I hold no brief for Peter “The Mucker” King, but now Politico is trying to tell me that he’s on President Obama’s side for once:
New York Rep. Peter King slammed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday for praising NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
“When you have Rand Paul actually comparing Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness, this is the anti-war Democrats in the 1960s that destroyed their party for almost 15 years,” King said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I don’t want that happening to our party.”
King also blasted other Republicans for voting to defund the National Security Administration last week, calling the move “disgraceful.”
“I thought it was absolutely disgraceful that so many Republicans voted to defund the NSA program, which has done so much to protect our country,” King said….
Of course it is not true that King is agreeing with the President, he’s just disagreeing with the faddish new “populist libertarian”, i.e. “anti-neocon”, splittist faction within the GOP. He’s got the Old Bull party-machine take on the late-1960s Democratic implosion — if only those DFH kids had had the common decency to know their place and wait their turn rather than insisting on all those anti-war, pro-Negro, womens-libber pieties! — and sees a political advantage for Peter King in warning the other GOP Old Bulls against wrongthought deviationism. Which is why I can, with a clean conscience, pray for injuries (or a small, targeted meteorite) in this intraparty scuffle.
But then, despite his public flirtation last week, Peter King is never going to be a serious presidential candidate — he’s just stroking the egos of his Lung Guylint constituents when he suggests he could win as many as three electoral votes. On the other hand, barring some particularly exotic scandal, this guy…
… Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who was a vocal and at times caustic critic of Rand Paul’s father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, during the 2012 primaries, called it a welcome development that “people are starting to push back.”
“There was a lot of talk, particularly during the Republican primary last year, of, ‘Well, we don’t want to alienate these voters,” Santorum said, recalling that he’d been criticized as “too bellicose” and “too warlike. “I can tell you, the Paulistas who were active on the state level in 2012 were not interested in the Republican Party as it now exists. They are interested in a very different kind of model.”…
… is arguably 2016’s man of the ever-GOP-popular “It’s His Turn” coalition. So maybe we Democrats will have the excitement of watching the GOP’s long-awaited implosion after all?
Liquid
Rabble!
The prophet Nostradumbass
Peter King (R – Falls Road) is a joke. He wouldn’t last until the first GOP primary.
srv
I’m dead serious about a FP’er starting an Act Blue for Aqua Buddha. I will donate. It still pisses me off RP didn’t make it to the final two with McGrumps, wasted $100 on that dream.
Liquid
I donated to Obama in ’08. The way I feel now is the same as when my friend yelled at Bill Bavasi (seriously, we were so close I could have spit on him) about wanting his money back.
ETA: Ok, it isn’t that bad but still. Sarcasm, sir.
Feebog
Santorum is not going to be the Republican candidate. I know he won Iowa (after the fact) but really, his sell by date is long past. Nah gunna happen…
jl
Sometimes these post titles whizz right over our head.
The point is that we, the right thinking reasonable hordes of vicious jackals on BJ are supposed to root for injuries?
Or that anytime crazy GOPers like King or Issa open their mouths, it seems like they are rooting for injuries, with added drama that it is unclear whether they give damn about who is injured, their fellow GOPer, or themselves, or, possibly, even a Democrat?
Though I think that last is a long shot, since Democrats have survived 30 or if you count Nixon and his thugs, 40 years of same slurs and insanity over and over again.
The Dangerman
I thought the Republican’s might nominate a Looney Tuner in 2012 (I had Palin early on)…
…but no way do they nominate one of the Tuners (Paul, Santorum, etc) in 2016. It’ll be someone fairly mainstream; I’ll go with Christie right now.
jl
Harold Stassen would be good. Available for a comeback? Wouldn’t say anything embarrassing, that’s fer sher.
Edit: Never mind, he would be a commie now.
Liquid
@jl: Like that bit from Carlin — “Football is War! Leave the injured on the field . . . Let the Red Cross pick up these assholes!”
The prophet Nostradumbass
That first season of Endeavour really was excellent. Too bad there were only five episodes of it.
jl
@Liquid: Yeah,. The GOP version of football. Only play is the flying wedge, and everyone gets to pick sides just after the play starts.
Ultimate GOP death match football. I like it.
piratedan
yes, by all means, proceed Republicans…..
I have no problem if they want to continue to cull from the herd any and all traits and potential candidates that have a sliver of reasonableness about them. The more internecine warfare the better I say, because if a Dem candidate has a problem, inevitably it’s perceived as a fatal flaw in the eyes of the media, but these guys can fuck over their wives, kick dogs, starve grandmas and still get a pass if the say the right words regarding supply side economics and propose more corporate welfare and have good hair.
