(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
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In our new improved go-go-go marketplace, I guess the Masters of the Universe don’t have time to waste on more than the first few minutes of that Scrooge story. Mr. Pierce calls out a bunch of their enablers:
There are a number of reasons why I pray that Senator Professor Elizabeth Warren ignores the importunings of silly pundits and stays right where she is in the United States Senate for, oh, I don’t know, seven terms or so. The most important reason is pure selfishness. She’s our senator. You bastids go find one of your own. The second reason, and one that is almost as important, is that she is invaluable right where she is because she is making all the right people completely crazy… It is pretty plain that she’s wrongfooted Wall Street poodle Chuck Schumer pretty badly, too…
CSchumer: You don’t want to go after them for the sake of going after them. The left-wing blogs want you to be completely and always anti-Wall Street. It’s not the right way to be.
TNR: So are the left-wing blogs as bad as the Tea Party ones in this case?
CSchumer: Left-wing blogs are the mirror image. They just have less credibility and less clout.
Sit, Chuck. Roll over. Good dog.
And it’s not just Schumer, either. We are hearing from the Ghosts Of Fake Centrists Past (the inexcusable Al From as well as steam- grate philosopher Pat Caddell) and Centrists Present (the Third Way grifters), all of whom warn of the dangers of taking up too loudly for anyone who can’t afford to buy them all dinner. We have even heard from Richard Cohen, who is making a strong rush in the final straightaway to have the single stupidest year ever produced by a pundit not named Bill Kristol…
My holiday present to y’all, I’ve left Richard ‘Caligula’s Horse’ Cohen on the other side of the clickthru, since people may still be eating dinner.
Not a big fan of the ‘Democratic Stupidity’ tag, but these grifters have earned it fair and square.
Mnemosyne
Dianne Feinstein seems determined to die in office, so we’re stuck with her for the foreseeable future. Sigh.
BGinCHI
Defenders of the status quo: Schumer et al. As much as I hate to say it, when this is our only problem we’ll have a hell of a lot less problems.
At least they aren’t fucking crazy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it was also Pierce who pointed out that Ed Rendell has been quite the busy little concern troll over the last few days, today in an interview with Politico. I know it was Pierce who said that Ron Fournier quoting something Ed Rendell said on Morning Joe about how Obama needs to bring in an “old Washington hand” like Colin Powell or David Gergen was a perfect polished diamond of everything that’s wrong with the Beltway establishment. Does it occur to any of them that the last time Colin Powell was brought in to reassure them, he helped Junior and Uncle Dick sell the Iraq War?
Villago Delenda Est
Schumer is scum, but he’s not as vile as any Rethuglican sitting in the Senate right now.
Not that this is an endorsement. Schumer needs to be in the tumbrel parade as well.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
For this crime, along with his career making obfuscation of the My Lai massacre, Powell’s place in the depths of Hell is assured.
mdblanche
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We all know what he really meant. And I haven’t seen a list of names that incestuous since the last Hapsburg family reunion.
“Yes. Your point?”
-The Beltway
Omnes Omnibus
Schumer is representing a major industry in his state. It is the same thing when a Wisconsin Senator supports dairy subsidies, a LA Senator supports the oil industry, or a CT Senator supports the insurance industry.
Hungry Joe
Clearly, somebody bet Cohen he couldn’t come up with a column as brain-bongingly stupid as the one he wrote about slavery. And this one does fall a little short — though you can’t really criticize the guy; that slavery piece was one for the ages.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, and if methamphetamine manufacture and sales were a major industry of a state, I’m sure that state’s senators would be working hard to support Walter White and his associates.
Elizabeth Warren is absolutely right. Banking needs to be boring again.
mdblanche
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s only a matter of time before Elizabeth Warren sells us out to Big Cranberry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I agree completely. Just don’t expect Schumer to be useful in that effort.
handsmile
@BGinCHI:
I read this sentence less than one hour ago:
“The stoutest defenders of the status quo will inevitably be those whom it rewards most richly.”
(It’s the opening sentence of John Banville’s review essay of the latest edition of lsaiah Berlin’s letters in the current NYRB).
Of course while it applies pungently to Schumer and most of his Congressional colleagues, it was the temporal coincidence with your comment that struck me. Some phrase about “Great minds…” seems germane here.
scav
Cardboard cutouts and doormats, so many of them. Flat pack Congress. Easier to replace any parts that aren’t working to manufacturer’s specs. And, alas, not the worst of the lot we have to hand. Nice of him to remind everyone who’s his real constituency though. Not even Old Hickory (with all his imperfections) but the age of Green Particle Board.
