I hate Politico as much as everyone else, but kudos to that nest of vapid hacks for doing a cover story on Jeb Bush’s ghoulish grandstanding in the Terri Schiavo case.
The story opens, as it should, with the perspective of Ms. Schiavo’s husband:
CLEARWATER, Fla.—Sitting recently on his brick back patio here, Michael Schiavo called Jeb Bush a vindictive, untrustworthy coward. For years, the self-described “average Joe” felt harassed, targeted and tormented by the most important person in the state. “It was a living hell,” he said, “and I blame him.”
This description of Jeb Bush from an ally sounds kinda familiar:
“If you want to understand Jeb Bush, he’s guided by principle over convenience,” said Dennis Baxley, a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives during Bush’s governorship and still. “He may be wrong about something, but he knows what he believes.”
Wrong, but 110% committed to his wrongness, the collateral damage be damned. The crabapple didn’t fall too far from the Shrub.
Almost a year ago, my siblings and I had to make the hideously difficult decision to remove our mom from life support. It was definitely the right thing to do. It was what she would have wanted. But it was hard. I can’t imagine how much harder it would have been if some bastard politician had decided to poke his snoot into our personal tragedy.
I doubt the Schiavo case will have much of an impact in the GOP primaries because that clown cavalcade likely agrees with Bush on the issue. But if he gets the nomination, I hope the Democrats absolutely hammer him on it. He deserves it.
TaMara (BHF)
On the day they were holding hearings on this in Congress, my brother’s convoy in Iraq was attacked and his entire group of young Army Reservists were under fire and there was an attempt to kidnap and hold all of them hostages.
Guess how much news coverage that got?
I hate every one of those bastards that participated in the Schiavo persecution.
prufrock
The Terri Schiavo true believers made the anti-vax crowd seem rational. I remember many wasted bits were spilled on the old St. Pete Times forum trying to get those people to see realty.
MattF
You can get a quick primer on the Schiavo case by googling ‘frist schiavo’ and then ‘delay schiavo’. It’s clear that 2005 Republicans considered the case to be pure gold politically.
hitchhiker
dear fucking god.
“If you want to understand Jeb Bush, he’s guided by principle over convenience,” said Dennis Baxley, a Republican member of the Florida House of Representatives during Bush’s governorship and still. “He may be wrong about something, but he knows what he believes.”
this can’t be happening again.
Baud
I wonder if Jeb! will extol the virtues of small government.
Alex S.
The Terry Schiavo case should make all of Hillary’s baggage or pseudo-baggage seem irrelevant in comparison. But, of course, it won’t.
Cervantes
There’s the way we reacted to and still remember his appropriation of a private citizen’s life for his own ends (to say nothing of her family’s life).
Suppose Democrats make an ad featuring, say, Michael Schiavo, and run it the entire summer of 2016 in appropriate markets. What sort of ad would it have to be in order not to trigger the same revulsion that Bush’s original behavior did?
Cervantes
@TaMara (BHF):
Would news coverage have helped your brother?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Scarborough was hip-deep in this, IIRC. Maybe Hayes, Maddow and/or O’Donnell will make this awkward for him in the lunch room. Maybe not. Pierce wrote a long piece on the whole mess, rife with savage indignation, and Hayes is gauche enough to sometimes put that vulgar man on TeeVee
@hitchhiker: really is depressing that the Bush name is not political poison, but I still won’t be surprised if Jebbie a) opts out, or b) flames out in the primary.
Snarki, child of Loki
The GOP sees those in a permanent vegetative state, where their brain has partly liquified, as an important part of their ‘base’, so of course they’ll try to protect them.
WereBear
Yes. That’s when the cruelty and moral “superiority” got uncloaked for all to see.
The Ancient Randonneur
The anchor of that horrific episode should be tied to Jeb! and mentioned every time something is written about him. Never, ever forget. Ever. He is not kinder. He is not gentler. He’s not more moderate than the others. He is a right wing ideologue vying for the GOP nomination just like the rest of them.
I am stealing this one.
Eric U.
I think that we should start calling him John Bush. I know I am.
hoodie
@hitchhiker: The idea of the Politico types talking about Bush – any Bush – in these terms makes my stomach turn. Jeb Bush is principled to the degree that it’s in Jeb Bush’s interests. The Schiavo thing was pure bible thumper/right to lifer pandering, Bush didn’t give two shits about Terry Schiavo. Any pretensions to principle are merely manifestations of the Bushes’ egos and sense of entitlement. That family is a curse.
Botsplainer
The Schiavo imbroglio turned conservatism into a turd in my mouth. The combination of Katrina and that bullshit flipped me completely.
By way of disclosure, I’d been to some conservative events in 2001-2002, and had seen some of the mental cases that had been sent to work conservatism over this back then – I thought they were nuts, knew that they were spoofing the extent of their movement later, and were dangerously nationalizing a garden variety state court guardianship family dispute – which I was really familiar with from my own practice.
I also knew that the Schindler pro-life priest and legal team was lying about everything from her condition to how she got there. It killed me that Randall Terry was being taken seriously (I was a pro choice, sex positive, affirmative action positive, evolution accepting fiscal conservative), and things felt closer to theocracy than they did before or since.
Cckids
I am all too afraid that to much of the Repubs, this horrifying story will just prove Jeb’s “commitment to life”. Lots of them thought Mr Schaivo was a monster.
Speaking as a parent of an adult son who, physically, is not far removed from Terry Schaivo’s condition, Bush’s actions just make me disgusted & terrified. Also that when the day comes when we have to make that decision, or (FSM help me) he passes at home, we have to worry about outsiders judging or possibly charging us with something.
JordanRules
Tee hee hee…
Classic Betty!
TaMara (BHF)
@Cervantes: You mean was what was going on with our troops in Iraq more important than that circus? Fuck yes.
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
I’d never have guessed.
Violet
The Schiavo fiasco was the thing that pushed John Cole to become a Democrat, wasn’t it? It was terrible. I hope it kills Jeb’s aspirations. It should.
Betty, I’m so sorry about your mom. Such a tough decision for anyone to have to make.
Botsplainer
@Cckids:
They were making up disgusting stories about the guy from whole cloth.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
wasn’t Schiavo the last straw for Republican Cole?
I was thinking about this the other day, and it occurred to me that Bill Frist has disappeared politically, unless he’s been on Fox or CNN railing against Obamacare. They were touting him as a rising star/presidential candidate around this time, no?
Also, I think the Frists were one of those clans that briefly lost their billionaire status during the Bush Crash. I’m sure like Adelson and the Queen of Versailles people, they bounced back
Cervantes
@TaMara (BHF):
I agree with you about the relative importance — that’s not the question. I just wondered if you meant that news coverage would have helped your brother.
(I don’t take what the news business chooses to cover as a barometer of relative importance; and neither, I am sure, do you.)
Belae
Remember that this clusterfuckery is the final turning point that converted John Cole into a die-hard gay loving, capitalism hating, atheist, socialist and a few other things; and away from the true righteous path that would have led to his salvation. /sarcasm.
Howard Beale IV
That’s why Jebbie needs to be ratfucked and the most btahsit craziest in the clown car gets elected in the primaries.
WereBear
from the article:
I shudder at the thought. I understand you can’t Torquemada him out of anything.
Mnemosyne
@Cckids:
My older brother is a Reagan-loving conservative, but he’s also someone who survived a car accident with a spinal cord injury (he’s a paraplegic who walks with a cane now). The thing that won him over to Michael Schiavo’s side was that Terri Schiavo had been in a permanent vegetative state for 15+ years without any serious bedsores. To my brother, that proved that Michael was telling the truth and that she had been getting the very best of care, and that the “pro-life” people were liars. It didn’t change my brother’s mind about anything else the Republicans said, but I doubt he’s going to be a strong supporter of Jeb’s.
Botsplainer
@Cervantes:
I forgot to mention the questionable competence about deciding that 20-something GOP activists were tasked with running important aspects of the CPA in Iraq.
I expected competence, and was instead supplied clown show.
Cckids
@Botsplainer: Yes, I know. Truth & reality are malleable to them; you surely know that.
MattF
@Howard Beale IV: Given that, it’s pretty odd that Politico chose the day after the Mittster withdrew to run this on their front page. Hmm.
Violet
I find it fascinating that Politico did this major front page hit piece on Jeb. What does that say about the Republican establishment? Are the knives out for Jeb and/or the Bushes in general?
Iowa Old Lady
@MattF: They thought they’d score political points, but they misjudged because too many people had been in the position Michael Schiavo was in. They recognized a horror show when they saw one. Hence Cole’s and Botsplainer’s conversions.
