.
Behold, the latest source of wingnut outrage — “our national anthem” (not) being “turned into gibberish” by… well, let’s just pretend that if American English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for those people, am I (very far) right?
Meanwhile, the Saga of A Jersey Pol is rapidly descending into farce. Here’s John Cassidy at the New Yorker:
… In political and media circles, the conventional wisdom is that Christie is pretty much finished. On NPR, David Brooks said that, in view of the latest revelations, he couldn’t see how Christie could run for President in 2016. On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer concurred: “This is kind of nasty, and it’s got potential,” he said. Meanwhile, Christie’s political enemies took the opportunity to join in. John Podesta, a senior adviser to President Obama who is widely expected to run Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign, told Bloomberg News, “I think it’s a killer, really. … If that was true, I don’t think there’s any coming back.”
In a post entitled “Yep, he’s toast,” Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall argued that, at this point, it doesn’t even matter very much whether Christie is telling the truth. “The 2016 primary is already underway,” Marshall wrote, “lining up political professionals, money people, power brokers in key states. That’s all happening now and it will continue through this year.” As the “Bridgegate” scandal continues to unfold, Marshall said, it will continue to distract Christie from his efforts to build a credible national campaign, subjecting him to “the death of a thousand cuts.”…
Even the so-called “upbeat” Christie stories are… kinda iffy. Jon Chait at NYMag dissects a Washington Post article, where, Chait thinks, “Report of Christie As Youthful Non-Goon Actually Sounds Pretty Goonish“:
… What did Christie do that so impressed them? Well, he had been the starting catcher on the baseball team, and a better player transferred to the school and took his starting spot, and Christie decided not to sue to keep the kid out of school.
The idea of suing to block the transfer of the better catcher came from Christie’s father, and Christie decided against it. The story notes that Christie did not reject this idea out of hand. (He “sought opinions about the idea from two of his closest friends on the team..”) Nor did he reject it on moral grounds. Rather, he simply decided it was too risky. (“Christie thought his dad was wrong, given the apparent risks: The season might be forfeited, and the team and the town might be turned against their family.”).
So Christie decided, after deliberating for a while, not to sue a kid for transferring to his school and being better than him at baseball, on the grounds that the community might not look kindly on that decision. This, concludes the Post, is evidence of Christie’s generosity of spirit. Because what most people would do when beaten out for a starting position in high school is use the legal system to have the kid thrown out of school…
***********
While we brace ourselves for further tales of Republican magnanimity, and/or nurse our SB hangovers, what’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
OzarkHillbilly
Gawd dayum, mourning again.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
1967 – 2014
RIP
OzarkHillbilly
I first saw him in “Almost Famous” and absolutely fell in love with him. Most of his movies have not been of my type (pure escapism) so I have only seen maybe half of them, but he was brilliant in every one of those.
Schlemizel
My moron DIL posted on facebook about about the Coke ad & I was in a pissy mood so I tried to engage her in an argument about it but she refused. Then my wife’s mouth-breathing sister posted on the subject with the line “songs like AtB and Gog Bless America should be sung in their original language”. I damn near tossed my laptop across the room. I replied the the folks in the UK might like to have a word with her about how God Bless America is to be sung but I don’t think she is bright enough to get it.
I just keep praying for a giant meteor.
jayboat
I am anticipating no small amount of unmitigated joy as blubbergut twists in the wind these next few weeks.
Anyone know the over-under on whether he will do time? 8-]]]
Buckyblue
Ok, if you have to go back to high to find a time when Christie didn’t act like a bully, you’ve made our point for us. And this is the best you could come up with?
jayboat
@Schlemizel:
You must learn to resist the urge to make political posts on fb. The only thing to be gained is an education- a bit of insight, if you will, into the bottomless depth of teh stoopid.
Ash Can
So now that Christie has proven that he isn’t so concerned about the citizens of his state that he isn’t willing to fuck them over in order to score political points against other state pols, now he gets an invitation to CPAC’S confab.
