I’m not sure tribble-topped presidential aspirant Rand Paul recovers from this:
In a variety of campaign appearances that were captured on video, Paul repeatedly compared Reagan unfavorably to Carter on one of Paul’s top policy priorities: government spending. When Paul was a surrogate speaker for his father, then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), during the elder Paul’s 2008 presidential quest, his sales pitch included dumping on Reagan for failing to rein in federal budget deficits. Standing on the back of a truck and addressing the crowd at the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers picnic in July 2007, Rand Paul complained about Reagan and praised his father for having opposed Reagan’s budget…”
David Corn’s Mother Jones article linked above includes six video clips of Baby Doc slagging on Reagan as a spendthrift as the younger Paul campaigned for his daddy. What Paul says about Reagan exploding the debt is all true, of course.
And it’s not wise to underestimate the Republican base’s capacity to ignore facts and focus on shiny objects: That’s how they came to deify the folksy, addled, debt-exploding Z-grade actor as an exemplar of fiscal rectitude in the first place.
But imagine the field day Paul’s primary opponents will have parading this heresy before the cameras at every debate. The message that Reagan actually was a profligate spendthrift won’t sink in, but the fact that Paul unfavorably compared Baby Jeebus Reagan to Satan’s Valet Carter sure will.
satby
I honestly don’t know any Repugs that like Rand Paul, his fan base is the technogeek libertarian set, and most of them are too young to remember the Reagan years anyway. Blasting Ronnie won’t hurt Rand with them, and I really never thought he had a chance with the establishment Rs, because just like his dad, they can’t trust him to stay on the reservation.
Edited for typos.
beltane
Who knows. The teanuts are so far gone that their reaction to all this may be: We have always been at war with Ronald Reagan.
Maybe if we praise Rand Paul for his repudiation of the Great Satan the teabaggers will turn on him.
Violet
Several years ago I heard Sean Hannity on his radio show say to some caller that Reagan was wrong with the immigration amnesty thing. According to Hannity, “It was the only thing that Reagan did wrong,” or words to that effect. The caller agreed and they continued to discuss how wrong it was. It’s very possible for wingnuts to disagree with what Reagan actually did and still think he’s The Greatest President Ever.
The real Reagan may have done any number of things they don’t like now. That in no way interferes with Saint Ronnie, the mythical Reagan. Just like the real Jesus told people to give up their fortunes and serve the poor and that in no way influences what modern Christianity espouses.
dr. luba
Many assume that Rand, like his daddy, is planning to make a career out of running for president. It’s more profitable to run than to win. Ask that witch from Maryland. Or Palin.
But the Kentucky Dems have thrown a spanner into the works, so he may have to do it for real……or drop out after accumulating enough campaign cash.
karen
Yet somehow Obama will be blamed. Never mind the fact that the real Reagan would be tossed from the current GOP, their imaginary Reagan is only one step down from Jesus.
karen
@dr. luba:
What witch from Maryland?
beltane
@karen: I think the witch in question is from Delaware
Betty Cracker
@satby: That’s my sense, too, though I think it’s possible he could be packaged and sold as a “next-generation” presidential candidate to try to unite the libertarians and so-cons.
Paul’s personality seems ill-suited to politics in general: He comes across as an arrogant dick, not that that’s prohibitive for a Republican candidate, obviously, but even as arrogant as Bush the Lesser was, he could turn on faux-folksiness and false humility at times, something Baby Doc doesn’t seem capable of doing.
schrodinger's cat
The Republican base may be crazy but the primary voters eventually always choose the least crazy person, McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012. I don’t think Rand Paul is that person. Jeb or Christie is my guess.
Bill in Section 147
@karen: I thought the Holy Spirit or Ghost was part of the same shamrock. Reagan, Jesus, Money on a stem of pure right to bear arms.
NonyNony
@satby:
The technogeek libertarian set that drifts towards Rand Paul are Republicans. They’re just the branch of young Republicans that didn’t join the College Republicans because they weren’t into joining things and the religious right has infested the Republican Party to a large degree so young guys who aren’t religious but are conservative assholes tend to not call themselves Republicans.
This has been true for quite a while, actually. I’ve watched a whole cohort of these guys from college drift from Libertarianism to bog standard Republicanism as they aged. It may be different for the current crop of 20-something libertarian dudes out there now, but I tend to doubt it.
nancydarling
“Tribble-topped” is a good one Betty, but TBOGG’s “merkin-topped” is hard to beat.
amk
Let’s not forget that buncha democrats also fell for that crap and enabled that ratfucker. Twice.
Roger Moore
@karen:
Their imaginary Jesus, that is. I don’t think they’d accept the one from the synoptic gospels into their churches.
MazeDancer
Facts do not matter to the Republican base. Hate does. If Rand Paul can convince Republicans in the early primary states that he’s a full-time hater, he’ll do fine.
Facts do not matter. Watching The Daily Show as Jon Stewart shows Sean Hannity, for example, completely contradicting himself over and over is proof enough that facts are unimportant, emotional attack filled with hate is.
The media will never use facts for anything except attacking Democrats. Profits depend on “both sides do it.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Stuff like this always makes me think that in 2016 I’m finally gonna get that crab pot of a primary I’ve been waiting for since ’08, when Giuliani flamed out too quickly for he and McCain to turn on each other like I was hoping for. Could Ted Cruz actually be the one to exploit all their various self-inflicted wounds and make it to the top?
Along those lines, I saw Mark Halperin on MSNBC yesterday and the Morning Joe/Politico/Wall St courtier crowd is still pining for Christie to survive or Jebbie to get in. If Cruz got himself a billionaire sugar daddy or two, I could see him taking them out.