Yatsuno
@The Dangerman: I hate to say it, but no way. A rather rotund individual will not get very far in the age of TV. Plus I need to see a strategy where a New Jersey Republican wins the fundigelicals and teafolk, especially after making nice-nice with Obama after Sandy. Yes Christie is a right-wing asshole, but he also needs to prove himself to the base yet.
The Dangerman
@Yatsuno:
Think of him as Romney II; the money behind Romney didn’t give a shit about the fundies and the teaturds, it’ll be the same thing all over again, just insert “New Jersey” for “Massachusetts” and “nice-nice with Obama” for “Romneycare”. Also, hasn’t he lost a bunch of weight?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Yatsuno: Christie being, well, fat won’t be nearly as much of hindrance to him in the GOP as being someone who isn’t a reflexive Moslem-hater, and that Obama stuff. *Those* are more likely to deep-six him, if he decides to run, which I suspect he won’t do.
Yatsuno
@The Dangerman: The true base blames the money folk for forcing Willard upon them, when the simple fact is he bought enough votes in just enough states to matter. Plus Willard ran in a really weak field without very much in the way of competition. The base ain’t about to let a less than pure soul go through again, since if you recall the blame about him not being conservative enough went right into effect the next morning after Willard lost.
MattF
Well, the neocon/libertarian split is good– what we really need now is a second split on regional lines. That would kill them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yatsuno: He’s got another problem, funding. I was watching Up last week and there seems to be a problem with him taking donations from quite a few donors due to conflict of interest laws. He’d have to resign as Governor first, I’m not sure he’ll want to do that and it could hurt him.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@BillinGlendaleCA: Funding, that is another thing. Romney could overcome his lack of base support by bulldozing the other candidates with money. Christie is unlikely to be able to do that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@The prophet Nostradumbass: The thing they were talking about is, especially in New Jersey, the Governor appoints the people who make bid decisions and investment decisions. If businesses do contribute they can take a pretty sizable hit.
Romney wasn’t a sitting Governor, so it wasn’t a problem for him. They also speculated that this might be one reason Goodhair decided not to run again in TX.
The Dangerman
@Yatsuno:
Fair enough, but we saw that movie before, too, with Maverick McCain.
The base will yell and scream and froth at the mouth, but, come election time, they’ll vote whomever the Republicans nominate. I mean, they hate Obama with a white hot fury for his big packages, but we’re talking Hillary as the likely opposition in 2016 and they probably hate her (and the hubby, natch) even more than Obama. If that’s possible.
mdblanche
@The Dangerman: But by the time Whatshisname Rumney got through the primaries he had been transformed for all intents and purposes into a Tuner.
Joey Maloney
@The Dangerman: In a world where Mitch McConnell is being painted as a collaborator? Dream on. It won’t be Santorum, but it’ll be someone else just as batshit. Bachmann/O’Donnell 2016.
The Dangerman
@mdblanche:
Perhaps, but he was a Potemkin Pillager; if he had won, he wasn’t going to waste any political capital on culture war stuff when it could be used to get another tax cut passed.
NotMax
BIG tropical storm on the way for probably Monday/Tuesday. Bunch of work today to prepare, including hoeing a sloping area level and then digging a trench to put in a 30-foot long water diversion barrier in one spot, and backfilling same. Been working on that project on and off for a while, but the impetus to get it done today was too strong to procrastinate any longer.
Every muscle aches right now.
NotMax
@The Dangerman
Nope, not gonna swing at that lob.
piratedan
@Joey Maloney: Michie will find herself behind bars or sullied for her campaign finance ethics…. maybe Huckabee or Jeebus Bush arises from the ashes.
piratedan
@NotMax: epitome of “low hanging fruit”?
fuckwit
Keep fucking that chicken.
Suzanne
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Concur. None of them will care that Christie is fat. Much of the Republican voting bloc is fat. Hell, the Drunk Weeping Cheeto and the Turtle are nationally visible Rethugs. They clearly aren’t looking for lookers.
Weight and unattractiveness are only issues for female pols.
They will go for whomever the pundits think will have the best chance of beating Hillary, and they will make comments about her looks. Lots of them.
This is why we got Sarah Sparkles. As dumb as she is, I think McCain made a very canny play in picking her for veep.
Yatsuno
@Suzanne:
Still have not seen much evidence he was thinking with the big head.
Suzanne
@Yatsuno: she inspired a lot of excitement in the ticket in people who were meh on it before, and brought the potential for making history to that ticket. I think McCain came closer to winning than he would have because of her.
None of which is to say that she’s not a totally craven mouthbreather.
piratedan
@Suzanne: I agree, she was photogenic, didn’t talk like a politician and doesn’t sound like an elitist in any capacity but “exudes” common sense. There’s a whole boatload of folks that think that “she’s just like me” means that she’ll have their best interests at heart and makes her safe to vote for. No one remembers her train wreck of a term or the way that she’s grifted in the deep waters ever since. Shit, she even got a pass with those “surveyor’s symbols” bullshit post the Giffords shooting. A charmed life indeed.