Mike J
@Violet: Getting things out early. Release a story on super bowl weekend almost a year before the first primary, if anybody ever brings it up again, “it’s already been dealt with, are we going to bring up the same tired arguments again and again, etc, etc.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: I saw this piece linked on twitter on Thursday, I think it’s been a while coming. As for the Van de Hei Pennysaver making things uncomfortable for Bush, I suspect it’s a case of a blind squirrel tripping over a nut.
Violet
@Mike J: Yeah, good point. Although a front page story on Politico still make me wonder. The story could have gone another way entirely.
LongHairedWeirdo
What really freaked me about the Schiavo case was that I’d heard what a lot of people heard: that Mr. Schiavo had gone to court to ask that Terri’s supporting medical treatments (tube feedings) be discontinued. *HE DIDN’T*.
He initially chose not to have an infection treated; the Schindler’s protested, saying he had an interest in the outcome. He acceded to treatment, but then went to the courts to ask that they act as a neutral arbitrator about what Terri’s expressed wishes about this circumstance had been.
In short: he let the family have their day in court, and present the best evidence they could that she would ask to be kept alive indefinitely.
Somehow that made the nastiness of the situation, and the hatred sent his way, seem that much uglier to me.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Exactly. She was cared for. Michael Schiavo became a nurse’s aide to help in her care. He tried everything, It’s a story of love and devotion and fighting to do the right thing.
The Republicans were utterly on the wrong side with this. What is it about them, I do wonder, that makes them love suffering so much that that is what they spread around the world?
Culture of Truth
Not to mention the whole farce trashed the “sanctity of marriage.”
WereBear
And of course, it was all started and pushed by her parents who just would not face the truth.
I find it truly bizarre that they would rather have her suspended in that state until their own deaths… just so they never had to face “losing” their daughter. Some people have no real conception of what life actually is.
Violet
@WereBear:
Jesus died for your sin. Hung on the cross. Suffering, suffering, suffering.
Violet
@WereBear: Well, life is all about control, if you’re a Republican. Controlling women’s bodies. In this case, it was about controlling what happened to their daughter.
Mike J
One of the main things I remember from the whole fiasco was Bush flying back from Texas to sign the bullshit bill at 1 in the morning. This after years of Republicans saying that there was nothing wrong with the amount of time Bush spent in Texas because he could do his presidentin’ anywhere.
Kropadope
@Alex S.:
Jeb pushes involvement in this matter is the main reason why he may be the only Republican that might actually push me to vote for Hillary. Nonetheless, don’t dismiss the existence of her baggage. It’s real. It’s bad.
JMV Pyro
Easily the oddest thing that came out of the whole Schiavo case for me was the strange bedfellow network that tried to interfere in it. It wasn’t just the godbotherers, although they made up the major chunk of the people who got involved. For some reason I will never understand, a group of left wing disability rights activists I normally respect tried to stop the tube from coming out. It was insane.
LongHairedWeirdo
@WereBear: It actually may have been spite. Read the first ruling in the case – there was a monetary dispute about Michael’s “loss of consort” award.
Family issues are always hard, and it’s a bit of an unfair oversimplification to call it “spite” at first – but after the way the situation continued, and the vilification heaped upon Michael Schiavo, I’m willing to oversimplify the nastiness in this case.
WereBear
@JMV Pyro: Many people were institutionalized as “vegetables” when they simply had movement difficulties, not cognitive ones. They have a point, though they are people like anyone else and often let the pendulum swing much too far.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
BooMan JEB is strikingly weak in Iowa right now….
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Woodrowfan
@Alex S.:
but, but., but,. CATTLE FUTURES!!!!
Amir Khalid
The Teri Schiavo case got global coverage a decade ago to worldwide astonishment. It was pretty obvious that the poor woman had been gone for 15 years, and her body was just an empty shell. Keeping that empty shell technically alive was a peculiarly ghoulish form of torture. I remember Senator Dr Bill Frist claiming, on the basis of video shot by her parents, that she was still there when she plainly was not. I don’t know how he can look in the mirror and still see a physician.
Cckids
@Mnemosyne: Your brother is very right. Caring for an adult in this condition is hard, weary work. Even for me, and I’m the mom, not a spouse; my son’s needed total care from birth.
Doing it for your spouse? For 15 years?Just soul-crushing. Especially when it wasnt just physical; it wasn’t as though she had MS & was still ok mentally.
Cervantes
@JMV Pyro:
Any details you can recall? Or references? (Thanks.)
WereBear
@LongHairedWeirdo: Then it’s even worse that I thought!
Another thing that resonated with me, as one of the 85% of American women who have done stupid things to lose weight, was how quickly it went bad for Terri, and how bad it got.
Things can change in a few minutes. It’s frightening, but I prefer to deal with my fright by not just blithely acting like the reality I want is the same reality actually happening.
shelley
It’s not just Jeb, it’s part of the Republican mindset. How many times in recent years have we seen some R politician ‘double-down’ on a statement after being criticized or being shown it was dead wrong.
buddy h
Will democrats make an issue of this if Jeb wins the primary? I wonder if they’ll think it’s too “unseemly” a subject to bring up. If the shoe were on the other foot, the repubs would be running Schiavo ads 24/7, but the dems always fight with both hands tied behind their backs.
opiejeanne
@Iowa Old Lady: My Republican father was livid about the Schiavo business.
In June of 2003 we had to deal with my mother lapsing into a coma the day after she bumped her head; she had a shunt in place to drain a little arachnid cyst which is why she was lucid for an extra 24 hours, until it couldn’t handle the fluids and was overwhelmed.
There were terrible decisions we had to make, and terrible things we had to learn about. My dad and my sister shoved me into the room to talk to the surgeon who wanted to operate on her brain, and I had to figure out what questions to ask, had to understand the surgeon’s proposals, and and then translate what had already been translated for me so that my sister and Dad could understand it. We were told that she’d die without the surgery, but also that she would die more slowly with the surgery, that her brain was gone, that Mom was gone. She had probably died during the 9 minutes it took me to get her to a hospital. I was on the freeway in Diamond Bar when she suddenly stopped functioning, and made Dad tell me where the hospital in San Dimas/Via Verde was, because he just thought he needed to get her home and put her to bed. An intense 9 minutes that stretched until it felt like hours.
Thank goodness Mom had a living will that stated that no heroic or unusual measures be taken. We still had to discuss that for a while before we decided, after the surgeon described his proposed surgery as fitting that description, because you don’t just pull the plug on your wife or mother without careful consideration.
I can not imagine how much more terrible it could have become for us if the state had interfered, to have them breathing down our necks while we tried to do what was best for her, and how absolutely terrible it was for Michael Schiavo.
JMV Pyro
@WereBear:
Right, although the issue for me was that they were falling for the bullshit conspiracies that were being spread around at the time. I get why they did it. I just expected better judgement from groups like Not Dead Yet on these matters. There’s a difference between being disabled and only having the most basic brain stem functions remaining. Everything that had made Terri Schaivo who she was had been gone for years by the time she was let go.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shelley: I’m usually a plus-ca-change kind of guy, but it does seem like something’s changed in the last few years, Broderist enabling of rightwing nuttiness and demagoguery has gotten worse. Rick Perry was spouting that nonsense about unemployment numbers being faked the other day. Jeb Bush talks about Obamacare being a job-killer, and no one feels compelled to point out that unemployment has steadily gone down since its passage. Boehner turning immigration over to a halfwit racist goon should have been an embarrassment to the entire country, the Village shrugged
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid:
I wish it were different, but a non-trivial number of doctors are assholes, at least in the USA.
JMV Pyro
@Cervantes:
Sure.
Here’s the brief they filed
Here’s a post from an old blog summing up part of the controversy
And another one from a disability rights
magazine
Hope these help.
WereBear
@JMV Pyro: Absolutely so, and I believe that the fundamentalist approach is straight out of the Middle Ages; before modern medicine had the abilities to keep people alive with machines, this wasn’t an issue. But it is now. And they just refuse to acknowledge change.
But that’s always a conservative’s big problem, isn’t it?
opiejeanne
@WereBear: We knew a woman who was giving her 12 year old daughter FenPhen because the kid competed in beauty contests and was a little chubby still. Yes, 12 years old.
When it hit the fan that women were dying of heart attacks because of this stuff, she stopped.
Maybe she stopped.
The girl was a friend of my daughter. Mom was the size of a house.
Betty Cracker
@opiejeanne: What an awful situation; I’m sorry. It amazes me that anyone is arrogant enough to think it’s appropriate to insert himself into another family’s tragedy like Bush did. But that’s who they are, and we should never, ever forget that.
