideas worthy of consideration.

    Only in the vacuous unreal cesspool dystopia of repug nation is Jon Stewart considered liberal.

  87. 87.

    Mandalay

    @LAC:

    That old sour faced bitch still with us? It all about oppressing someone with her, isn’t it?

    Whereas you just focus on oppressing women.

  89. 89.

    kindness

    Remember when folks here used to slag DailyKos? Oh yea, they still do. DailyKos (the GOS) is pilloried because of it’s purity trolls. And quite frankly purity trolls do deserve to be mocked.

    So why is Balloon Juice now doing the same thing? Do many of you not have mirrors in your houses? Do you not remember how you mocked others for the very actions you are now undertaking?

    Seriously people…..tgif.

  90. 90.

    Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)

    @Librarian: Stewart annoys me when he plays the false equivalence game, but he’s still better at *hosting* than John Oliver. Not too surprising, because he has a lot more experience, stretching back to his time at MTV. That said, I would be surprised if Stewart is ever coming back. He’s been doing TDS for a while and you rarely see late night hosts just drop their gig for any extended period of time.

  92. 92.

    Violet

    @Mike E: I like both Stewart and Colbert, but in different ways. I think Colbert is a genius, as you say he’s a once in a generation satirist. I think what he does night after night is much more difficult than Stewart. But Stewart is good in different ways. Plus, he kicked off the whole thing and made Colbert possible, so I feel indebted to him for that.

    I do think Stewart was phoning it in a bit before he left. On his last show he thanked his staff and crew for working overtime to make the show happen while he was getting ready to go, and I believe that was really happening. Being gone for that length of time and directing a movie would take a lot of planning and time, so if he phoned it in a bit and leaned on his staff, I can’t really blame him.

    I’ll be interested to see if anything changes once he’s back. Meanwhile I’m enjoyed John Oliver, who has long been my favorite TDS correspondent. He’s doing a good job and getting stronger with the interviews as time goes on. He’s different, but funny in his own way.

  93. 93.

    Baud

    @kindness:

    As far as I see, Stewart isn’t being criticized for lack of purity. He’s being criticized for incorporating false right-wing memes into his routines. There’s plenty of material out there with which to make fun of Obama and/or Democrats without doing that.

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    @kindness: I’m having a blast watching them suddenly come to the realization that Ecuador is the greatest nation on earth.

  97. 97.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    @Poopyman:

    Nothing against Scots or Presbyterians, just the upper crust part.

    I remember hearing a lecture about the settling of America east of the Mississippi. The lecturer mentioned that parts of that area were settled by Scottish Presbyterians who kept the Sabbath – and everything else they could get their hands on.

    Nothing against ’em either (Clan Wallace, here). I just thought it was a great line.

  98. 98.

    Xantar

    Guys, most of you have never heard of me, but I’m going to express my outrage right now and announce that I’m leaving. For good. I’m done with all of you.

    Pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeee!

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @kindness:

    You’re right. It doesn’t matter at all. It’s a shame, though, because the IRS fake-scandal is the kind of thing he’s good at.

    My favorite part was the breathless speculation on whether OHIO had contacted WASHINGTON.

    As if it was outrageous for employees of a federal agency to contact managers and lawyers in DC.

    Where else would they call when they had a problem? It’s a federal agency.

    Just the physical proximity to the WH meant…scandal! Obama lives there! Connect the dots.

  102. 102.

    Botsplainer

    @different-church-lady:

    KIODJ™.

    (*”Knock it off, Doug J.™” — lexicon it now!)

    Not his best effort. Its a little disappointing in the rush to get to the payoff.

    There’s no foreplay – it is all grind and grunt.

  103. 103.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @kindness:

    The man helps our side way more than he hurts us.

    Golly, it looks like some people disagree with your assessment.

  106. 106.

    handsmile

    @Kay:

    A slight correction perhaps.

    “Truthiness” is the ironic invention of Stephen Colbert, not Stewart. In his persona of a right-wing media blowhard, Colbert regards truthiness as a virtue, superior to truth and reasoning in that it comes from the “gut.” The term’s aptness in describing so much of what passes for Village political commentary remains indisputable.