RandomMonster
Meanwhile, Papa Doc’s “Institute for Peace and Prosperity” has decided that the Nevada standoff is a sign of government authoritarianism. Because nothing says peace and prosperity like a bunch of armed yahoos threatening to kill cops for a tax evader.
Chris
@dr. luba:
I am one of these people. The Pauls are professional grifters. Their niche as the voice of the loonies allows them lots of visibility with zero responsibilities. I don’t see them endangering that.
ice weasel
We keep thinking that the other side (wow, that’s a tough opener) uses sense and logic in their thinking. They don’t. Truth is, this will only Paul if the base decides it does. Will they? I think that’s anything but clear or inevitable. This is “our” mistake. We keep trying to make these people, the repub base and the candidates rational and they’re not.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: Completely OT inquiry: What do you think about the Indian elections? How do you like the idea of Modi being the PM?
Chris
@NonyNony:
I’ve had a little theory for a while that libertarianism/Paultardism is the right wing version of a teenage rebellious phase (the socially acceptable kind).
I have a relative the same age as me who was all in the tank for Ron Paul back in 2008 and posted that he simply “couldn’t bring himself” to vote for either of the lesser of two evils. Judging by his Facebook posts four years later, he’d become a garden-variety Romney voter. Teenage rebellion over.
ETA: although it works in the other direction too. Paultardism is a convenient out for people who started out as garden variety Republicans who finally realized what a fucking mess their party was but just can’t bring themselves to admit that the damn dirty hippies were right all along. It’s a way for them to leave the mainstream of their movement without suffering the indignity of lining up with Democrats.
The Dangerman
@schrodinger’s cat:
Jeb’s position on immigration DQ’s him; Christie’s future indictment may DQ him.
I’m thinking The Money knows that 2016 is a lost cause for the White House and may put up a “Goldwater” from the among the Tea Party loons, hope to keep the House and/or Senate to continue to fuck things up, and take the beating at the top of the ticket to rid themselves of the looney tuners at the top of the ticket in the future.
artem1s
a glut of perpetual non-candidate, candidates is the legacy of Citizen’s United. More money in politics means more ad buys and book tours for the grifters. Fred Thompson, Herman Cain, the original Tribble Top-Trump, Papa Rand, hell even Nadar played that game. There’s just real money in it now. If Rand can’t get the Kentucky legislature to give him an LBJ pass he might just move to another state. Is his daddy’s seat up for grabs?
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: Exactly so, Violet. The wingnuts have a mythical Reagan who is light years removed from the historical one. He’s passed into legend with them, and the legend mutates to fulfill current ideological needs. Big Brother is always right because we’ll just rectify the past to conform with the truth as we know it today.
These are the people Orwell was warning us about.
aimai
@Violet: Yeah.The heart wants what the heart wants. If the wingnuts want Rand they won’t care what he said about Reagan. If they don’t, they will pretend to.
schrodinger's cat
@The Dangerman: If your theory is right, Ted Cruz fits the bill.
mai naem
Rand Paul’s in laws are supposedly deeply involved in the campaign fundraising and fundraising alone and there was family involved in his dad’s fundraising too. Not unlike Jack Abramoff’s scheme.
Chris
@MazeDancer:
This is why I always thought Christie had a good chance. The man’s governing style is pretty much entirely defined by pushing weaker kids into lockers and laughing uproariously (teachers’ unions, poor people, the people in a liberal district who were hurt by the bridge scandal). And he’s far more in your face and comfortable about it than Romney ever was. Since the GOP’s politics are to a large extent about nothing but hurting poor and liberal constituencies, well…
Higgs Boson's Mate
Inconsistency is a virtue, not a vice, among Republicans. Turning their backs on their past selves has become a tradition with them. Paul’s statements will be described as “youthful transgressions,” another Republican favorite. That said, Paul has been less than devout in his devotion to the MIC. That, more than any other factor, will keep him from going any further than a few primaries.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
Only slightly off-topic: did anyone else split their sides during last night’s Colbert, when George Effing Will credited the Cubs with winning the Cold War because Reagan got into showbiz starting with the Cubs radio team? (Stephen responded by blaming the Cubs for Iran-Contra, which was a nice touch.)
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Charlie Pierce says not to go to sleep on Walker.
I also agree that Cruz is likely to unite the far-right/evangelical wing that never got their shit together to break McCain or Romney. Now who is the ‘more electable’ one, now that Christie is flailing and Jeb is NOT running, I got no idea.
Rand Paul has the same 12% upper bound (in the GOP primaries, even lower in the general) that Ron Paul had.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t get Rand Paul’s appeal at all. At least his father came across as a likeable old crank when he discussed foreign policy. Rand does not have any of his old man’s superficial charm.
The Dangerman
@schrodinger’s cat:
I could see Cruz as the candidate; he would get Mondaled, but sometimes the disease has to be caught for future inncoulation.
Can you imagine a Cruz nomination with the convention in Las Vegas with Bundy just a few miles up the road? Hee, doggy, ride em, cowboy.
MattF
Pointing out the weanesses and illogic in the current crop of Republican wannabes is.. like shooting dead fish in a barrel. It’s a museum of psychopathology.
Violet
@The Dangerman: @schrodinger’s cat: If the Republicans are going to nominate a Sacrificial Teabagger would Cruz be their best bet? He’s got Latino cred and some of the Money in the party has to know they don’t want the first Latino nominee to be an obvious set-up-to-fail. Maybe they could nominate a Palin.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: Running Joe McCarthy rather than Ike seems like a bad idea if you want to win. But if you just want purity, he is the one.