WereBear
@SatanicPanic: There’s been some progress in what we might call humanitarian doctor training, but a bunch of them still with us were formed under the Tin God rules.
SatanicPanic
The Schiavo business was such a disaster because it showed Republicans and Right-to-Lifers for what they really are- people who don’t give two shits about life or about freedom but really just want to control people. Terry Schiavo was dead in every meaningful sense, and everyone could see it, but they couldn’t resist just fucking with this poor man.
I get it, us liberals want to change people’s behavior- we want people to become less racist or treat their employees better. We sometimes want them to eat less junk food. I’ll own that. Conservatives also want to change people’s behavior. They want to make people nastier, stupider and angrier. And if you don’t go along with it, they’re just as happy as anyone else to use the power of the state to make you miserable.
opiejeanne
@Betty Cracker: I pointed the story out to dad and he came unglued. He still voted Republican until he died, at age 94, but I think he might have actually voted for Obama last election, if he hadn’t died just before then. He did not like Mitt and couldn’t stand Ryan.
JMV Pyro
My comments with links keep getting eaten. Anyone know why this might be?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMV Pyro: I think two links is the limit, including the link back to earlier comments. Not sure
Amir Khalid
@JMV Pyro:
Did you exceed the three-link limit? (Remember, a reply to another comment counts as a link.) Did you use a FYWP bad word, like p*ssy, c*sino, ph*rmacy, the name of a certain drug or drugs, sh*e (as in item of footwear), or the surname of the actress who played Hermione Granger?
Cacti
Serious question…
Is there a family living on planet earth right now with more blood on its hands than the “Pro-Life” Bush family?
qwerty42
@Violet:
And they may have knives of their own out. The Republicans are sort of getting rid of some of the clowns and maybe the Mittster was seen as a looser, too.
MattF
@opiejeanne: Somewhat OT– but one should be extremely suspicious of any drug regime for weight loss. Drug companies would happily sell their souls (if they had any) for an effective treatment for obesity, and this view filters down through the whole company.
JMV Pyro
@Amir Khalid:
No to all of those. I don’t know what’s going on.
Buddy H
@Cacti: I’ve said it before: there’s a meanness to that family. The mother. The father. GW. And the way Jeb went after Michael Schiavo. Just a baseline meanness that informs all their actions.
GW’s father, as a boy, used to tease the help by dragging money tied to string in front of them. Barb gives off evil vibes. These are not nice people.
greennotGreen
The Schiavo affair was something that hit a lot of people in their guts – a tragedy being used by politicians to score points – but in evaluating Jeb as a candidate, I would like to know something about what meddling he might have done in the 2000 presidential election, seeing as how Florida played such a pivotal role.
Alex S.
@Violet:
Yes, it’s certainly interesting to think about. The Bush family is the republican establishment. But the Koch brothers are constructing a new GOP around that establishment. Also, Romney would surely like to play kingmaker, but that only happens if Bush is too weak to win decisively.
Alex S.
@Kropadope:
And what is it?
Kropadope
@JMV Pyro: There’s a link limit. Including links to spots on this page (replies).
scav
And they so often tie this interference into family and personal life into a neat holier-then-thou bundle with restrictions on abortion even when the life of the mother is endangered. SomeLivesMatter, example somereallylargenumber.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
For one that didn’t involve eating less and exercising more…. Well, I’d enter into negotiations.
Buddy H
In my experience, there’s only one cure for obesity:
Hunger.
WereBear
@Buddy H: I’ll never forget the image (from some magazine profile) of W, as a grown man, riding a bicycle in front of his mother’s car, very slowly, to make her late for some country club outing.
And the only difference is money. If they didn’t have any, they would be exactly the kind of people the Bushes look down upon.
Kropadope
@Alex S.: Her relentless hard-on for war; her over-fondness for the financial sector of the economy; her “my way or the highway” approach to debate; her Republican-level lying, intellectual dishonesty, intellectual incuriosity, IOKIYAM-ism (the M is “me”). That’s just off the top of my head and without broaching the finer details.
Amir Khalid
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Booman notes that Jeb’s Catholic. He says this is going to be a disadvantage for Jeb, however slightly, because the Republican evangelical base is still suspicious of Catholics. I was a bit surprised. Given the considerable number of Catholics in the American right, particularly in the church’s hierarchy, the prejudice should surely have worn away by now.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@WereBear:
As Violet pointed out, it’s not that they’re willing to suffer themselves — it’s that they want to be able to watch from a safe remove while other people suffer. There’s a reason that it’s a truism that conservatives don’t care about, say, Alzheimer’s until they have to deal with it in their own family. When it’s their family suffering and not someone else’s, suddenly that suffering isn’t entertaining anymore.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WereBear: Bush was on the Letterman show as a candidate, during a commercial break, DL’s producer came over to talk to him about something. Bush casually reached out and used the hem of her blouse to clean his glasses. They really are awful people. I wish Letterman had shown that clip to Nicole Wallace as she bleated about how much she loved the Shrubb.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid: As Booman also noted, playing up religiosity, regardless of denomination, can help the Republican base voters get over his Catholicism. They did with Santorum.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Whyfore you can’t say the footwear word? That’s weird.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: They didn’t seem bothered by Mitt’s Mormonism.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Amir Khalid:
IMO, US conservatives are okay with converted Catholics like Jeb or Newt. It’s the cradle Catholics (ie the one raised in the church since birth) that they’re suspicious of, since we were exposed to Dorothy Day and social justice Catholicism and are therefore not necessarily reliable Republicans. If you meet s Catholic who’s both anti-abortion and anti-death penalty, odds are that they were raised Catholic.
WereBear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, we saw that in real time… to me, that spoke huge volumes about what kind of jerk he really was.
And I was, it turned out, being too kind.
Frankensteinbeck
@hitchhiker:
It will keep happening. That’s the entire conservative movement. They’re pissed that all their life they’ve had to restrain themselves just because they were wrong.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Assume that the vast majority of national journalists are Republicans, particularly of a Reaganite ‘worship the rich, cowboy diplomacy, keep the browns in their place, but pretend that makes you the mature adult’ variety. I find that makes news coverage make perfect sense.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid:
Why on Earth would this be a banned word? Or footwear?
MattF
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Also, cradle Catholics were often born and raised in places along the East Coast, so they can’t be trusted.
ETA: Also, their last names sometimes end in vowels.
Amir Khalid
@Pogonip:
Because some spammers want to sell you footwear from popular brands, just like some other spammers want you to buy certain blue pills for seksy-time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Pogonip: for some reason, that’s a big topic/bait for internet spam
the far right bible thumpers never trusted Old Man Bush on churchy issues, Dumbya spoke their language. We’ll see if Jebbie connects on that level, but I doubt he’ll hit their sweet spot like Huckabee, especially as he seems to be doubling down on the gay-hating. One of the reasons I think Jebbie is far from a sure thing is the primary calendar: Walker takes some of Bush’s constituency in Iowa and Huckabee wins; the Paul network puts son-of-Ron over the top in New Hampshire; Huckabee takes South Carolina…
Full disclosure: I said the R’s would never go for McCain in ’08, or the Mormon in ’12, so this is really pointless lazy Saturday speculation
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
As for Emma, I tried to mention her surname in a comment here a few days ago, and it got eated. FYWP just doesn’t like her, I guess.
WereBear
From the article:
The timing is incredible. She was the shell her husband and doctors had been saying all along. The Republicans were radically, hugely, either mistaken or lying.
And what is their response to the proof of this? Go after the husband. Petulant spite, greedy calculation, and a heart of crumbly cement.
Kropadope
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Democrats should do what the Republicans did and go on a several-decdes-long Referee-working campaign, claiming that the media is persistently biased against them. I’m sure that will go just as well for them as it did the Rs.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid:
FYWP is just mad she never went on a date with…it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kropadope:
I find this wildly unlikely. Lazy bullshit is a job skill on TV news. The GOP is the party of lazy bullshit, attractive to lazy bullshitters. Oh, and the rich, which national level journalists tend to be. These refs came pre-worked.
Pogonip
@Kropadope: Hermione fans unite against FYWP!
don hansen
Republicans love life as long as it can’t talk back or isn’t a tree.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes: You’re really going for asshole of the week, aren’t you?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@WereBear:
The timing is 100 percent credible: Michael Schiavo had publicly proven that Jeb was wrong, and therefore he had to pay by being further investigated. That’s exactly the kind of petty assholes the Bushes are.
coin operated
I remember them trotting Terri’s mom in front of the cameras pleading “Please don’t kill my daughter”. I can see how Jeb! would use this as a teabagger bait. “Look…I stood up to those liberals who wanted to take Terri’s life away”
Mark my words…this *WILL* sell among the right-to-lifers, who are nothing more than religious fascists to me. Remember that the core leadership of those fascists are currently on a junket bought-n-paid for by a group that openly declared that you have no 1st Amendment rights unless you’re a Christian.