    As MomSense (#17) and DXM (#42) identify/explain, Stewart’s affliction is his entertainer’s need to maintain that both sides are equally culpable for the morass in Washington and in governance nation-wide. That position makes him vulnerable (or predisposed if you prefer) to embracing for comedic effect the kind of manufactured scandal you describe.

  107. 107.

    Mike E

    @Paul in KY: Duly noted… I’m a son of immigrants, so I gots that USA fever.

    Hitchcock: Great American director, or The Greatest American Director?

  108. 108.

    Davis X. Machina

    @handsmile:

    Stewart’s affliction is his entertainer’s need to maintain that both sides are equally culpable for the morass in Washington

    I imagine Rodney Dangerfield may actually have loved his wife, but that would have been bad for the act…

  110. 110.

    NonyNony

    @kindness:

    Remember when folks here used to slag DailyKos? … DailyKos (the GOS) is pilloried because of it’s purity trolls.

    @Baud:

    Stewart isn’t being criticized for lack of purity. He’s being criticized for incorporating false right-wing memes into his routines.

    Which, amusingly enough, is why people many people rag on the Daily Kos around here (as well as FDL). Sure the purity trolls get mocked, but mostly the folks who get mocked are the ones who are dragging out right-wing memes from the left and using them to tag Obama (Jane Hamsher’s post-2008 schtick was almost entirely this).

    Getting peeved at John Stewart for doing the same things that we get peeved at DKos and FDL for is perfectly consistent as far as I can tell. I don’t want Stewart to be “pure” – frankly I’d be annoyed if he were. But I do want him to think before he opens his yap and to do a bit of research before he starts repeating right-wing slurs. And every once in a while he loses his ability to do that and when he does he deserves to be taken out and metaphorically punched in the gut for a while.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @handsmile:

    Sorry. My mistake. I used to work for the postal service so the connect-the-dots Washington connection seemed silly to me right out of the gate.
    We had constant communication with The Evil Federal Masterminds when we had a big problem. That’s where the lawyers are. LOTTA collusion going on, conspiring on all sorts of incredibly boring things.

  113. 113.

    handsmile

    @Davis X. Machina:

    As well as being a tee-totaler and an impeccable dresser.

    As to your #42 comment, are there are any classical Greek or Roman leaders whom you regard as particularly ironic?

  114. 114.

    FlipYrWhig

    I don’t think Jon Stewart’s shtick is exactly “both sides do it.” I think it’s that Republicans are evil and Democrats are inept. And then to that add the libertarian streak about how The Politicians ruin everything.

    I almost never miss the show, but I do think that it’s getting easier to predict when he’s going to be harping on something irritating for a few too many days.

    Also, he should do fewer “funny voices,” like the high-pitched “eeeeeeeehhhhhhhh… Not so much” and the Jerry Lewis tributes.

  115. 115.

    Poopyman

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: Schlafly is a Stewart by birth, so no doubt there’s some vestige of royal superiority thrown into the mix. Of course, it didn’t turn out so well for the Stewarts, did it?

  116. 116.

    Mandalay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I don’t think Jon Stewart’s shtick is exactly “both sides do it.” I think it’s that Republicans are evil and Democrats are inept.

    This. Somewhat similar to Bill Maher’s ongoing shtick that Republicans are evil but ballsy, and Democrats are good guys but wimps.

  117. 117.

    kindness

    @Mandalay:

    Somewhat similar to Bill Maher’s ongoing shtick that Republicans are evil but ballsy, and Democrats are good guys but wimps.

    Yea but there is truth to that. See the filibuster rule in the Senate. I can’t stand Mitch McConnell because he is such a smug lying sociopath. But then I hear that Senator Carl Levin of Michigan refuses to consider any changes to the filibuster rules and I’m in the same boat as many here who decry Jon Stewart. I mean, seriously Levin, you are putting antiquated rules of comity that only one party is practicing against actually accomplishing what a majority of citizens voted for?

    So I’m not too far different. Except Stewart is a comedian and Levin is an actual long time Senator. I think that difference gives me the room I’m taking to blame one more than the other.

  119. 119.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Heliopause:

    “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that is outrageous, and there is no place for it…”

    From your link. Emphasis mine.

  120. 120.