Obviously, you can’t just be any kind of asshole to get a CPAC invitation. You have to go above and beyond the usual standards of assholery.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Buckyblue: According to the Christie support group that meets on MSNBC at 3am PST, if he didn’t actually order the lane closings, he’s in the clear.
Schlemizel
@jayboat:
I make a point of only posting politics on very rare occasions. The missus on the other hand post 6-7 items a day from various lefty bomb throwers. While I almost never post politics I do like to poke back at people who post stupid shit. I sometimes wish I could let stupid slide but certain egregious stupidity just has t be confronted s people know it will be.
Central Planning
Training class all week. Maybe I’ll have a chance to catch up on all the stuff I haven’t gotten done yet.
NorthLeft12
Wow, and conservatives complain about how liberals overuse the court system. Obviously, the Governor to be was already a calculating SOB when he was in high school. Well done Christie Sr.!
And by the way, David Brooks pronouncing Christie out of the 2016 race does not seal the deal for me. I’ll wait for Mr. Kristol the Younger to chime in before I call it over.
Schlemizel
@Ash Can:
The main qualification for an invite to CPAC is that you disturb liberals in real or imagined ways. Crusty fits that requirement. That they love bullies is just a cherry on his shit sundae.
Linda Featheringill
Love the Coke commercial!
I looked at the superbowl commercials [via Chicago Tribune]. An X-rated butterfinger ad? Wow.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemizel: “America” (aka “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee”), surely? That’s the one with the strangely familiar tune.
Ash Can
@BillinGlendaleCA: Someone should tell those idiots that if they want to see their friend and idol run for president, they’re going to have to quit their cushy jobs and run his campaign themselves, because no one else is going to want to touch him with a ten-foot pole.
Matt McIrvin
…Well, that and the holy National Anthem itself, which has a tune lifted from the Anacreontic Society’s drunk-guy song.
Baud
I’ve done three more generous things already this morning, and I’m kind of an asshole.
Suffern ACE
@BillinGlendaleCA: yes. But what this all did was get folks to look at how Sandy funds were spent. Do you think there won’t be more?
Gravenstone
Even as that commercial was airing, I was telling myself that it was time to cue the racist peckerheads. And lo, there was much howling and flinging of poo. Right on schedule.
Baud
The best thing about the Coke ad is that Coke is huge in the South.
Aimai
Ive been to the coca cola museum in Atlanta. That is one enormous international company. They aren’t stupid, even if a fraction of the people who drink one of their sixty or so brands are.
geg6
Day off, thank FSM. Got all the housework done Saturday. Laundry got done yesterday. The only thing I absolutely have to do is go to Agway for a 30 lb. bag of Taste of the Wild bison and venison. Then I’ll try to make a dent in the DVR list.
Didn’t catch the final score last night. Can someone update so I can check my office pool?
Mudge
@Schlemizel:
That reminded me of Molly Ivins commenting on some speech by Patrick Buchanan that it “probably sounded better in the original German”.
Punchy
When do we start the boycott of Coke? Today? Last nite?
Baud
I have to admit, the RNC was right. The right-wing was not outraged by the Cheerios ad. They were too busy being outraged by the Coke ad. I’m glad MSNBC apologized and fired that guy.
Baud
@geg6:
And I thought I was too lazy to google. :)
43-8
satby
Love the Coke ad, love the Cheerios ad, especially love that no matter how much they whine, the nutters have clearly lost the power to intimidate big corporations with their Fauxrage.
geg6
@Baud:
LOL, you busted me. Anyway, I was too busy googling the Bud puppy love ad for my John, who had missed it last night and again on the morning news this morning.
mai naem
I feel bad for the NYT reporter on Mornin’ Ho. Ho and Nicolle Wallace are yukking it up in a very loud fashion to distract from the poor woman’s story. And Ho’s defense of Christie is beginning to sound like “It depends on what the definition of is is?” This is just downright embarrassing. Mika sounds like she’s finally getting off the Christie bus. I am just wondering when they’re going to fire Thomas Roberts since he’s the only one with the stones to publicly disagree with Ho.