As for Dr. Frist…I remember the heavily edited video of Terri “following a balloon” and the Good Doktor saying “looks normal to me!”. Never mind that the autopsy afterward showed her occipital lobe as being completely liquified…she was BLIND. I would like to think that Dr. Frist is hiding in shame after that, but he’s Republican so we know that’s not possible.
edited to clean it up a bit.
Kropadope
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, and I totally wasn’t snarking either.
Hopefully, as time passes, more people will turn away from three-ring TV journalism and are more successful at finding reputable sources that provide true, helpful information about important stories.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck: Yup. They’re tote-baggers. They think of themselves as liberals because they’ve been brow-beaten for thirty years, they have gay friends, don’t want to talk about abortion and believe in global warming even though they don’t actually cover it, or want to do anything about it. But “we all have money in the stock market these days!” and Getting Serious About Entitlements is the shibboleth of Seriousness for the VSPs, even more than acknowledging the simple fact that teachers’ unions are the problem with education.
Alex S.
@Kropadope:
That’s not what I would call baggage. You’d need to get specific, for example, “Over-fondness for the financial sector”, how did that express itself during her career? Also, her hawkishness alone is not baggage, her Iraq War vote is. And actually, I don’t think that much what you say could hurt her. I mean, a republican with the same personality traits would be called a decisive leader.
Kropadope
@coin operated:
I actually saw him on TV pretty recently. Even the liberal Bill Frist is calling out Republicans these days on their extremism. Taking the Schiavo case as an example of how extreme they were when he was a national Republican leader, things are clearly getting pretty bad.
Kropadope
@Alex S.:
All Republicans have those same personality traits. That’s the whole damn point. If the Ds become a left-wing mirror image of the Rs, if both sides actually do do it, then this nation is in serious trouble.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
It was a simple good-faith question arising out of my not fully understanding what she had written. You have a problem with it? If so, try using your big-boy words to express it.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: Shoe?
Alex S.
@Kropadope:
I’m a practical person, I don’t care much for the personalities of politicians, but rather what they want to achieve through them. Lyndon B. Johnson bullying Senators to get the Civil Rights Act passed is good, The Republican House Leadership bullying congressmen to vote against Obamacare is bad. I don’t want Hillary to play nice. At the end of the Obama government, she’ll have a very good hand to play.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
It seems pretty clear to me: what happened to Tamara’s brother and his unit was part of the ongoing fiasco in Iraq. And she sees the Schiavo contretemps as helpful to the Republican party, in that it served as one more distraction from that. I reckon she’s justified in thinking that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Well, she did play a mudblood, so FYWP is being very Malfoyish.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
I remember that shoe used to be a bad word to FYWP because of those spammers. I guess that’s changed and it slipped my mind, but I’m still certain about Emma’s surname.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes: Good faith question my ass.
You are beneath contempt.
Origuy
I think shoes were off the naughty list some time ago. However, the surname of the junior Senator from New Jersey is verboten, because it is sometimes related to making wagers.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
So: someone (at Fox News? at the White House?) decided to distract from that day’s episode of the fiasco in Iraq by having us focus instead on an alternative horror show in Florida? Is this your reading of what she said? Thanks.
Based on her original comment where she explained what had happened to her brother’s convoy, I thought she might have meant that the lack of news coverage somehow made her brother’s situation worse — hence my curiosity — and question.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
I just now tried responding with the word in question. No go.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
You’re shaking my world to its very foundations. I hope you’re happy!
Tree With Water
I’m world champ caliber at minding my own business, and well recall how insulted I felt at the reprehensible behavior of Jeb Bush during that whole sad episode. I’m glad he did it, though (please forgive me, Mr Schiavo). He flew his trues colors, and exposed his own perverted essence by butting his nose into a primal situation where it did not belong. Everyone but his fellow sociopaths already appreciate that fact (or will, when reminded of it), and he’ll never be president for it.
ThresherK
The only thing I can add here is My memory of Jeb announcing the charges being dropped against Michael Schiavo: It took place while the rest of Florida was bracing for a hurricane.
I think there wasn’t a press conference, just Jeb with a Mr. Microphone he’d removed the batteries from.
Cervantes
@Origuy: Booker?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
Why I read Balloon Juice, especially Betty Crackerbrau, for the crisp writing.
Politico, not so much, but glad to hear they’ve committed journalism.
It’s insane to me that Jeb! Bush is considered a credible candidate for president. After everything his elder brother (too long a list) and dad (hi, Clarence Thomas) did to this country.
That’s evidence of a very sick political system.
Elizabelle
Another potential tragedy in the offing:
Wow, that’s eerie and tragic.
Two weeks before the three-year anniversary of Whitney Houston’s untimely death.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
“Third anniversary,” please.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions. The story doesn’t indicate that substance abuse had anything to do with this.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes: Third is best, agreed. Typing rapidly.
@Amir Khalid: Not making any assumptions re Bobbi Kristina. It’s the found in a bathtub part that’s so strange, at this point. The stuff of bad fiction.
JCT
@WereBear: Yes – this to me was the icing on the cake, going after the guy for something that had occurred 15 years prior for which there was no evidence whatsoever that anything untoward had happened. Just evil and vindictive . No other word for it.
And how convenient for Frist to not want to talk about his “video” diagnosis. Sure matches all the objective evidence and then the autopsy reports, right?
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Not from that day’s particular episode, of course, but from the conflict in general. Are you hinting that that situation wouldn’t have made the news in America anyway? Maybe it wouldn’t; maybe it should have.
Kropadope
@Alex S.:
LBJ’s legacy is such that Republicans today are still beating on it for points against Democrats. All those erroneous claims that Obamacare is a giveaway to the indigent? Those are actually complaints about Medicaid and other non-work-oriented welfare programs. Yeah, the Civil Rights Act is a positive thing, but the “bullying” (your word) demeanor he used to sell it was also used to promote policies that did a lot of harm, like the Vietnam War. He sent the Ds into the wilderness for a long time and they’re still struggling with the perceptions he helped create of them.
Now let’s look at Hillary’s track record. Her inflexibility and top-down approach was a huge factor in the failure of healthcare reform in the 90s. Her debate performance against Obama during the primaries indicated she was going to continue this approach. This isn’t the 1960s anymore. A Democratic president can no longer bully Congress. I, for one, am glad that catastrophic political failure didn’t doom the prospect of even a small degree of healthcare reform until 2025.
You can see her penchant for intellectual dishonesty in her “corporations don’t create jobs” comments. She doesn’t believe or understand Elizabeth Warren’s argument that workers and government intervention factor into the success of corporations and the most successful individuals. However, she knows that this is the type of thing you need to believe to attain power as a national Democrat. So she faked it, badly.
We don’t need to elect politicians who are badly, baldly lying to people in order to attain power. Sure, she’s on the right side of most issues, because that’s how the parties aligned. However, if those that abandon truth in pursuit of power achieve that power, that person will be setting the agenda. If we have a president opposed to truth and justice, we don’t need that president corrupting a party structure that, while imperfect, is currently the only decent platform for those promoting truth and justice in American politics.
delk
I was in a coma for 14 days last year. My husband says they were the worst days of his life. 15 years? Man, that just must have been heart breaking.
Zinsky
Charles F. Pierce’s book, Idiot America, has almost a complete chapter about the Schiavo case that provides much more detail about how truly craven and disgusting Jebbie was during that sad episode. To exploit a dying woman for political gain shows just how vile this Bush clan really is.
Elizabelle
CNN and TMZ reporting that Bobbi Kristina was revived and breathing. In ICU at hospital. No further word on her condition.
I hope she was not without oxygen for too long. Eerie.
The Ancient Randonneur
Boston Globe has an interesting story about Jeb! and his high school years:
Oh my, is Jeb! the new Mittens? One can only hope.
debit
Cat update for anyone wondering from the previous thread: not a hairball. X-rays show a mass on his spleen. Vet said that he didn’t have positive feelings and advised we consider putting Rufus to sleep, but that he has seen cases where a massive tumor on the spleen had been benign, so… The cat is only twelve. His blood number looked good, his other organs look good, his heart is great. So he’s under the knife right now. The vet is giving up his Saturday afternoon to do this and I am the most grateful person on the face of the earth. Even if the worst case scenario comes about and the vet makes the decision that it’s hopeless, at least we’ll know, and he won’t wake up to pain.
And now I have to go in to work and wait for the phone call.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Zinsky: reprinted on line, also too.