MattF
@Violet: OTOH, Cruz is an honest-to-goodness demagogue and thug. He gets points for that in winger-land.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: “likeable old crank”
as long as you forget the racism/ white power militias who love him. And many white people can forget those things quite easily.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: This particular election has been gratifying so far (the elections are spread over more than a month) in voter turnout, which has been amazing. Me vote tomorrow.
Modi is your typical in-the-corporates’-pockets right winger. His campaign style is as grating as the hillary bashing rethugs’ personal attacks. His carefully built image as a non-corrupt pol is being dented slowly but surely. His party cannot get a majority on its own is our own check and balance.
Won’t know the outcome till May 2nd week.
Ash Can
The big-money GOP guys will grease the skids throughout the primaries for whomever they’re most comfortable with, and that will be the 2016 nominee. Personally, I’d love to see the teahadists do what they’ve been swearing up and down they’re going to do and finally kick the GOP establishment to the curb and hork out a presidential candidate such as Ted Cruz or Rick Santorum. Considering the fact that the teahadis are far too stupid to pull off a coup like that, though, I doubt that’ll happen.
Violet
@catclub:
When did that happen?
SatanicPanic
@Betty Cracker:
This. Rand Paul is an annoying, pedantic, twerpy man prone to patronizing people. I doubt even Republicans can tolerate him.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: I don’t think Cruz has any “Latino cred” outside of the usual reactionary cranks in Miami.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: Just the other day Noisemax was reporting that Paul was lecturing Fat Tony about his “revolt” comments in reference to taxes.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est: You could be right. Perhaps Jeb has more since his wife is Mexican.
Lawrence
Oh, Rand. You should stick to minority outreach. Primary season is going to be, as they say in Mortal Kombat, FATALITY. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Bobby Thomson
@beltane: Nah, she’s from New Jersey. She just ran in Delaware.
Belafon
I think Paul should next point out that it was the massive government spending that got us out of the recession. He can then say it was totally wrong, and it should not have been done. It would continue his pattern of being correct and wrong at the same time.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
@MattF: He also has stage presence, which is the one thing Walker lacks.
catclub
@Violet: My opinion. Lack of desire to eat enough tough chicken in Iowa.
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: You and I may not like it, but we are speaking of GOP primary voters here.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Lawrence:
BABALITY, man, BABALITY.
JustRuss
@RandomMonster:
He’s not a tax evader, he’s a deadbeat who won’t pay the rent on the land he’s leasing for his cattle. Christ, even Glenn Beck gets it.
Violet
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: I don’t think Walker can go national. He just doesn’t have presence. He’s creepy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet: I’m inclined to think Jebbie will back out, too. I don’t sense in him the same Oedipal complex that lit the fire in his brother’s belly, especially since his brother complicated things even further. And to lose to the Hildebeast might cripple the (apparent) ambitions the Family has for his son. Also, too, I gather there was an article yesterday about Jebbie’s post-FL-gov money-grubbing. I didn’t see the article, but it sounds like he’s decided to win the Kennebunkport Dick Measuring Contest by being the richest member of his generation, and I don’t think all that cronyism and name-trading will play well in either a primary or a general. Even family retainers think it’s a bit over the top, old top.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: Modi’s Sangh Parivar roots bother me, he also strikes me as a true believer. Hoping against hope that India doesn’t make a hard right turn, with him at the helm.
Violet
@catclub: @schrodinger’s cat: Thanks. I have no idea if Jeb might run. I guess if the Money greases the skids for him enough he might decide to. But his son is messing around in Texas politics and I can imagine he doesn’t want to upset that when he himself can sit back and play with his money.
Chris
@Ash Can:
Too stupid, but also too corrupt and dependent on the establishment. Which one of the teabaggers’ stars is going to stand up and say “fuck you” to the establishment for the Greater Good of True Conservatism? And take the pay cut that implies? Palin? LOL.
They’re not going to take back power from the establishment, because they are the establishment, they’re just too stupid to realize it. There isn’t a single one of the benchmarks in their politics that isn’t powered by the money of the same people who ultimately foist McCains and Romneys on them – not their precious Fox News truth organ, not their holy fundiegelical church networks, certainly not any of their heroes from Ronald Reagan to Sarah Palin.
RandomMonster
@JustRuss: Okay, deadbeat.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: He is. I’ll be doing my part and will be voting against this rabble rouser.
schrodinger's cat
@amk: I hope there are enough people like you and BJP cannot muster a majority on its own.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
@Violet:
Indeed, but I wouldn’t be above a side bet that he plays Cheney to Cruz’s fake-Texan-cum-Hispanic schtick.
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
Basically true, but do bear in mind that there’s a core of consistency. Reagan re-mainstreamed racism and united all the different branches of hate. He sold America on the idea that blacks were drug-dealing welfare queens in ghettos and we had to be tough with them for their own good. He sold the idea that dirty negro-loving hippies liked to regulate business, so rich people should be able to grind the poor all they want. He sold the idea that all of this was what good Christians would do. You’re right that conservatives don’t give a fuck about reality, but because of that they remember Reagan’s message, remember feeling like the whole country hated the way they hate and being praised as awesomely mature for their assholery. They want that back so badly they can taste it.
Violet
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: That I could see. Midwestern Governor to go along with Texas Senator at the top of the ticket. Makes sense.
schrodinger's cat
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: Ted Cruz is not going to win big among Hispanic voters or immigrants. Cubans are more equal than immigrants from any other country. He will be as successful as Sarah Palin was in getting the women’s vote.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: His appeal is mainly in north, the bible belt of India, if you will. There are many regional parties, who are very strong in their own states, who will spoil the game for him.