J.D. Rhoades
One is reminded of the line from, I think, Chris Rock, about guys who brag “I take care of MY kids.”
“THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO!”
And what the hell is up in New Jersey with teenagers filing lawsuits? Isn’t one of the slams Christie made against Wildstein that he filed a lawsuit over a school board election while in high school? Christie apparently thought it was at least a valid option.
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: Seattle 43 – 8 Denver
NonyNony
@Punchy:
A boycott of Coke is about as useful as a boycott of Disney. Here’s a list of all of the brands that they produce. A boycott of even a few thousand racist xenophobe morons is going to impact their bottom line less than the fluctuations in the price of fuel do. Especially when most of those racist xenophobe morons will loudly say that they’re boycotting Coke on the Internet and then go buy a Fanta or a Barq’s or a Sprite or something when they go to McDonald’s instead. Or maybe even buy a Coke because the point is to be loud about boycotting to proclaim your membership in the xenophobic racist tribe, actually boycotting it is unnecessary, unless you’re worried about getting called out on it.
eric
@satby: except for whoever owns MSNBC.
Wag
@NorthLeft12:
I personally will wait for Mr Kristol to declare this a big nothin burger before I declare Christie to be done. Kristol has his “always wrong” reputation to uphold.
WereBear
I see the Christie apple does not fall far from the Christie tree.
BruinKid
So the NJ Transit was flooded with over 10,000 more people than they expected for the Super Bowl, causing MASSIVE lines to get on to the trains there.
I blame Chris Christie for this. You guys in New Jersey had HOW many months to prepare for the Super Bowl, and you couldn’t figure out basic traffic patterns?? :-P
Or maybe they’ll claim it was for another “traffic study”.
Mustang Bobby
Meanwhile, no one seems upset that the legendary counterculture icon Bob Dylan made a commercial for Chrysler. Which, by the way, is owned by the Italians.
Cervantes
@Mudge: Seven years without her — who knew we could?
J.D. Rhoades
@Mustang Bobby: I know plenty of people outraged by that. I think one of my old friends from the college radio station is on suicide watch.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Mark my words, Dylan will be speaking to an empty ottoman at the 2016 GOP convention.
geg6
@Mustang Bobby:
I didn’t want to bring it up because it upset me so much. Not so much as for who the commercial was for but by the fact that Bob Dylan was doing a commercial at all. Dylan? Really?
agrippa
What reasons would I have to think that Christie had/has aspirations to run for President?
Honus
@Mustang Bobby: Well, the tag line of the commercial was “America’s import”
I seem to recall Bob doing an Apple ad a while back.
Anya
Someone help me out. What was the legal basis for lil Christie lawsuit of the kid transferring to Christie’s school? Did the Christies own the school and the kid took over their property?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mustang Bobby: Dylan did a Victoria’s Secret ad in 2004 and a Pepsi ad in 2009.
dr. bloor
@J.D. Rhoades:
Probably the same people that are still apoplectic about him going electric at Newport. Not to slag on your friends specifically, but some people really need to buy new calendars. What Bob Dylan chooses to do at the age of 72 in 2014 is really no one’s business but his own.
Mustang Bobby
@Omnes Omnibus: The Pepsi ad maybe makes some kind of sense, but Victoria’s Secret? What was the theme music, “Lay Lady Lay”?
Omnes Omnibus
@Anya: Best guess: it would a raised an issue about transfer student’s eligibility. Whether his address was properly within the district, etc. Or it could have alleged that the transfer kid was “recruited” and didn’t happen to land in that district.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Anya: Yeah, the original “Stand Your (School) Ground…
Omnes Omnibus
@Mustang Bobby: Nope.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
People are really upset by that ad? Some people need a serious beating.
dmsilev
Via TPM, the ‘writers’ over at Andrew Breitbart Is Still Dead are frothing:
I know I’m going to regret asking this, but ‘deeply Christian’?