@efgoldman: HRC’s hawkishness makes me a bit nervous, but my hunch has always been that on domestic/social issues she’s solid, mores than her husband, if not as agile as he, and not as good at communicating it as Warren
different-church-lady
@Cervantes: I didn’t take your question as “assholish”, but at the same time it seems pretty clear to me what she was getting at — there was a huge media circus over the continued vital signs of a single person, for no other reason than insane politics, while in the meantime a set of other lives were in mortal danger in a conflict of true national importance. It’s a comment about shiny objects and the idiots who write about them, and about those who put those other lives in danger.
One brain-dead woman in Florida that we have no direct control over? CRUSADE! Thousands of soldiers we directly sent into danger for no good reason? Whatever.
Amir Khalid
@delk:
Teri Schiavo wasn’t in a coma for 15 years. Her brain would have decayed away for want of oxygen in the minutes after she lost consciousness. That’s when she died.
kc
The whole story is awful, but the worst part is Bush asking for a criminal investigation of Schiavo at the end.
Never forget.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Amir Khalid: When thinking about Republican primary politics, one shouldn’t forget that there were many that thought that Reagan wasn’t right-wing enough. E.g. Richard Viguerie often would bellyache about “Reagan not being Reagan” and so forth. Some of the whispering and wondering that’s expressed in Iowa is by people wanting their purity ponies; some is wanting memes to get out there that Bush has to be more conservative because he’s Catholic or he won’t win. Stuff like that.
Objectively, one only needs to look at the Supreme Court (Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Sotomayor are Catholic) to realize that worrying about Bush’s Catholicism isn’t really a sensible conservative fear.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Fellatio Alger
@Cervantes: Why are you always such a pompous twat?
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
There’s an open debate over whether the concepts of truth and justice should be linked to “the American way.” I’m on the pro-side, but I also think I’m in the minority.
What you’re missing is the fact that the whole reason I don’t want her to be president is the fact that she does agree with me on issues. This isn’t a purity thing. This is an ethics and perception thing. I don’t want my agenda associated with her intellectual dishonesty. I don’t want a goal I share with her accomplished in a way that taints the objective of the goal or makes its legal standing questionable. I don’t want this Goldwater activist leading the Democrats back into the wilderness just as they’re finding their way out.
I’ll gladly take a step back if it will help me traverse the next mile more safely.
ETA: If you think she’ll start fewer wars than the average Republican, you’re out of your mind.
sharl
Aw jeez, this issue. I remember the awfulness of it all, but I had forgotten the extent of the frenzied insanity. A perusal of just one week in March 2005 in Atrios’ archives brings it all back, both the obsessed lashing wingnut christianists like the “Christian Defense Coalition” were giving the GOP, and how appalled non-insane citizens were that politicians would stick their snouts into this private tragedy.
And I’m glad others here are bringing up the role of the media in blowing this whole thing up. As a recall, CNN was particularly egregious, presumably in their continually failing efforts to poach Fox viewers. Ghouls, every one of them!
WereBear
@debit: Oh, I’ve been there. Wishing you the best!
Tree With Water
@Elizabelle: “Untimely death”. Joined the celestial choir, please.
WereBear
Because come on! Doesn’t everybody bully when they get the chance?
jheartney
@Amir Khalid: It’s not about Emma. Google “elevator gate” as one word.
kc
@Amir Khalid:
I think it has, except for maybe a few pockets.
Alex S.
@Kropadope:
So what’s LBJ’s legacy? Civil Rights, Great Society and Vietnam War, I guess? Well, I don’t see how bullying for Medicare or for the Civil Rights Act was bad. And the Vietnam War didn’t need bullying. The political mainstream was even more war-friendly back then than it was now.
But then you also differenciate between the good things a personality can do and the bad things, so you already agree with me. It’s not the personality trait per se, but what to do with it. A weak president might not have escalated the Vietnam War, but neither might he have created Medicare.
Hillary’s involvement with healthcare reform is interesting. I don’t think her personality was a huge factor, otherwise the attacks on Obamacare would have focused more on Obama’s personality than on death panels and the like. The GOP apparently didn’t think that the personality of the ‘brain’ behind the plan was hugely important. They knew they could destroy it by emphazising the complexities of health-care reform, for example through the Harry and Louise ads. (They did something similar with Obamacare by frequently stating how many pages the Affordable Care Act was) By the way, the creation of Obamacare contained a little twist. During the democratic primaries Obama was against the mandate, Hillary was for it. And look who was proven right. Or maybe Obama lied about his real plans to get elected, politicians do that…
You say, she’s on the right side of most issues only because of the party she’s in? Well, then why IS she in that party, and not in the other?
Cervantes
@Fellatio Alger:
What’s that again? You said something but it was muffled.
PurpleGirl
@debit: Will keep thinking good thoughts for you and the kitty. While I don’t have a cat/kitten myself, I have become involved with one rescue/shelter in northeast Connecticut. Cassie (the operator/founder) has had a series of sick kitties and has gone the mile to help them. Even when it looked like a kitty might not survive. It’s upsetting when one is lost.
JordanRules
@different-church-lady: Right and you take the shiny object game back to when it was used to wage the Iraq war rather than deal with 911 and all that implies, thus empowering the malicious constructed war and creating the situation her brother was in.
scav
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Ooooo, the non-apology apology thing peeks out. It’s not racism, it’s perceived as racist by racists vein of attack. Only professional victims see themselves as unfairly treated by blahblahblah and the status quo blessed be its staus and quo (unless one is a downtrodden white male christian heteronormative cop, bien sûr).
Pogonip
In endless winter
My heart cries to speak of s h 0 e s
Oh, cruel WordPress!
Balloon Juice: come for the politics, stay for the poetry and the dog poop.
Botsplainer
@sharl:
Remember “Just Us” Sunday? It was right about then.
Back in ’05, I had the feeling we were one half-assed domestic terror event from a fascist theocracy, and that a willing Congress and obeisant judiciary would ensure the trampling of minority rights.
Fellatio Alger
@Cervantes: Prolly because you have your head so far up your own ass.
mowgli
@Kropadope:
Hillary is by no means an ideal candidate for a true bleeding-heart Liberal like myself.
But we do need to be concerned about picking nominees who can win. Dukakises don’t gain us much in the political process.
Dave
@Alex S.: I agree with this except I think a weak president would have escalated Vietnam. As you said the political mainstream was even more reflexively pro-war then than now. Escalating would have and really was the path of least resistance. Kinda nitpicking of me but I think at least somewhat pertinent.
Cervantes
@Fellatio Alger:
I knew you’d say that.
Two comments, two disparaging mentions of body parts.
Well done, my lad!
Kropadope
@Alex S.:
Thanks for reiterating my point. Obama was flexible. He understands concepts like “separation of powers” and knew that Congress would have to be the entity to shape this legislation, even if it didn’t adhere to all his priorities. So, that “proven right” business is not really substantiated. It’s not a matter of who was right, but the preferences of the people writing the law. It’s funny how the pro-Hillary side and the Republicans both share this antipathy toward the principle of separation of powers.
The market for this sort of crazy is pretty saturated in the Republican party. While I’m sure the financial sector is happy for any opportunity to get a foot in the door with the Ds. While I know it’s not fair to ask her to own her husband’s record, that record is a huge part of the reason the financial sector is so fond of her. I haven’t seen any indication she would like to discourage this. His deregulatory policies were a huge factor in the market collapse of 08.
Look again at her take on the role of corporations , “Don’t let anybody tell you that, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.” She took a concept that’s popular with Democrats right now and butchered it when she tried to express it. That’s because she’s not a believer in the concept itself, as correctly expressed. Why would you want someone arguing on behalf of beliefs that aren’t their own?
debit
@WereBear: Sadly, just got the call. Tumors everywhere inside his abdominal cavity, so he’s gone. FSM bless my vet for being the good man that he is. I can’t think of many that would stay after closing to do an unscheduled surgery.
Thanks to everyone for their kind words and thoughts. Gotta put my head down and get some work done. After I have a good cry.
Iowa Old Lady
@debit: So sorry, Debit. You did the right thing, but sometimes that doesn’t help.
Amir Khalid
@debit:
Damn. I’m sorry for your loss.
sharl
@Botsplainer: I remembered that phrase “Just Us Sunday”, but had forgotten the context/back-story; had to look it up. A link there led to a spot-on critical post from Christianity Today about the hypocrisy of it all.
Soooo much wingnut frenzy back then – christianist and otherwise – that it has all blurred together in my mind.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: Maybe you didn’t notice it in public but I noticed it among my own family, shrinking from him partly because of that, and we have Mormon cousins that we love dearly, but we don’t love their cult.