C.V. Danes
Except for the fact that, you know, no Republican president has ever reigned in deficits. That’s always been left for the Democrats to clean up.
Tim C.
My read is Rand can’t quite tell the difference between the grift and the reality. His visit to Howard College for example where he honestly seemed to think he could trot out the talking points about how back in the 19th century Republicans were the better of the two parties on race relations. A freshman pointed out how the parties had switch roles in the 1960 on race issues and he had nothing at that point. I took from that he’s a true believer who just never thought anyone could have a valid response to what Republicans tell themselves in their own circles. His dad is an old con-man who may have never let his kids in on the con.
Omnes Omnibus
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: Walker also lacks a bachelors degree.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: So does this idiot Karen Handel here in Georgia. They love it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Frame the explosive deficit increases of the 1980s as “Reagan caving to Obama Democrats” and you can walk away clean with a smile on your face, because the TeaTard crowd will eat that shit up and come begging for more.
Villago Delenda Est
@satby:
The most fucked up, moronic group of people with high IQs you’ll find in the current political landscape. Think that the computer and the internet fell from Ayn Rand’s hands or something. Not a smattering of knowledge of the history of IT…busy missing the silicon forest for all the silicon trees in front of them.
They do make for superb galley slaves, though.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Have you been watching Silicon Valley on HBO. Fucking heeelarious!
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I think it is something that will come into play in a national campaign. It is probably not a deal breaker in and of itself, but it is goes in the negative column. Walker’s biggest problem is that he will make people like Cruz and Santorum look charismatic by comparison.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Doesn’t that just make him a Real Murkin, not a Point Headed Elite?
Jeffro
@beltane: That’s ok, happy to let Maryland take the credit for Ms. O’Donnell!!
/former DE rez
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: There’s a part of me that almost likes that about him, if I could like anything about the nasty little Randian toad.
The article about Jebbie’s business practices was in an obscure blog called “The New York Times”. here’s the only part that surprised me
I thought he was much richer. And here’s the part that could prove lethal (along with Lehman Bros and sitting on the board of a company that vigorously supported the ACA)
If Ted Cruz, Chris Christie or Erick Erickson want to make Innoveda the new Solyndra or Whitewater, Chris Cillizza and Mike Allen will make it so.
And do what you can for the DSCC and DCCC. 2014!
Steeplejack
@C.V. Danes:
FTFY. Current grammar earworm that is driving me nuts.
As in you “rein in” or give “free rein” to a horse. Monarchs reign and do whatever the fuck they want.
Patricia Kayden
@dr. luba: The witch was from Delaware. Shame on you for besmirching Marylanders!! But everything else you said is dead on. You can make loads of $$$ by running for President every four years. If I was more photogenic, I would consider it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Walker himself doesn’t think so. He has been making noises about finishing his degree in the UW’s new non-traditional degree program. I think that if he goes for it, it is a clear sign that he is planning to run in ’16.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, you’re completely correct, though neither of those demographics swings a lot of lead in the GOP primaries.
If the GOP doesn’t have a credible POTUS candidate for 2016 (and they currently don’t), they’ll still have to nominate an incredible one. Why not Zoidberg?
rikyrah
he is SO not ready for primetime.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack: It never reins (or reigns) in California, boy don’t they warn ya, it pours, man it pours!
Also, too, the reign in Speign falls meignly on the pleign.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: A degree from a non-traditional program would give him even more Real Murkin cred. See how hard he worked to get a degree because Education is So Important! While he takes away education funding everywhere.
Bobby Thomson
@The Dangerman:
Didn’t work out so well for Delaware Republicans in 2010. Heh.
Villago Delenda Est
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: Zoidberg has more personality than the guy with a merkin on his head.
dmsilev
@Infamous Heel-Filcher:
Cthulhu ’16: Why settle for the _lesser_ of two evils?
Shakezula
I hope not. He is great theater.
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est: Rand Paul looks like the guys you really hated in high school or college. The ones who came from money and who had connections to power but who just dicked around, broke rules and laws and always go away with it, even if it took Daddy and a donation to the school to get them out of it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: The reign in Spain is currently by a Bourbon.
Jeffro
@Infamous Heel-Filcher: Doesn’t have a credible candidate…according to us. By their standards and according to what they’re looking for, they’ve got plenty of good choices.
Let’s hope they pick one that stands quite clearly & perfectly for the modern GOP in all its Medicaid-expansion-denying, immigrant-hating, 19th-century-outlook-on-women glory. I nominate Cruz as my first choice and I sure as heck hope GOP primary voters do, too.
Shalimar
@Violet: They still thought Romney was way ahead when the polls closed. There is no such thing as obvious set-up-to-fail when you’re delusional.
raven
@Violet: and got a deferment
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steeplejack: Chris Christie refers to his ex-AG consigliere as “General Samson”, and this morning Breitbart (via Pierce) is referring to the half-assed secessionist TX AG as “General Abbott”. Drives me nuts.
And while I tend to think that polls don’t matter much until around Labor Day, this is fun:
Good news for people who love what Bill Kristol thinks is bad news.