Cervantes
From the New Yorker article Anne quoted above, here’s a summary:
dr. bloor
@dmsilev: And everyone knows Christ spoke American English. With a southern drawl.
slippy
@NorthLeft12:
What’s so spectacular about this anecdote, other than the Bootstraps Cult once again turning out to be a fraud, is how much of a sissy this makes Christie look like. Sue because he didn’t get his spot on the team? Really?
What a piece of work he is.
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
dylan did a cadillac ad a few years back. kinda goofy one, too. made no sense at all.
slippy
@dmsilev:
So, normally I could give a rat’s ass about a super bowl commercial, since I’ll never see it. Looked this up, and wow are the racist assholes getting upset, aren’t they? “America the Beautiful” is a free, public domain song, and fuck the Christian right’s feelings over the subject.
Princess
@dmsilev: Well, there is a whole verse about pilgrim feet.
Mustang Bobby
@Omnes Omnibus: Cool. I don’t have a problem with Mr. Dylan doing an ad for anyone he wants to. I thought the ad was really well done. I was just mildly surprised; I didn’t know he had a history of doing commercial work. I also thought the wingers would go BSC because Bob Dylan isn’t Clint Eastwood, thank dog.
Bobby Thomson
@geg6: After Bob flirted with fundamentalist Jeebus in the 80s, nothing he does surprises me anymore.
Keith G
Cold-like symptoms made my waking up less than pleasant. Cancelled my Monday obligations and poured a dram of Bowmore 12 y.o. single malt. Feeling better.
drkrick
@dmsilev: I’m guessing it’s the “God shed his grace on thee” part. Which is dumb, but less dumb than usual for them.
Bobby Thomson
@dmsilev: Yeah, that’s bullshit. Some people would prefer America the Beautiful as our national anthem (easier to sing, not as militaristic). It’s theistic but not “deeply Christian.”
Cervantes
@dmsilev:
The song does mention God. Maybe that’s all it takes.
As I said last night, the writer may have been a lesbian (though not every woman in a “Boston marriage” was). Worse, she taught at Wellesley College, which fellow Bay Stater (and fellow Republican) Calvin Coolidge famously dismissed as a “hotbed of radicalism.” Even worse, her song lyrics allude to the sins of capitalism (“May God thy gold refine / Till all success be nobleness / And ev’ry gain divine”)
But don’t tell the Tea Party.
Cervantes
@geg6:
That’s an old question, been around since 1965. The answer is yes.
SiubhanDuinne
@NonyNony:
Coca-Cola and Chick-Fil-A have a tight partnership. How are the Coke haters going to square that circle? Hmmmm?
PurpleGirl
@BruinKid: This morning on NY1 someone blamed the tie-ups on New York. Nope, sir, that’s was NJ’s role to figure that out months ago and have the trains available.
SiubhanDuinne
@dmsilev:
They need to pay a little more attention to the second-verse refrain:
Mustang Bobby
@Keith G: It won’t cure it, but it’ll make you glad you’re sick…
NonyNony
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m sure that nobody will bring it up, and the Coke boycotters who are buying Chik-fil-a by the gross because of their politics will “boycott Coke” there by buying a Sprite and not even realize that they’re idiots.
In my dreams we can get the CEO of Chick-fil-A to mouth off about how they’re cancelling their Coke contract because people who speak foreign languages are from the Devil and how dare Coca-cola let Devil-speakers sing America the Beautiful in their Devil Language. It won’t happen, but I’d like to see somebody try it and get crushed. Because Coca-cola isn’t going to back down and apologize for a multicultural ad. They never have before, and they’ve been doing multicultural ads longer than any giant mega-corporation that I can think of off the top of my head.