    Elie

    @Hill Dweller:

    Uh Huh — all that needs to be sorted through. I smelled a skunk right from the get go on this whole thing — just too convenient a happanstance by far…then she takes the fifth! Talk about a “pointer” to something suspicious — if you didn’t smell a rate before that, taking the fifth definitely lit up a few signs for me…

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elie: I don’t know about Lerner, I think she took the fifth when John Boehner, third ranking leader of the country, started talking about someone “going to jail”, without mentioning little things like a law being broken. My sense of this from the last couple days is the Bush-appointed IRS Inspector General leaked or at least emphasized the stuff that made the Tea Party look like victims.

  122. 122.

    Elie

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That makes sense — but it also makes sense that she must have been part of some planning or discussions around what the IG was gonna do.

    In any case, if the right thread is pulled, the sweater could unravel all the way back up to, who knows, not just Issa, but Boehner… If they are capable of embarrassment this would be highly embarrassment. If any lies or misrepresentation in testimony to Congress are involved, then we have a whole different and more “interesting” thing…

  123. 123.

    Davis X. Machina

    @handsmile:The Greeks — or at least Solon, the Athenian lawgiver — had little patience for the both-sides-do-it crowd, stripping the neutrals in a civil war of their citizenship:

    “…whoever, when the polis was in a state of civil strife (stasis), failed to take up arms with either side should be held in contempt (atimos) and have no part in the polis”.

  126. 126.

    AxelFoley

    @Ryan C:

    Fuck Jon Stewart? A comedian? That’s your big concern? Christ, commenters here get more petty and pathetic by the minute. I’m done with all of you. I can’t take the stupidity anymore

    Bye, bitch.

  128. 128.

    Bubblegum Tate

    Humorously enough, a wingnut I know just posted a link to this newsbusters whine about how the press didn’t ask Obama about any of his “scandals”. He said that “the linked article below really doesn’t need any commentary – it pretty much speaks for itself. And it is a good example of why we are in such a bizarre authoritarian realm within the country.” He then concluded that “the current state of this country disgusts me.”

    Poor baby.

  129. 129.

    Bubblegum Tate

    PS: The purity trolling of Jon Stewart is definitely one of BJ’s funnier (both “ha-ha” funny and “weird” funny) trends.

  130. 130.

    skippy

    @moonbat: me too. i never understood the left’s love for stewart. not as funny as colbert and always in the middle of the road, where, as jim hightower says, you find yellow stripes and dead armadillos

  131. 131.

    Kathleen

    @schrodinger’s cat: I didn’t see the interview with Yoo, but I’ve felt he was dismissive of Obama as well. And I agree that his job is not to carry the flag for progressives/liberals. I don’t appreciate his dismissive attitude towards Obama, his willingness to jump on phony scandals (eg., ACORN), and his adulation of mainstream media whores like Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw. While I don’t expect him to validate my political philosophy, I just don’t enjoy his show during those moments and I would turn him off when he had them on. Now I don’t watch the show at all. He’s brilliant at eviscerating Fox and CNN. His buddies in the main stream, not so much. That’s fine. it’s his show. I don’t have to watch it.

  133. 133.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Violet: “Latinos come from a country”?

    One country?

    Boy, these people are so stupid. Remember Palin thinking that Africa was one country? Repubs need to stay out of the White House for the foreseeable future. As Bush would say, “They is not learning”.

  136. 136.

    xian

    @ice weasel: I think his “rally for centrist civility mush,” premised somehow on the idea that there was a left-wing equivalent of the Tea Party out there in 2010, sort of gave the high-Broderism game away for Jon Stewart, funny and trenchant as he can be when he wants to be, or feel free to be.

  137. 137.

    PopeRatzo

    I guess we’re done with the scandals, as long as nobody minds living in a surveillance state that would make the Stazi jealous.

    Because the NSA domestic spying program, the administration’s new “Inside Threat” policy and its still-intensifying attack on whistleblowers is dumping a load of shit on Obama’s shiny legacy that’s going to be plenty hard to ignore, moving forward.

    Maybe the best we can say is, “Obama didn’t want to do these things” or “Obama didn’t MEAN to do these things” or “We make Obama do these things” but then after the past five years we’re already practiced at telling the ER nurse we “fell down a flight of stairs” or “ran into a door”.

    Screw these penny-ante scandals. They’re over. But there’s a good chance we have a sociopath in the White House.

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