Violet
@Shalimar: Romney was still a somewhat credible candidate. I’m talking about picking a True Believer and crazy person like Sarah Palin. That would give the GOP a Mondale-like result and probably help them banish the tea party.
danielx
@Violet:
Yup. There’s the mythical, twinkly Reagan who was responsible for winning the Cold War, bringing down the huge deficit caused by the eeeevil Democrat Party, bringing back law and order, hippie punching, and probably doing away with ring around the collar. The patron saint of the Republican Party who brought them back from the Watergate wilderness. Then there’s the real Reagan, who increased the deficit by leaps and bounds, then increased taxes (repeatedly) to fix this self inflicted financial wound, was responsible for lawbreaking by senior government officials on an epic scale…and the list goes on. He was also (from a winger standpoint) wrong on the immigration problem, wrong on issues with teh ghey (can’t spend most of your life working in Hollywood and be a homophobe) and actually had notions of working with Democrats in Congress, at least on some issues.
That’s the Reagan who couldn’t get nominated today for love or money and indeed would be laughed off the stage at a Republican primary debate, at which biting the heads off live bats in Jeebus’ name is pretty much required these days. But none of that matters, since Ronnie has achieved sainthood – once given, it can’t be taken back*.
Even though the youngest person now alive who was potentially a Reagan voter is now 48 years old, he’s still Ronaldus Magnus Reagan. Saying bad things about Reagan is, for an ostensible Republican, sort of like pissing on the Stars and Stripes on stage at a Legionnaires’ convention. This will not end well for young Senator Paul (R-Aqua Buddha).
*Compare and contrast with George W. – er, He Who Must Not Be Named – who at one time was a two term Hero to all Right-thinking conservatives and has since become an unperson who was never really a conservative to start with, no matter how much he sneered at Texas death row inmates or how many Iraqi deaths he was responsible for.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Pretty much. That’s why I will be sure he is running in ’16 if he does it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Shalimar: Well, it helped that Rmoney surrounded himself with sycophants who fully bought into the delusions. It also helps that even guys like Kkkarl Rove, if they dare to utter some non-Lysenko approved sentence will be brutally beaten back into line.
liberal
@Villago Delenda Est:
Frankly, the IQ aspect is overrated.
There are things in computer science and related fields that have real intellectual depth, but IMHO most of what goes on is mere programming.
Not that I don’t have a lot of respect for it as a craft. But it ain’t physics, mathematics, or even more directly CS-related stuff like computability, as far as intellectual depth and difficulty. (Not saying that anyone with a sufficiently high IQ could be a great programmer, though—intelligence/talents is more than a single scalar number.)
I’m hardly a tech historian, but ISTM that the real advances in “software” occurred decades ago. And the stuff that’s done in recent decades that is just amazing is the hardware end of things, without which none of the trumpeted advances could take place.
Steeplejack
@Villago Delenda Est:
[Moe Howard voice] Why, I oughta . . . :: shakes fist ::
Violet
@danielx:
Wow. That’s a statistic I hadn’t thought of. Interesting. To anyone under about 45, Reagan is nothing but something studied in a history book.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
It rains Bourbon in Spain? :D
flukebucket
Rand the Son just wants to keep his grifting niche solid. He knows he is never going to be a President. But he can be a libertarian hero for decades.
flukebucket
Rand the Son just wants to keep his grifting niche solid. He knows he is never going to be a President. But he can be a libertarian hero for decades.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: I’ve never been to Spain, but I kinda like the music. And I have been to Oklahoma.
Another Holocene Human
So if Cliven Bundy is a melon farmer, as I read last night on dKos, then he benefitted from the US government paying farmers to let their melon crops rot in the fields to break the IWW and then the initiation of the Mexican Guest Worker program to bring in cheap, exploitable labor to keep the price of those melons just a few cents cheaper and the profits more assured.
More like assur, but whatever.
It’s funny how so many of the farmers who do this call themselves “Christians”. I guess that’s why Dispensationalism was invented. The epistles, unlike literally the whole rest of the Bible, have little to say about farm labor. If Hell were real, Rushdoony would be a Lord in it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve been to Oklahoma, too, and what they call a “mountain” there, we here in the PNW call “low foothills”.
Chris
@danielx:
Wrong on issues with the ghey? Wasn’t he on board the train that said “AIDS isn’t a big deal, it’s just a gay thing and if these sinners didn’t want AIDS they shouldn’t have sinned” train? That would more than make up for any Hollywood associations.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human: A hell of a lot of American “Christians” are exactly the sort of types that Jesus threw things at in the Temple.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Good old Mt. Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: He was. It wasn’t until Rock Hudson keeled over and died that Nancy pleaded with him to stop being such an asshole. Nancy being Nancy (with her infamous talents) she got her way, albeit grudgingly.
Reagan sat on his fucking hands through most of his time in the WH on AIDS.
piratedan
@Omnes Omnibus: Pedro Bourbon, the untold story from Reds pitcher to the Spanish Monarchy, tonight on Bio…… ///////
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: THIS is a serious mountain.
Scroll down a bit to see THE MOUNTAIN.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
@Villago Delenda Est:
Or as I like to say, “If I can haul my pasty ass up it without dropping into first gear, it ain’t a mountain.”
CONGRATULATIONS!
@danielx: Yep. 1984. I was 18 and voted for Mondale, kicking off a lifelong tradition of voting for candidates I had absolutely no interest in, simply because “the other guy” was so, so much worse.
To anyone younger, Reagan’s just another cowboy in a history book.
satby
@Villago Delenda Est: I worked in IT for almost 15 years, riding herd on the t-gs. They may have high IQs (and I would dispute that most of them do) but they almost uniformly have poor social skills and near (or actual) Asperger’s syndrome. Empathy ain’t their strong suit often because they just don’t get human nature in the first place.
It’s how we ended up with Windows 8.
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: “Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbón… Manny Mota… Mota… Mota…”
raven
@satby: In Silicon Valley the main character is trying to buy the name of his company from this rancher type dude. The rancher says “Oh you have asberger’s just like my son”!
jl
Ross Perot still around? He’d be good. His paranoid fantasies would no longer disqualify him.
