No garden chat this week; around here, the predictions are for another foot of snow on top of last week’s not-quite-two-feet. So we’ll go with the Flower of our American aristocracy, as described in a Boston Globe article about the latest winner of the Invisible Primary:
In the fall of 1967, when a 14-year-old Texan named John Ellis Bush arrived on the bucolic campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, great expectations preceded him.
Jeb, as he was known, should have been an easy fit in that elite and ivied world. His much-accomplished father and his older brother had both gone to Andover; no one was surprised that Jeb had followed suit.
But this Bush almost ran aground in those first, formative prep school days. He bore little resemblance to his father, a star on many fronts at Andover, and might have been an even worse student than brother George. Classmates said he smoked a notable amount of pot — as many did — and sometimes bullied smaller students.
In a tumultuous season in American life, he seemed to his peers strangely detached and indifferent… Meanwhile, his grades were so poor that he was in danger of being expelled, which would have been a huge embarrassment to his father, a member of Congress and of the school’s board of trustees.
Jeb Bush, in an interview for this story, recalled it as one of the most difficult times of his life, while acknowledging that he made it harder by initially breaking a series of rules.
“I drank alcohol and I smoked marijuana when I was at Andover,” Bush said, both of which could have led to expulsion. “It was pretty common.” He said he had no recollection of bullying and said he was surprised to be perceived that way by some…
One of those who did get to know Bush in these early days was Peter Tibbetts. The connection, he said, was pot. The first time Tibbetts smoked marijuana, he said, was with Bush and a few other classmates in the woods near Pemberton Cottage. Then, a few weeks later, Tibbetts said he smoked hashish — a cannabis product typically stronger than pot — in Jeb’s dormitory room.
Bush previously has acknowledged what he called his “stupid” and “wrong” use of marijuana. In the years since, he has opposed efforts to legalize marijuana for medicinal or recreational use…
Tibbetts, who was eventually forced to leave Andover in the spring of 1970 after school officials accused him of using drugs, said his one regret about his relationship with Bush is that he agreed to participate with him in the bullying of a student in the dormitory.
Their target was a short classmate whom they taunted, and then sewed his pajama bottoms so that they were impossible to put on. The act was particularly embarrassing, said Tibbetts, who said he felt remorse for joining in with “kids being cruel.”
Bush said in the interview that he has no recollection of this or other bullying incidents raised by classmates. He said he never viewed himself as a bully. “I don’t believe that is true,” he said, referring to classmates’ recollections of specific incidents. “It was 44 years ago and it is not possible for me to remember.”…
Sylvester said “the thing that really struck me about Jeb more than anyone I ever met, is he understood that he was from the world that really counted and the rest of us weren’t. It really was quite a waste of his time to engage us. This was kind of his family high school. There wasn’t anything he could do to be kicked out so he was relaxed about rules, doing the work. This was just his family’s place.”…
Gosh, here I am flashing back to Mitt Romney’s Cranbrook Academy days. (Strange how the bullies never seem to remember, but the victims always do.) At least Romney had the (insufficient) excuse of being a first-gen Mormon outsider in a school full of legacy Episcopalians; Jeb was just a Big Guy on Campus, second-son spare heir from “the world that really counted”, his not-yet-doughy profile only a slightly blurred minting of the Bush family’s beady-eyed lineage among the minor predators. “There wasn’t anything he could do to be kicked out so he was relaxed about rules, doing the work” — other people might be punished for failing to work, breaking the rules, abusing his cohort, but a Bush was immune to such consequences…
And yet, the Republicans — and their Media Village enablers — are already whining that Hillary is a tired retread from a political dynasty nobody liked in its original incarnation?
Amir Khalid
So Jeb was a bully at school? No doubt, some will note that admiringly and say, “Now there’s a man’s man!”
Morzer
Bigfooted by Anne (don’t call me, Annie, you mofo punk!) Laurie… alas, all my hard commenting work in the previous thread cast aside and spurned like a third time Romney at the GOP altar…..
Mustang Bobby
Wow, flashback time. I arrived at boarding school — the one where Howard Dean and Tucker Carlson went — at the same time Jeb arrived at Andover. In my case, I was the bullied kid with all the credentials for it; skinny, homesick, glasses, and an unfamous family.
I knew kids like Jeb Bush. It was a requirement for the schools to admit kids like him to fill out the quota of spoiled privileged wastes of skin who got there on a legacy and would coast through and accomplish nothing more than put scars on their victims and promise of generous donations to the endowment fund once they made it through without a criminal record with the local constabulary.
I lasted a year, got the hell out, and did just fine with my life without a diploma from St. Grottlesex. (And the pot was a lot better back home.)
Morzer
@Mustang Bobby:
You know, there’s a really good set of novels begging to be written about a young Midwestern boy who arrives at St Grottlesex and discovers that he has special powers… Barack Clayshaper might be a good name for him…
Baud
So Bush made his own life more difficult by breaking the rules? Poor guy.
BTW, no one is going to care about the level of bullying reported in the excerpt.
Tree With Water
He smoked grass himself, and soon afterwards turned vicious advocate that targeted Americans have their lives chewed to piece by a legal system itself corrupted by the war on some drugs and certain peoples.
Jeb Bush is a sociopath, as sick in soul as his traitor brother.