Joey Maloney
@piratedan: Eugene Debs ran for president from behind bars. Just sayin’.
Yatsuno
@Suzanne: I really really really want her to run for Senate. Popcorn futures would never be brighter.
That said, Grandpa Walnuts chose her so far out of left field his staffers had to do research on her. That pretty much tells me there wasn’t a lot of conscious thought or advice there.
Joey Maloney
@Yatsuno: Still have not seen much evidence he was thinking with the big head
I don’t think it had anything to do with that. The choice was motivated, like pretty much everything else in McCain’s political life, by spite.
The party wouldn’t let him have his first choice of Reb Droopy Dawg and that bad news was, I bet, delivered by his advisers Steve Schmidt and Nicole Wallace. So in a completely typical fit of pique he picked the person that he figured would most piss off the two of them.
piratedan
@Joey Maloney: granted Joey, but then she’d be emulating a “socialist”…. why it’d be unpossible :-)
Amir Khalid
@Yatsuno:
With John McCain, I’ve sometimes wondered which of his heads is bigger.
Suzanne
@Yatsuno: He made a high-risk play because he needed high reward. No Rethug would have won in 2008. None of the safe choices would have sealed the deal for him, so he swung for the fences.
Imagine how two wrinkly old white Washington insider dudes would have looked next to Barack Obama in 2008. McCain is a risk-taker, but not stupid.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Amir Khalid: I think McCain’s biggest “head” is his ego, actually.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I’m sure it’s the one we see on the TV machine. But, on the other hand, he probably was deprived of, eh, companionship while he was a POW. You know he was a POW, right? He doesn’t like to talk about it, but he was a POW.
/ a hearty helping of snark
Amir Khalid
@BillinGlendaleCA:
A POW? You don’t say.
Suzanne
@Joey Maloney: Concur. McCain doesn’t seem to have Weiner trouble.
He’s an egomaniac and reckless, not a moron or a horndog.
joel hanes
@The Dangerman:
they probably hate [the Clintons] even more than Obama
I see this idea often.
I think it’s completely mistaken.
Clinton was hated, sure, but it’s nothing to the furious hatred provoked by having a black President. The fact that the nation has twice elected a brilliant, eloquent black man to the highest office in the land has driven about 25% of the nation right around the bend. It’s a contradiction of the divine order, turns their worldview on its head: dogs and cats living together, the arms of the jungle, animal instinct: MASSTERIA. It can’t really be legitimate: ACORN must have stolen the election, the votes must have come predominantly from black people (subtext: who don’t really deserve a vote), the unions cheated somehow, the dead must have voted in Chicago, something must be hinky, because such a result could not ever ever occur in Reagan’s Shining (white) City On A (segregated) Hill.
People who only despised Clinton hate hate hate Obama and his wife and his kids with the heat of a thousand suns.
I think that once Obama is out of office, there will be at least one fascinating book out of his Secret Service, who have (so far) been able to protect him.
fuckwit
@joel hanes: I was shocked and amazed to hear Obama finally admit to this. He said in his NYT interview that there are people who will claim he’s usurping his authority just because he had the gall to get elected. That was an awesome statement. The unsaid peice of that is “because I’m black”, and he didn’t go there, but almost did.
I noticed a massive shift in Obama’s rhetoric in the last week. I don’t know if it’s him gearing up to get the Dems revved up and on-message for 2014, or if it’s more personal: I think he reconnected in a huge way with the black community after the Zimmerman verdict, and he started LISTENING to people who aren’t Washington insiders, and are suffering, and told him why, and it changed him.
He’s extremely smart. He knows that all this racial tension is driven by fear, and the fear is driven by economic insecurity. Shit, Michael Moore has been saying this for decades now, and linking capitalism to racism and explaining how that connection happens. It’s right there in “Bowling for Columbine”: in countries with a safety net there’s less crime to be afraid of, and less competition with your fellow citizen. Here you have a highly competitive economic system that discourages solidarity and insists on people becoming enemies, everyone out to screw everyone else, with no safety net, and in that kind of dog-eat-dog world with so much existential anxiety, you will see more hatred and resentments pile up, along racial/ethnic lines among others. It’s inevitable, it’s a divide-and-conquer strategy of the 1%.