I forget what he went on about. Some major party plot to fund commie vegan space alien lesbians to sabotage his daughter’s (or was it his son’s) wedding? Something seemed totally nutso then, but that would be very mainstream and ordinary today. Certainly plausible enough to fill a week or two on Fox News.
cmorenc
@schrodinger’s cat:
Christie’s appeal has corroded too much from the multiple bridge scandals for enough of the hard-core GOP base for them to be persuadable now that the pragmatism of supporting him for his strong competitiveness in the general election is worth swallowing their deep mistrust of Christie’s purported moderate apostacies. This mistrust is aggravated by Christie’s prominent on-camera chumming up to Obama in the aftermath of Sandy at a penultimate crucial time just before the Nov 12 2012 elections.
Jeb Bush would seem to be the significantly better “pragmatic” choice on electoral competitiveness grounds, but two problems: 1) Jeb’s going to have to figure out a way to weasel around his pro-immigration reform in a way that is both assuring enough to Tea Partiers that he’ll put a stop to browns from south of the border taking over this country, that at the same time doesn’t angrily alienate the potential for any significant Hispanic support (and motivate turnout among them for Democrats). 2) If the choice comes down to a third revival of a Bush family presidency vs a second revival of the Clinton presidency, a strong majority of the electorate beyond the core GOP base would answer: Clinton! 3) The hard-core base has gone along twice now with the business wing’s less extreme, supposedly more “electable” choice and lost decisively to a ni….um, native Hawaiian-by-way-of-Kenya. They’re going to be more insistent on a canddiate closer to the real true thing (TM), and if it be someone who goes down in a glorious 40+-state, double-digit loss, well that’s just the next Goldwater paving the way for the next coming of a Reagan figure.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus:
Frank “Pat” Pieper served as the Chicago Cubs field (public address) announcer from 1916 to 1974, a span of 59 years.
Another Holocene Human
@raven: It’s not so funny when you have a quit a field you’re talented in and enjoy because of the people.
I don’t know why science is so different–I mean, granted it has its issues (especially the rat race that is pharma research) but socially it is so very, very different from both IT and engineering. Of course, engineers are selected and bred for complete lack of creativity and curiosity, so that explains a lot. But IT is just full of assholes and liars. Another case of money ruins everything?
Bobby Thomson
@catclub: Yeah, I don’t understand Josh Marshall describing him as the kindly old grandfather, but then I come from a family where my grandparents would have spanked me for the shit in Ron Paul’s newsletters.
Omnes Omnibus
@satby:
Without getting into the value and validity of IQ as a measurement of intelligence, most of the learned or technical professions don’t require more than an above average intelligence.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@satby: Working in IT right now, have been for quite some time. If we’re talking about coders, the number of interesting people I’ve met over the decades can be counted on two hands. Those who were truly brilliant, one. Your typical programmer is a flat-affect no-imagination drone who does what he’s told, and whose only genius is in figuring out how to get maximum raises every year while badmouthing his colleagues. I loved the money but damn, I hate the field and most everyone working in it.
I’ve moved over to network security and the drones are even dronier, but the smart guys are really interesting and know their shit. Requires you to use your brain and imagination. Big improvement.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: The money bags don’t need the tea party when they have Dalai Lama quoting, totebagger friendly shills like AEI Director Brooks to do their dirty work.
satby
@raven: Seriously, no diss to those with Asperger’s, but that syndrome is over-represented in IT, especially in coding. In a way it’s kind of nice, people who in pre-tech times might never have been employable beyond solitary laborer found a niche that fits and that they can excel in.
ranchandsyrup
Rand Paul is useful for an attempted wingnut to emoprog reacharound. We’d all be getting proper fucked in that scenario.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If that Lehman thing comes out it’s lethal in Florida. At the peak of the housing bubble, Lehman stole, I mean “lost”, millions out of the municipalities’ and counties’ money market fund in Florida. Like to the tune of a billion dollars. The cities who reacted last couldn’t make payroll. They did this overseas, too, as you’ve probably heard. Anyway, for a while anyone in Florida who’d been associated with Lehman and that whole deal was radioactive.
The Lehman investments were some sort of garbage mortgage backed security, as you’ve probably guessed.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: @CONGRATULATIONS!: Agreed!
My peculiar niche in IT was the translator between what customers needed and what better mousetrap the Tech guys wanted to build, at extreme overrun of costs and time (no, I wasn’t a PPM). And I miss the money, but I gained back 10 years of my lifespan when I got laid off last December. Don’t miss it, or the guys who thought they were the smartest in the room.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, I think that many with high IQs take tests well. Doesn’t necessarily indicate any ability to think.
raven
@satby: Where’s Makato-Chan!
Another Holocene Human
@liberal:
And I think you’re really oversimplifying here but there is a grain of truth in this. The hardware advanced quickly while the software was scaled up in a kind of sweatshop atmosphere throughout the industry and just lacks quality. From the mass-adopted object oriented bloatware mess that is the Windows desktop, for years relying on Moore’s law to save their horrid code from itself, to the folly of having a whole ecosystem of open source mission critical software written in C, with all the attendant hazards therein, it’s frankly embarrassing how poor most of the code out there is, especially in aggregate, as in these projects are not managed properly either. In this context, it’s hardly surprising at all what happened to healthcare.gov and the states.
The demand for GOOD code way exceeded the SUPPLY so companies just supplied shitty code instead.