PurpleGirl
@debit: {{{{{hugs}}}}}.
What was the kitty’s name?
sharl
@debit:
Sorry to see this. Condolences to you.
WereBear
@debit: You did all you could. I’m so sorry.
Fellatio Alger
@debit: My condolences.
Betty Cracker
@debit: So sorry.
WereBear
@opiejeanne: It is a strange thing indeed, when the extreme Christians have so dominated the policies and public face of the Republican Party.
Dave
@efgoldman: Sadly true pretty much anyone credibly elected would have. It’s pretty impressive in a neutral sense how much institutional conventional wisdom puts constraints on policy/behavior.
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: It wasn’t just me thinking that, then.
Poopyman
@debit: So sorry to read that. I’m another of quite a few here who’ve been there. Remember the good times, always.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
From pre-start to post-finish, news coverage of the US invasion of Iraq was pretty darn bad (in the US). Bad news was frequently not reported. Cheerleaders like to cheer, else they might not be cheerleaders.
@different-church-lady:
Sure — I guess I just wondered if she thought (from her very particular perspective) whether something might have worked out better had the press behaved differently.
debit
@PurpleGirl: Thanks. HIs name was Rufus. He’s the orange tabby in this pic. The black one is the cat we just lost a month ago.
I’m going to beg everyone’s pardon for not responding individually. I keep thinking I have it together and then losing it again. Gotta close Firefox for a bit, but just want folks to know that I do appreciate your sympathy.
PurpleGirl
@debit: Thank you for the picture. I’m sure, no, I know, everyone understands not getting an individual response. Take care of yourself now.
Dave
@Cervantes: I was a bit glued to the, in retrospect, truly horrible reporting. I was torn on the war as I had just left the infantry and ETS’ed ans so was in that mindset and I hadn’t really developed a political philosophy at this point so I had picked up some of the rah rah libertarianish streak that was the baseline at the time. And what really turned me against the entire thing was watching how obviously full of shit the Bush Administration and other officials at the time were and how appallingly bad and seemingly dumb the media was at calling them out on it. The most clear example I remembered was the Jessica Lynch event. The video the obviously clear propaganda bullshit around it etc. It really gave me the push to my current pretty leftish politics/worldview. And it boggled my mind at the time how people couldn’t see that the sequence of events presented was clearly bogus. Of course my dumb-ass managed to go to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once following that so I’m not the brightest guy around but that actually had it’s own reasoning that I still have trouble fully groking.
WereBear
@Dave: Hey, you came back. And I think all our soldiers can be proud that they did serve their country.
Because without the Iraq War, the Bush Administration might have captured even more power, to do even worse things.
Botsplainer
@sharl:
I guess it wasn’t until Monica Goodling got nailed that anybody had a grip on just how deep the Christianists had burrowed into the DOJ.
It is only in that context that the list of filibustered judges make sense.
Mike in NC
The media started referring to the Bush family as a “dynasty” about 15 years ago or so. Dubya’s dismal record notwithstanding, if JEB is the 2016 nominee, he’ll be treated with kid gloves.
Alex S.
@Kropadope:
I don’t think the degree of deference to Congress is an explanation. George Mitchell’s compromise bill failed as well. And according to a senior White House health policy advisor, Hillary Clinton’s role quickly diminished during the process:
http://www.prospect.org/article/hillarycare-mythology
In my opinion, it was the idea of health-care reform that had failed. The GOP scare tactics worked, much like they almost worked in 2009. If it really was just Hillary’s ego, then why is health-care reform so hard?
About her take on corporations, a single sentence, not even controversial in content, just in the way something was said, is not baggage at all. You could try to declare her role as a Walmart executive as baggage, but at that time, she was the first lady of Arkansas. I think, it’s understandable. Bill Clinton’s deregulation was bad indeed. But Hillary’s political capital was reduced after the failure of health-care reform, so we don’t know what she actually thought about it. She didn’t tell, also, because of, you know, Monica.
Dee Loralei
@debit: I’m so sorry.
Grumpy Code Monkey
God, what I remember were all the nutters claiming that Michael tried to kill her, biffed it, and that’s why she was in the coma. One went so far as to claim that Jeb Bush should just dissolve the marriage (because obviously, as Governor, he could do that) and lock Michael away for life.
To this day I’m mildly shocked that someone hasn’t shot Michael.
My first question to Jeb would be why he thought it was appropriate for the Executive to step into a family law case. Second question would be if he thought it was appropriate for Congress to nationalize the case. Third would be if he intended to nationalize all such family law cases.
Cervantes
@Dave:
It is difficult to name an area where Bush and his people told the truth. Lying was and is their default action; they do it effortlessly, although they’re hardly as good at it as they think.
It’s interesting to read about your journey. Feel free to elaborate at any time.
I thank you for your service. What one did and why one did it — these things are so large and overpowering that they can be impossible to think about, never mind fully comprehend. I hope you have recovered as much as possible.
opiejeanne
@debit: I am so sorry. I am trying to catch up reading the thread and just came to this. It’s so hard to lose them, no matter how long you’ve had them.
skerry
@debit: I’m so sorry for your loss. We loss our Roxy almost a year ago in a similar situation. She was 3 days from her 12th birthday.
ixnay
@Amir Khalid: Not to mention the disproportionate number of Roman Catholics on the US Supreme Court!
Cervantes
@opiejeanne:
You and Wile E. Coyote, together again!
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@debit:
I’m so sorry. That’s essentially what happened with us and my late great Boris — he was in worse shape than he was letting on and we ended up having to put him to sleep at the vet’s office. I know it’s no consolation, but 15 years is a good long run for a cat.
sharl
@Botsplainer: YES, most definitely! And that politicization of the DoJ was the “gift” that kept on giving. Although that pipsqueak Bradley Schlozman was called on his bullshit hiring practices (pdf, 70pp) – before Bush even left office – he wasn’t prosecuted like he should have been, and a number of his political hires were allowed to stay on, including the odious J. Christian Adams.
ETA: fixed the spelling of Teh Schloz’s name.
Marc
@Kropadope:
No, that’s pretty much the definition of a purity thing.
You’re the guy who thought Ed Markey was unfit for office because he was too mean to his opponent in the Senate race, right? You seem to have a problem with any liberal or Democrat who can actually win elections. Your lofty principles are so… tainted by candidates who actually have to win and hold office, aren’t they?
tl,dr: Don’t feed the trolls. The purity trolls especially.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: In the long run it might have worked out differently if the press had reported on that war the way they should have.
There was a point during the Vietnam war when the reporting became critical of the war and the way it was being run, suspicious of the daily reported numbers of the dead and what had been accomplished, and that started to push the general public in the direction that the anti-war protesters had been trying to push them for years. I don’t remember what the turning point was, maybe right after the Tet offensive because that was pretty huge in my neighborhood. I was pretty young, probably 17 or so but I remember adults who had supported the war, and whose kids were in Vietnam, suddenly singing a slightly different tune, either becoming angry with the evening news and how liberal Huntley/Brinkley or Cronkite were, or else they expressed doubt that we should even be over there messing around in a civil war and that maybe we should have listened to the French who told us not to get involved there.
Gator90
@opiejeanne: No, it wasn’t just you, or just you and VDE.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I don’t want to think about what you just said. It makes my head and my heart hurt.
MadRuth
Charles Pierce is a must read on this subject:
It’s a long read, but wrth it.
Cervantes
@opiejeanne:
Yes, the Tet Offensive was all kinds of turning points: in the war, in the coverage thereof, and in public opinion.
Kropadope
@Marc:
No, because he was dishonest about his opponent’s position and kept the race focused on social issues that are of little relevance to daily life or the legislative calendar. Intellectual dishonesty of the same sort I oppose Hillary Clinton for and that you are demonstrating in that question. For this, he made what should have been an easy race damn close. For more evidence of what playing up social issues over any sort of positive agenda will get for Democrats, I’ll point you toward the 2014 election season.
Edited
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Yeah, you know, I didn’t understand how you could not understand what she was saying, and my reaction to it was to the way you asked. It came across as assholish even if you didn’t mean to be a snot, or even if you don’t perceive your question that way.
You might try to consider someone else’s feelings once in a while. Or not.
Whatever, Tilter at Windmills.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: I noticed that you softened your tone in subsequent replies; that first comment may just have come out all wrong from what you meant it to be, but it came across as really aggressive and snotty.
Alex S.
@Dave:
Yes, that’s probably true. In the end, personality didn’t really matter when it came to the Vietnam War
catclub
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Failure of imagination. Sarah Palin and government help for disabled children. Dick Cheney and his own daughter.
opiejeanne
@catclub: Bobby Jindal and his crack about not needing to keep track of volcanoes.
opiejeanne
@Gator90: It was like being slapped.