Cervantes
@Anya:
There was no lawsuit. The idea was, apparently, his father’s reaction to the situation. That’s the kind of father he was: intense.
The reason we know about the lawsuit that never happened? The WP interviewed a former high-school team-mate, Scott Parsons. Here’s something else from the interview:
Where’s that Chris Christie now?
WaterGirl
@Aimai: I wonder if this commercial was inspired by the unauthorized “fake” Coke commercial that was kind of a protest to their sponsoring the olympics in Sochi.
Nutella
@drkrick:
“God shed his grace on thee”
Doesn’t say which god! Could be Baal or Shiva or any of the others.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@SiubhanDuinne: Silly. All that verse means is that the blahs should never have sex, and non-blahs should carry weapons to stand their ground.
danielx
Probably a less than worthy thought, but while watching the Coke/America the Beautiful/red rag for wingnuts commercial I was struck by the contrast between the diversity shown in the commercial and the uniformity of the United States Senate. Diverse we are, diverse the Senate is not – which says a great deal about why general policy propositions like more domestic spending and less spending on the military, favored by solid majorities of the populace, never receive serious consideration in Sodom on the Potomac. Said policy propositions aren’t favored or even considered by the Very Serious People in the Village, either. Go figure.
On another note – it’s a pity for Peyton Manning that the Seahawks went through the Broncos like Sherman going through Georgia, as he’ll likely never get another chance. However…in my neck of the woods his legacy as a class act is completely intact. Off the top of my head I can’t think of another NFL player with a children’s hospital named after him, a project to which he devoted a great deal of time and attention (and still does), not to mention fifty million dollars or thereabouts.
Citizen S
The only thing that upset me about the Dylan commercial was the line about “let’s leave beer brewing to the Germans”. Really? With America’s thriving craft brewing industry? Other than that, I actually liked it.
Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
I’m surprised they managed to pick up on the gay couple when there were SCARY SCARY MOOSLIMS! in the same ad.
NorthLeft12
@Wag: Yes, I agree with you. You could make a lot of money betting against whatever Bill Kristol and David Brooks predict is going to happen.
I was snarking.
NorthLeft12
@slippy: And the conservatives complain about others dependence on entitlements.
Project much?
Penus
Paul Ryan slithered out of the sewer to his enabler, George Stephanopoulos, the other day:
Nice of Georgie to move the Overton Window on his own show and imply that the president issuing executive orders – or rather, this president using executive orders – is potentially GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT. That’s a new low, even for the Village.
A more useful question would have been: “Rep. Ryan, have you considered that if you and your fellow congressmen were doing your jobs instead of being whiny bitches, the president wouldn’t have to ‘do the job of Congress’?”
Barney
Damn, it somehow feels like I’ve dumbed down, when I find that Time has already published what I was going to say:
cckids
@slippy:
This. I (sort of) remember the story about Michael Jordan not making/getting cut from his basketball team. He went home & had a cry, then went out & practiced extra hours every day & kicked ass the next year.
That’s how you do it. Lawsuit? Pffffft.
Bonnie
American Indians were thrown in jail if they didn’t speak English. Otherwise, we would probably be still speaking our own languages and probably bilingual.
Tehanu
@Bobby Thomson:
Hey, the man has six kids and gah knows how many grandkids, plus the expenses of a touring band. I’m not about to criticize him for taking the money, especially as I’m not in a position to know what shape his finances are in. Do people really think he still ought to be living in a cold-water walkup in the Village to prove his ideological purity?
Seanly
I knew the Coke ad with multilingual lyrics was rightwinger bait.
My fave of the night was the Chevy ad with the hubby & wife driving for a very personal reason. My wife was just diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (positive for the Philadelphia gene). She already went through Stage I Lymphoma 3 years ago. I hope that we’re able to take a drive like that when her 1st & 2nd phase treatments are done in 10 or 11 months. Cancer can go fu ck itself.