Application development is uber accessible now but it’s largely blind leading the blind. What’s nice is that Apple’s apis aren’t as crap as VBA built in behavior so even if you are an asshole making a half-assed app you don’t seem like so much of an asshole because things work in a way that isn’t so frustrating to the end user. The democratization of coding.
The end user doesn’t really know how something was developed. They don’t know what they’re getting until they’ve paid their money and they’re deep into it and some important but back-end-complicated function fails to work as specced.
ETA: I forgot to add when we think about how few wise old men and women there are to the mass of coders to show them the light, there was also this kind of macho culture in the 80s of using scripting languages like Perl which are “write only” in nature. Having code in place for decades was not anticipated by many organizations. That’s a lot of what y2k was about. Even organizations that expected their software to be durable didn’t expect it would still be running that long. And many orgs expected it to be very temporary. Nothing left in place for the next team to take over and maintain it. So a big mess was left.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Thimk
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: I heard about Rock Hudson this, Rock Hudson that from the time I was a child.
So one day on Netflix Watch Instantly, this gets vomited up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMillan_%26_Wife
I must see what the fuss is about.
This show is so awful, I don’t understand how it went multiple seasons. The first episode alone should have destroyed the careers of everyone involved.
I’m sure Rock Hudson was a nice guy and all but WTF is so special about him as an actor?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Another Holocene Human: Shit, I could write a book on this alone. Did government coding; amazing any government software works at all. Answer for every (so many its countless) database problem? Moar RAM. SCSI 15k. Oh boy. 200 users in 24 hours didn’t crash it? You get a five-figure bonus!
Jesus, it was so embarrassing I couldn’t take it any more.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, when you get through four years by buying exams from upper classmen, I guess not, huh?
There are some REALLLLLLLLL idiots with engineering degrees. Doesn’t make me feel terribly safe out there.
Science is more collaborative and the idiots and liars get shaken out or if they’re cunning just coattail people with actual skillz and steal their research or whatever. The exception seems to be health science where every bone headed badly designed study gets a news blurb and starts a new dieting fad.
raven
@Another Holocene Human: He was really good in Something of Value, Giant and All That Heaven Allows. Lighten up.
Another Holocene Human
@satby: That’s bullshit, I switched from coding to driving a bus and was much happier. Sure, I wasn’t the smoothest, slickest person dealing with problem customers but I used a few social engineering tricks I pulled out of my ass to make the whole thing work.
I love working outside and working with my hands. Being cooped up in an office is actually a very lonely, unhappy place. It just seems appealing to hit the computer because I grew up not reading faces and so the pure verbal communication online was a more level playing field than in person.
And I was good at that math/coding stuff and people paid me for it, but I got fed up with both clients and the liars.
One nice thing about driving a bus? You’re either behind the wheel pushing that thing through the route or you’re not. No bullshit. Or not very much about it. I don’t have much time for people who leave wheelchairs. Fuck them. The fact that you’re getting paid to ACTUALLY WORK is something that appealed to my poor-social-skills-aspie sense of justice.
Autistics with visual-cognitive focus ought to be good drivers, I would think. And being cooped up in an office with personalities is kind of a treacherous place for people on the spectrum, full of angst and frustration and also loneliness and boredom. For most of recorded history most humans worked outside, in the fields or with the herds. A place I suspect most of modern society’s rejects would find very enjoyable and fulfilling.
But that’s just my two cents.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: Nevertheless, to be a good scientist (or engineer, lawyer, doctor, or whatever), one doesn’t need an IQ that is 3 standard deviations above the average. One just needs to be smart enough to grasp the material if one puts in the work and then one needs to put in the work.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: I have dear old family friends in Oklahoma, but I prefer Spain.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: To be fair, the clients were half of the problem, to hear my dad’s funny-scary stories about his time in DC.
Like the generals who thought that Powerpoint animations were working code.
danielx
@satby:
That would explain a lot, actually. Like how they could ignore the fact that most people really don’t want to have to horse around learning a new operating system…they want to get on with work or pleasure, both of which are impeded and/or delayed if one has to spend time figuring out how to open a particular program. I have been around the block a bit (since CPM was the predominant desktop operating system), and I have to admit I was stumped as to how Microsoft could think it was a good idea to use a touch screen metaphor for everything, including a lot of devices without touch screen. Then I thought of course they did, because it’s fucking Microsoft. If they step in shit it’s not like the company is going to fold before they can wipe their feet. Kind of like the Lily Tomlin bit about the phone company: “If you don’t like us, try two tin cans and a piece of string”. I recently had to replace my dearly beloved 83 year old auntie’s laptop and she was some kind of pissed when she found out I couldn’t get one with Windows 7 any more, at least not without spending a lot of time neither she nor I wanted to spend. Says (or snarls) she: “I wondered why that son of a bitch Steve Ballmer quit when he did, and now I know why!”. She’s an unreconstructed FDR-type Democrat too…love my auntie to pieces.
PS – she says Windows 8.1 isn’t a hell of a lot better, and that’s on top of taking two hours to download and install the update and then someone (meaning me) having to fiddlefuck around downloading new drivers for her various stuff. Windows 8 driver for her printer, for example, didn’t work with 8.1 because Microsoft.
danielx
@Chris:
You’re right and that had slipped my mind, I’m sorry to say. It would have been more accurate to say that Reagan had worked with gay people for a lot of his career and didn’t have any particular prejudice against them, he just didn’t care whether they lived or died.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: You said a mouthful, you have to put in the work. In science there’s a lot of tedium. You need to understand scientific method, too. My experience is that the slower students just flunked, basically. In engineering you can be quite dumb. Now, you can be dumb and industrious and be a GREAT engineer. Or you can be dumb and lazy, which describes a lot of my classmates, and make me question daily decisions like getting in elevators or merging onto the highway.