Cervantes
@opiejeanne:
Similarly, I have no idea how you could misconstrue my simple question. People are different — but not necessarily bad. Something we learn, or ought to, by the time we leave kindergarten.
It was a one-line question. You may have read too much into it. Bear in mind, there are others here who did not.
That’s incoherent to me because I take the epithet in question to be inseparable from motive.
Really? I’m not among the exalted here — whereas you seemed relieved to be part of the group — who routinely refer to human beings as anuses.
Think again, when you have a long, silent moment.
Redshift
@Mike J: Bush not only flew back early from Texas to sign the Schaivo bill, his staff insisted he didn’t, and that he has always planned to return them. I remember it clearly, because it was one of several examples where I couldn’t understand why they were telling obvious lies for no apparent reason. Is mystified until I read “On Bullshit” and understood that they weren’t deliberately lying, they just didn’t care whether it was true or not, and the evil of it started to make more sense.
Kropadope
@Marc:
And it can be defined one way or the other, I suppose, but purity policing is generally defined by the person wanting the candidate/official to more closely adhere to their personal point of view. Wanting the person who does, in fact, represent your point of view on issues to adhere to an ethical standard is a separate question. You want a short-term win that will cost us for years. Granted, short-term thinking at the expense of long-term thinking is a hallmark of Republicans, Hillary, and Hillary supporters.
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
Somewhat sympathetic to things you’re saying … but just for comparison to the above, can you list a few wins or losses that may have been bad in the short term but were good in the long term?
Cervantes
@Redshift:
If this were the case, wouldn’t we expect to find instances where, perhaps even just by chance, they were telling the truth?
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
If you’re picking fights with opiejeanne — who is generally one of the nicest and most level-headed commenters here — you should maybe take it back a notch. Just saying.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for your advice.
You’re not following too closely, are you? — but don’t let that deter you from commenting.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Hey, if you want everyone to think you’re an asshole, be my guest. I just thought you should be aware that you’re coming across as being an asshole to people who are well-regarded around here (and I’m certainly not referring to myself). What’s next, attacking WereBear because you don’t like her tone?
WereBear
@Cervantes: See?
And I consider it a trollish move that you stole a name from another commenter, so I can’t pie you.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Oh shut up. You tire me and you bore me.
You can’t recognize an attempt to forgive your harsh question, the way it was phrased, and you refuse to try to look at it any other way.
driftglass
Politico does indeed owe Charlie Pierce a Coke:
http://http//www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/charlie-pierce-terri-schiavo-jeb-bush-idiot-america-excerpt
Cervantes
@WereBear:
“See” what? Not following, sorry.
“Stole a name from another commenter”? Who has that kind of energy?
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I thought there was another Cervantes, but that was quite a while ago, wasn’t it?
Cervantes
@opiejeanne:
Well, with that kind of reasoning, who am I to argue?
opiejeanne
Also, Cleek’s pie filter has never worked for me.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: I suppose I should just nod my head and agree with everything you say, because the truth of your position is so irrefutable, that there can be no perceived malice in anything you say and that everyone else here is wrong in such a way that anything they might suggest to the contrary for the next year has become invalid.
Shana
@Violet: I just read the story before coming over to BJ to see this post with 220 comments. I gotta say that’s one devastating story. I know it’s all true and am stunned that it’s in Politico. I hope it buries him.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: I had no idea. That kind of made my day.
Cervantes has been a pill to me in the past, on no provocation. I try not to let it crush my soul.
opiejeanne
@Shana: I”m still trying to wrap my head around Politco writing that. Someone suggested it might be so that it can be declared dead later, and that it won’t be noticed very much by publishing it this weekend, on a Saturday, what with Rmoney’s announcement yesterday and the excitement and/or irritation of the impending SuperBowl.
Cervantes
@opiejeanne:
If in your first four words you’re asking me what I suppose you should do, I made one suggestion earlier: it involved a long, quiet moment. As for the rest of your comment, it’s too melodramatic to discuss.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne:
You know, you do write some useful things — but these attempts to tell me what you think everyone else thinks … a pure waste of time.
opiejeanne
@Cervantes: Do you see a question mark? That usually is the tell that a question is being asked.
Melodrama? You’re delightful.
sharl
I remember when my Mom was dying of leukemia, and in response to the idea of taking her to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Mom’s local (Ohio) oncologist basically shrugged and said something to the effect of ‘sure, I guess it couldn’t hurt’. [That’s a second hand account; I wasn’t present at the meeting.]
In preparation for this trip, we had a family discussion, and I warned my family that the kind of folks staffing MDA probably weren’t going to be warm and friendly types (e.g., versions of Marcus Welby, M.D. for you fellow Olders), but rather more likely to be intellectually gifted and rigorous, but maybe not exactly “people persons.” I’m in the research area myself (though not medical or even life sciences), so such folks are kindasorta my Tribe.
My brother asked, “sooo…kind of like Dr. House?” This confirmed to me the appropriateness of bringing this matter up – especially since only Dad would be able to accompany Mom to Houston – as well as the power, for good or ill*, of cultural/entertainment references in getting a point across to folks who might not normally understand it. So in response to my brother’s question, I said “mmmyeah, pretty much so.”
So, not like a “Shaka, When the Walls Fell” scenario, but maybe in that same general category.
Anyhoo, the reason I bring this up is because of the responses to Cervantes, who I’ve noticed has a very robust intellect, but is occasionally somewhat lacking in people-person skills on this site, e.g.,
face-to-facecommenter-to-commenter empathy. He reminds me of the medical staff my Dad encountered in Houston, as well as my pal in grad school, and (maybe) certain movie characters, e.g., the lead protagonists in The Great Santini or Sometimes a Great Notion (aka Never Give An Inch). Back in my days of lurking a lot at Atrios’ place, there was a commenter who went by ‘SWR’, honest to a fault and very knowledgeable, but didn’t have a clue about why he sometimes upset some folks.I’m glad Cervantes is here (as I was in the case of SWR back in the day), but I’m not surprised that he would rub some folks the wrong way. He has a fine sense of what constitutes justice and decency, IMO (e.g., on the topic of increasing occupation and Palestine and abuse of its people), and an unbounded intellectual curiosity, but his empathy appears to be on a “big-picture” level. On a personal level – at least here – maybe not so much sometimes.
I’m sure Cervantes will correct whatever needs correcting, but such is my $0.02 worth.
*Example of evil use of a cultural/entertainment thing would be the TV show 24.
Betty Cracker
Can y’all access the Pierce post linked by driftglass and MadRuth above? I keep getting a “server down” message.
sharl
@Betty Cracker: They are both incorrectly formatted URLs; going back now to see if fixed versions work…
ETA: this link should work..
SiubhanDuinne
@debit:
I’m another who’s just catching up on threads, and I am so sorry about Rufus (also the name of the late beloved cat belonging to my cousins). He won’t wake up in pain. That is a huge gift you have given him.
I wish him the creamiest part of the Milky Way, and I send {{{{{hugs}}}}} To you.
stinger
@debit: So very, very sorry.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
No.
@sharl:
It does, thanks.
Mnemosyne
@Cervantes:
Hey, as long as you’re fully aware that you’re pissing people off and doing it on purpose, I guess I can’t argue with you. Assholes will be assholes, after all. I foolishly thought you might be better than that and just didn’t realize how you were coming across.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Cervantes:
You really are a prick.
If id didn’t know that this is your usual glowing personality, I’d guess that CS got banhammered, and had stolen your nym.
gocart mozart
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/charlie-pierce-terri-schiavo-jeb-bush-idiot-america-excerpt
ruemara
@debit: Damn. sorry. Very sorry.
@opiejeanne: He (she?) has been stuck in that mode for a while.
Cervantes
@sharl:
Even at that discounted price, I hope you aren’t waiting for members of your intended audience to pay the bill. They’re oblivious, as you will see.
Anyhow, your contribution aside, this particular sideshow is bizarre, not to say ludicrous. For example — and this is far from the funniest instance above — one person made some assertions about something I had written, and when I did her the courtesy of a point-by-point reply (OK, so one of the things I did was to highlight her hypocritical claptrap), she responded like a petulant child — and not a particularly bright child, either. Suggesting against all evidence that I had not given her profound remarks all due consideration, her first response was to say, and I quote in full, “Oh shut up.”
That’s the thing about the Internet, though, isn’t it? Any random set of 46 chromosomes can grab a keyboard and expect to be taken seriously. O tempora, o mores!