Anne Laurie
@Villago Delenda Est:
Don’t exert yourself, Schumer will jump on that tumbrel as soon as he’s sure all his ‘friends’ are already aboard.
He’s a Democrat, at least, and you have to give him credit for honesty: Wall Street bought him years ago, and he’s stayed loyal to his buyers & honest about his motives.
VodkaGoGo
Was just thinking about sending in a tip about Al From. I love that the number one advocate for shattering the liberal coalition and is pretty much responsible for turning the Democrats into a center-right party is offering leadership advice to progressives. Oh yeah, progressives are just tripping over each other to get your opinion on what to do next. Thank you, guy who legitimized union bashing in the Democratic Party. You’re a national treasure.
danielx
Win.
If I could write half as well as Pierce on a consistent basis, I’d be pleased.
@Omnes Omnibus:
All true. The big difference is that the leading lights of those industries didn’t knowingly screw the pooch (and their companies, and their customers) in pursuit of personal gain, nearly sending the US economy down the tubes in the process. Schumer is defending an industry, a major NY employer and several major campaign contributors in the bargain, and I get that. However, it’s my impression that those other industries don’t employ out and out sociopathic criminals to the extent that Wall Street does, and their screwups don’t affect the economy as a whole the way Wall Street’s do. So who says that Schumer is defending the indefensible?
I do. He’s defending an industry many of whose leading lights would slit their mothers’ throats and fifty more for a twenty percent increase in their year end bonuses. They are going to do what they are going to do, knowing that in all likelihood they’ll never be arrested or prosecuted for criminal financial wrongdoing, let alone do time for stealing more money than ten thousand holdup guys in ten years time. And they’ll go on doing it, because why not? There’s no downside…and after watching two decades of “financial innovation”, the usual horseshit about “a few bad apples” is getting pretty ripe. Those guys at Goldman Sachs (for example) who knowingly put together lousy deals to sell to clients so they could bet against those deals (and clients) weren’t making bad decisions, they were committing fraud. And they weren’t bit players either…
But whaddyagonnado? Schumer is just playing the role he’s supposed to play and saying what he’s supposed to say, although he may occasionally wonder why he’s defending people who are lucky they aren’t swinging from lamp posts.
Sorry for the rant, Omnes, and in all seriousness, no offense intended.
Howard Beale IV
Minnesota has workhouses.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Villago Delenda Est: I just want to say that I admire the vehemence with which you express the absolute and utter disdain you have for both the useless weasels in Congress and the FerengiMedia.
Pen
@Howard Beale IV: really?
JGabriel
@Anne Laurie:
If Schumer can’t take their money, and drink their liquor, and still vote against them in the morning, then he has no business being a politician. As a lobbyist, he could get the same perks, at a way better salary, and he wouldn’t have to vote at all.
Howard Beale IV
@Pen: Ah-yep.
It’s for those whose sentences are less than a year.
Omnes Omnibus
@danielx:
That was basically my point. No offense taken.
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sometimes any excuse (however slight) for a rant will do, and i get seriously irate any time this topic comes up, along with corporate personhood and several others.
Omnes Omnibus
@danielx: I am reserving most of my rants for voter suppression efforts. If enough people voted, a lot of other reasons to rant would start to go away.
Smiling Mortician
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. That’s the big one. I’d like to see everyone focused on it, relentlessly. Fuck this un-democratizing of the country.
RaflW
@danielx: Hmmm. Exxon-Mobil is about as sociopathic as a corporation can be. Along with hydrocarbon billionaires the Koches.
Climate denialism may destroy the planet in a way that makes the 2008 bubble popping seem like a birthday party.
Omnes Omnibus
@RaflW: And god only knows the harm that can be wreaked by dairy in the guts of the intolerant.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne: Actually, if you look closely, you’ll find she’s already quite dead.
ruemara
@Cervantes: Only behind the eyes.
maya
DiFi will retire/decompose only when you remove those DoD no-bid contracts for hubby, Dickie Bloom, from her cold, clammy hands.
I always leave that particular absentee ballot check box blank every six years.
Cal Repos absolutely hate Barbara Boxer but have nothing to say about DiFi at all. Which says it all.