The problem with IT is that if you’re dumb, which a lot of people in IT are, dumb but good at bullshitting, gotta be good at that, there isn’t a big reference book like a civil engineer has. There isn’t all this prior art to hide behind so you never, ever get sued. Or if you do get sued it gets tossed out. (Really, IT people rarely have to worry about that except for patent trolls and other extortionists and then it’s really the boss’ problem.) So if you’re dumb, easily frustrated, uncreative, and don’t collaborate well you can really fuck some shit up. And they’ll let you do it!
IQ is kind of a chimera–there are people who are smart in different ways. And everybody has potential, especially so when younger, to get better and be better at one set of skills or another. So you can get lazy over time. Without any accountability, you can just actually get worse at what you do, even though you think you’re getting better at it, it’s getting easier. Poor morale at the job can put this on steroids. Then people wonder, ‘whatever happened to so-and-so?’ Or ‘how did somesuch ever get that job?’
kindness
I voted against Reagan twice. It was obvious he had significant Alzheimer’s in his second term and was only functional as his peeps did everything except pose for the camera’s which was really Reagan’s only good function.
As David Stockman so elequently stated, ‘The Hogs, they were really feeding.’ Same as it ever was and still is.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@kindness: I remember thinking, after having seen him on some TV thing in 1986, that “oh my God this man’s really, truly gone senile”. He simply was not capable of delivering coherent answers to even simple questions.
It had gotten so bad during his last year in office that you never saw him outside of heavily stage-managed events, and he’d stopped talking. Just would wave if he was asked a question.
John Weiss
@amk: Excellent point. However, ‘ratfucker’ is far too kind a description.
Violet
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I wonder how they managed that. The people I’ve known with Alzheimer’s or dementia don’t seem to be that easily controlled. Plus they’re known for blurting out inappropriate things at inappropriate times. I wonder how they kept him from doing that. Even if they told him all the had to do was wave, he might not want to ‘just wave’.
mclaren
Good stuff. Your writing is getting memorable.
Keep it up!
satby
@Another Holocene Human: Gah, I think you missed my point while confirming it at the same time. I meant that for people like this:
the option of working in a comfortable (for them) environment with reduced requirement to navigate those subtle social cues was offered in the earlier days of IT. Now there’s much more micromanagement and politics, as everyone tries to hang onto their jobs, making that a horrible environment for people who have trouble with social skills.
Edited to add: I agreed with you about the solitary worker outside thing, it was kinda what I meant without saying so clearly. You said it better. But as far as status goes, an IT engineer would have more than a bus driver, deserved or not.
satby
@danielx: Try Classic Shell, it can make it look like Win 7 again.
StringOnAStick
@Another Holocene Human: Wow, until today I didn’t know that my husband the software guy is a total asshole, untalented, arrogant, and stupid. Jesus you guys, ever stop to think that your experiences does not constitute 100% of everyone else’s reality?
LanceThruster
It sickened me hear George Will give Bonzo credit for winning the Cold War last night on Colbert (and the Cubs no less).
Roxy
@Villago Delenda Est:
Roxy
Roxy
One of my favorite MOUNTAINS
NickT
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, given that Rand Paul is a former Texas Bourbon who is now a fake Kentucky Bourbon, I think there’s a reason that his schtick is all moonshine and mirrors.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human: He wasn’t an actor.
He was a movie star.
Big difference.
Ronald Reagan wasn’t an actor. He was a movie star.
300baud
@Chris: Exactly, Chris. If I had to sum up modern libertarianism in one line, it would be, “YOU CAN’T MAKE ME! YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD!”
mack
@Villago Delenda Est: Yup.
VOR
@Violet: Yep. The Minnesota Republican party had a bigger than life poster of Reagan in front of their booth at last year’s state fair. A teenager next to me asked who that was, had no idea.
Chris
@LanceThruster:
I’m afraid that’s pretty much become an accepted meme in the general population. I have no idea if it’ll ever be reversed, but man, do I hope so. (Along with the general cult of Reagan. I like to hope that future historians at some point will finally recognize him as the idiotic lightweight and disastrous president he really was – and that that notion will percolate down into the kids’ history books and thereby the general population).
TheWatcher
@Another Holocene Human: Telecommunications engineer here. I’ve met a lot of your scientist brethren. 90% are coasting on tenure, after writing a couple of papers published in ‘Swamp Ecosystems Today Journal’ on nematode motility. Your fellow learned travelers also foisted TCP/IP onto us for real time services, and it sucks, operationally and in regards to security. You are not better people, no matter how much you tell us how ‘awesome’ and ‘more civilized’ you are, nor are you smarter than us.
Thoughtcrime
@raven:
Never seen “Something Of Value”.
Hudson more than held his own with Taylor and Dean in “Giant”.
Watched “All That Heaven Allows” last night. Douglas Sirk took what could have been cheap soapy material and turned it into a brilliant, artistic indictment of 1950’s conventionalism. Beautifully filmed and truly ahead of its time.
Another Hudson movie to check out is Frankenheimer’s “Seconds” – a midlife crisis thriller.
pj
Rand Paul is now covering his tracks with the lie about Reagan having to deal with “Democrat” majorities in Congress.
For the first six years of his time in office, Reagan had a GOP majority in the senate. Howard Baker and Robert Dole were majority leaders. That information is not hidden, but I have never heard a journalist call out the lie that Reagan had to deal with “Democrat” majorities. Rachel Maddow just let it escape untouched on her program moments ago.