Matt McIrvin
You know, with George W., they called this attitude “dry-drunk syndrome”. But Jeb was never an alcoholic, was he?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cervantes: Jesus, you’re thin-skinned for such an aggressively obnoxious douchebag.
Or even more of a troll than I usually take you for.
Lizzy L
@debit: Ah, I’m sorry. Sometimes it just ain’t easy.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
this thread is great. just great.
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m “thin-skinned”? How so?
Larv
@Cervantes:
Well, there’s your habit of impugning the intelligence of those who criticize or question you. This is the same problem you had in the Netanyahu thread the other day. Many people find your style of argument and interaction sufficiently off-putting that they aren’t going to listen to you with any degree of charity. It’s sufficiently widespread that you may want to give some thought to the idea that it may not just be that they aren’t smart or reasonable enough to understand your intent, and that you may share some of the blame.
Cervantes
@Larv:
An example or two might clarify, yes? If you found any of my comments unjustified, I’d appreciate you pointing them out.
In fact I asked you to do so yesterday when you said you didn’t agree with some of what I’d said. (You responded that there was no particular disagreement after all.)
I think I’ve responded to most of this already but sure, it bears keeping in mind.
JR in WV
@debit:
Sorry you lost a good Kitty. We had one called Rufus, bright white coat with red/orange spots here and there, on his head.
He had kidney failure while my wife was in MICU (for 59 days all told) recovering from septic shock. Was nearly 19 y o.
It always hurts to lose a kittty, so hang in there! There are other kittens to rescue, to help keep you warm late at night.
Larv
@Cervantes:
“Something we learn, or ought to, by the time we leave kindergarten.”
“…and not a particularly bright child, either.”
When I said I didn’t agree with everything you said in the other thread, I should have said that I didn’t disagree with the points you made, but I thought that the way you made them was counterproductive. You complained that people were misconstruing your arguments, which they were. But at least in part that’s because they thought you were a jerk, and people don’t like agreeing with jerks.
BTW, I believe you when you say you didn’t mean any offense with your question at #8, but I winced when I read it. It seems to have been a common reaction.
JR in WV
@sharl: My Dad was treated at MD Anderson for CMML leukemia, which had at the time a 9 month mean survival span. He lived several years after his chronic disease went acute.
We found the doctors at M D Anderson to be compassionate, calming, hard working, friendly and not at all arrogant.
Dad provided 32 vials of blood when he was first admitted; part of why they accepted him as a patient was that his disease was quite rare, 1 in 490,000 odd cases. So 4 hours later when an Italian Dr came into the room and asked if Dad felt up to contributing 4 more vials of blood for the Dr’s work, he said sure thing, Doc if it might help someone.
I didn’t meet anyone there who was anything like Dr House in any way. Except for the family doctor who first guided Dad to a hematologist / oncologist. He refused to continue treating Dad when it became clear that he was reaching the end stage of his disease.
We then found a Pakistani Doctor who was a serious Muslim, but who also was the lead doctor for the local Hospice, and showed more compassion than the “Christian” family Doctor who couldn’t be bothered to treat a patient who was plainly going to die in the next few months – on election day, 2004, in fact.
It was an enlightening experience, all in all. I held my Dad’s hand while he slept and watched football on TV with the sound off, for most of that season, until election day.
I don’t much care for Texas, at all. But he got the best care the world had down there. And compassion from his last doctor, as well.
I hope your folks felt well cared for in Houston.
Cervantes
@Larv:
Thanks for the examples! You’re a trooper. I appreciate it.
Re the examples: I think I’ll respond only by asking if you saw what provoked each of them.
And I’m still not sure how “thin-skinned” applies — to me, that is.
OK, that I can understand. Thanks.
I don’t think that’s all there is to it. But anyway, in my neck of the woods, what matters first is the substance, the analysis; less important is what anyone thinks about anyone else personally. It’s the opposite here, sometimes, and that’s not only OK, it can also be amusing.
Well, I apologized to the commenter in question. As for those who hopped to her “defense,” the less I say about them now the better, obviously!
SWMBO
@debit: So sorry to hear this. Take care of yourself. It is never easy to say goodbye.
ETA Damn I just saw where you lost your black kitty too. You have had it rough lately.
Darkrose
@debit: I’m so sorry.
Gator90
It’s amusing to see how this turned into a why-is-Cervantes-such-an-asshole thread.
Trolls are trolls because they like attention.
Callisto
@Larv:
Everybody did it seems. Because it was unnecessary and patronizing.
What would have made anybody think that TaMara’s frustration at the news media’s duplicity and chasing-of-shiny-objects was anything other than that? It didn’t seem to me to be something that needed to be probed using such superciliousness.
Callisto
I might add, the continuance throughout the entire thread of the belittling in response to people pointing it out doesn’t help at all. It shows a high degree of narcissism.
Cervantes
@Callisto:
By my lights, it was a matter-of-fact question, neither “patronizing” nor “supercilious.” What do these words actually mean to you?
@Callisto:
If you’re seeking a reply, I responded to this kind of general statement here.
Callisto
@Cervantes:
Well I would assume you would hardly find yourself patronizing. People rarely ever do until they’re taught to recognize it in themselves. That’s very typical of this sort of behavior. I’m starting to get the feeling you’re more than a bit Asperger-y.
sharl
@JR in WV: It sounds like your good experience at MDA is typical of what most people get there. What my parents encountered wasn’t quite so good, although the worse part of it was the failure to get anyone to follow up or return calls after my folks got back to Ohio. I think even Dad knew by then that what Mom had was fatal, but the communication failures were inexcusable just the same.
I fucked that thing up bad by not being there with them; shoulda made the time for the trip. Even with MDA’s good reputation – and I checked things out pretty thoroughly (or so I thought) – things could go sideways. I had exchanged e-mails with someone who once worked there (student temp job IIRC), who did tell me she knew of one senior staff doctor who fit the Dr. House description, but the nurses more-or-less provided a buffer between him (and his lack of bedside manner) and the patients.
As I understood things from Dad – and bear in mind that this is a world he is quite unaccustomed to – Mom was assigned a junior staff doctor who had a good academic research record, but kind of offhand said something like “well there might be something new we could look at here”, but then he was rarely (never?) seen by them again. And the quality of the nursing help sounds like it was quite uneven.
On the day Mom died – a day that came swiftly and ambushed us all – I couldn’t get back to Ohio before she passed. When I finally pulled into the driveway at 2am, Dad was still awake (Mom passed away in late afternoon), and was out at the curb tossing MDA paperwork into the trash for (later morning) pickup. He stayed mad at them for a long time, and the letters that came to him asking for contributions for the next several years (maybe still?) just pissed him off all over again.
I think medical staffs are a lot more attentive when someone knowledgeable from the family is there to respectfully but firmly ask them questions and represent the patient’s concerns. I’ve tried to learn from my fuck up, and I get back to Ohio more regularly to interact with my Dad’s doctors. But hopefully there are no similar trips to Houston in our futures.
celticdragonchick
@opiejeanne:
I remember that stretch of freeway well, and it becomes a fucking nightmare all too often (I saw all 12 lanes in Diamond Bar shut down over a tractor trailer fire and I could get to work at my student intern job with Leighton & Assoc, saw another fatality accident in almost the same place where a big rig drove right over the top of a station wagon)
I am so sorry to hear about your mother. To think that others might demand to push into the worst moment of your life and punish your decsion making is unforgivable.
Cervantes
@sharl:
Sorry to hear what your family went through there. Thanks for taking the time to write about it.
Cervantes
@Callisto:
You’re declining to answer simple clarifying questions, preferring instead to toss off nonsensical “diagnoses,” all without visible irony.
Was it something I said?
Cervantes
@JMV Pyro:
Very helpful. Thanks much!
Callisto
@Cervantes:
I didn’t diagnose anybody. I do remember advising you to sit down with a therapist, and saying you come off as “Asperger-y”.
I understand people who aren’t in the medical field don’t understand what a diagnosis actually entails, but please don’t confuse the issue.
Cervantes
@Callisto:
I was referring to your “Asperger-y” silliness, as well as this.
Clearer? Excellent.
Cervantes
@Gator90:
If you learned something, then it was worth it.
There’s an obvious way out. Will you find it?
Callisto
@Cervantes:
Link didn’t work. Either way, I expect it’s the same tedious stuff as before.
Callisto
Oh, got the link to work. Sorry, “showing narcissism” isn’t a diagnosis. Everybody shows some degree of narcissism; it’s necessary for a healthy well-being. Too much, however, is problematic.
That isn’t a diagnosis. Again, I understand those with no medical training might not notice the difference.
Cervantes
@Callisto:
Well, that’s impressive.
Glad to see your vaunted “medical training” is good for something.