So now he’s starting to talk more like Elizabeth Warren. But I think he came at it from a different angle. I think he really sees the human, moral issues now, it’s not about leaving economic policy to the insiders (Geithner, Summers, et al) who understand banking, and buying into the whole banker obsession with deficits, as it seems he tried to do for his whole first term. Now I think it is more personal for him, and the timing is very likely related to his contacts with the Martin family, is my hunch.
fuckwit
@Joey Maloney: This is the most likely explanation I’ve heard yet. Yes I think he had a significant boner for Palin, but he does not seem like a swing-for-the-fences political risktaker or visionary, or someone who lets his dick think for him, so that leaves spite as a more in-character motivation for picking her. It certainly seems like he picked her in a fit of some strong emotion, but horniness doesn’t seem the right one; anger does seem more like his guiding motivation in most things.
I’ll believe he’d have been way, way more comfortable with Lieberman by his side than her. Hadn’t considered that he wasn’t ALLOWED to pick him, or that someone could have took him into a smoke-filled room and told him not to.
NotMax
@fuckwit
The armchair analyst in me has always presumed that once Lieberman was scotched as a viable choice, McCain looked at the remaining short list of names and (consciously or not) asked himself “which one is the most maverick-y choice? The press and the people seem to move in my direction when I do something they can pigeonhole with that label.”
Have also presumed that same supposition was what was really behind his misguided, useless ‘suspension’ of the campaign in the fall.
NotMax
Flossie’s on the way…
Heavy rains and thunderstorms, winds from 15 – 25 mph, increasing to 30 – 40 mph with gusts up to 60 expected.
Here’s the latest alert for Maui:
TROPICAL STORM WARNING IN EFFECT. FLASH FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM MONDAY TO 6 AM HST WEDNESDAY
raven
@NotMax: Big swells comin huh? Whoa, hitting the dry side too!
NotMax
@raven
You betchum, Red Ryder.
Storm is over 500 miles wide. Check out the image linked to above in #25.
raven
@NotMax: Hold er Knute, she’s headed for the pea-patch!
NotMax
@raven
Heh. Let the young’uns puzzle on that for a while.
Not to dwell on it, but here’s a newer satellite image.
raven
@NotMax: The weather channel map sucks that gives a much better idea of the scope.
Bobby Thomson
@BillinGlendaleCA:
How quaint. As though a Republican would care about finance laws, or be hurt by violating them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Bobby Thomson: He wouldn’t be, the financial firms would be barred from dealing with the state.
Patricia Kayden
@The Dangerman: Someone safe, but not Christie. I can’t see him getting past the raving, ranting T’Baggers who vote in the Repub primaries. Perhaps someone boring like a midwest Governor.
Joey Maloney
@Patricia Kayden: Not to be confused with the ranting, raving T’Boggers…
Patricia Kayden
@fuckwit: Can you imagine what would have happened if President Obama had added the “because I’m Black” phrase during his NYTimes interview? Dang — every rightwing head would have exploded. He’ll probably be more candid about race after he leaves office. I can imagine he does a lot of biting of the tongue.
IowaOldLady
I’m betting on Christie. Wall Street will just give to a PAC instead of him directly.
And I can’t say whether they’d hate Hillary more or less that Obama. Misogyny is pretty rampant on that side too, and the strength of the racist reactions to Obama caught me by surprise. IMHO, it caught a lot of people by surprise. It took until recently for anyone in the MSM to use the word “racism.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@fuckwit: I was shocked and amazed to hear Obama finally admit to this. He said in his NYT interview that there are people who will claim he’s usurping his authority just because he had the gall to get elected. That was an awesome statement. The unsaid peice of that is “because I’m black”, and he didn’t go there, but almost did.
I have a very moderate conservative friend, as in he did hippee stuff like be a volunteer teacher in brown people’s schools and the like, who feels this way about Obama.
Johannes
If I may, as a native, offer one technical correction: it’s Lawn Guy-land. The “aw” may be elongated in certain portions of the region.
Many thanks!
Paul in KY
‘Guylint Lungs’ would be a good band name.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t get this ‘next in line’ bit. Romney wasn’t next in line. ‘I’ve run before’ is not ‘next in line.’ He was back of the pack, right next to Ron Paul. Didn’t W come out of nowhere?
@fuckwit:
I haven’t heard his recent speeches, but Obama has always preached about economic inequalities and the need to lift up the poor and make the rich pay for it. Maybe people don’t notice because he doesn’t do it ‘angry’, and makes it all about helping people.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Eastwood was supposedly very, very friendly to minorities as a movie maker. Here is a kind of thinking: Minorities make just as good a sidekick as whites, and deserve just as much respect in that role. That they would be in charge is unthinkable.
Joe Buck
The Republicans are now Obama’s main source of support on security issues. More than half of Democrats voted to kill the NSA’s dragnet surveillance program. Obama needed a Republican majority, plus the blue dogs, to save it.
Bob h
Rand can be cavalier about national security because Al Qaeda strikes at symbols of American power and prestige, and there is none of that in Kentucky. It’s a measure of how sick our politics are that we even talk about this juvenile.