Mustang Bobby
@Morzer: I’m working on it. It’s one of my two novels-in-progress.
Baud
@Tree With Water:
Doesn’t matter. Even if Hillary takes a more lenient position than Jeb on drug decriminalization, I don’t see many of the otherwise vocal libertarian pot advocates switching sides.
Callisto
@Tree With Water:
I know, right? “In the years since, he has opposed efforts to legalize marijuana for medicinal or recreational use” kind of soft sells it, doesn’t it?
Frankensteinbeck
Bear in mind, they LOVED George, and they’re angry and embarrassed that he got a bad reputation. That he earned it is irrelevant. The Media Village in particular worshiped the ground George W. Bush walked on. They loved his personality, his family, and his policies. His presidency hurt no one they care about.
Clinton, on the other hand… what a backwoods hick. And he had pretensions of helping the common man. And he let a woman lead sometimes, instead of being a good, earnest helper like Rice.
So… yeah. In their fucked up world, Hillary is an unwanted retread, and Jeb is true presidential material. And they have no idea they’re not the man on the street.
@Callisto:
Well, it can’t be because HE was a lazy, arrogant, entitled, dumb little shit. Must be the marijuana’s fault. If only he hadn’t fallen for the demon weed!
Tree With Water
Perhaps this explains senator Ernst and her bread bag shoes: “Inspectors visiting the Birmingham textile factory of Robert Peel, whose son would one day be prime minister, were told the children there were kept barefoot because “if they gave them shoes they would run away.”*
(From In These Times, by Jenny Uglow. As reviewed in today’s NY Times).
OzarkHillbilly
Color me unimpressed. I was no choirboy way back when either, and while my own sins may have been worse or less depending on the shade of rose one prefers in their glasses, I turned out to be just another flawed human being, as did Jeb.
And it his current flaws I find to be far more instructive.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Frankensteinbeck: He gave them cool nicknames.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
And cut their taxes.
Fred
The thing about Jeb is he can present himself and talk like a reasonable person having the uncanny ability to string words together into coherent sentences. And unlike his brother he can restrain himself from smirking and flipping the bird. Seems like a small thing that most people can manage from day to day but for a Bush, with all that stellar superiority to the rest of we mere mortals it is quite an accomplishment.
Make no mistake, he can walk away with this thing. The Confederacy luvs them some nasty good ol’ boys and after eight years of a yankee negro in their White House they are hoppin’ mad. Jeb is just the guy to stick it to all them uppity blahs and those yankee libruls too.
M. Bouffant
Huge difference between the spawn of generations of inherited wealth on both sides & a poor person/son of a single mother who actually used whatever intelligence or cunning he had to be elected Pres. Twice.
Let alone that Mrs. Clinton, not unaccomplished herself (& who might be using her father’s name rather than her husband’s had she been born, say, 20 yrs. later) is running 16 yrs. after Mr. C. left office, compared to the second effing son of a one-term Pres. being elected a mere eight yrs. after his brother fucked everything up beyond all reasoning (for eight yrs.).
Betty Cracker
Brother Douthat has written a silly column about the PC police controversy and its implications for Hillary Clinton’s presumed ambitions. Nutshell version: social justice warriors could splinter the Democratic coalition while Republicans feast on popcorn (and presumably waltz to victory).
He makes the same mistake Chait made: overestimating the scale and importance of the issue. It really is all about the bubble with these folks.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
No kidding. I’m on this blog every day, and I couldn’t care less about that issue.
M. Bouffant
@Betty Cracker: “Social Justice Warriors” are as vital to the Democratic party as “Rockefeller Republicans” are to their Grand Ol’ Party.
Trying to paint the warriors as equivalent to the Tea Party isn’t going to work until all the SJWs are Democratic office-holders.
Keith G
@OzarkHillbilly: Thank you for saving me the time as I was thinking similar things. Though I was bullied (gayish kid) more than the bully….fuck it. Kids grow. I know former bullies who grew up well and former angels who became ass holes.
This droning on about personal history is pointless and infuriating. We desperately need to win the upcoming election, and to do so we need to focus on policy not Tiger Beat BS.
A caller named John called into the Diane Rehm Show (Friday first hour – time stamp 41:20). His critique (though flawed is shared by way too many) about a Obama proposal and a possible Social Security fix are where Democrat’s discussions need to focus. I am not sure if John’s vote is winnable, but there are many more who have similar questions whose votes we can get and we desperately need. I am sure that they do not give a shit about what some Republican did as a kid in 1970.
god help us.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
A gentle breeze could splinter the Democratic coalition. Tis nothing new.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Damn, now I don’t get to say that! I
Raven
@Keith G: Like droning on about McCain’s flying or grades.
weaselone
@OzarkHillbilly:
The informative part would be
1. He’s all for throwing the book at and destroying the lives of people who smoke marijuana despite the fact he smoked it and did harder drugs when he was younger and people looked the other way. He also has a daughter who has had a long battle with cocaine use. She and JEB deserved leniency. Other people not so much.
2. He’s still a bully and always has been. After dragging the Schiavo case through to the Supreme Court and into the halls of Congress, he was ultimately defeated. He then tried to push a BS abuse case against Michael Schiavo out of what could only be pure spite and damaged ego.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: Given that presidential elections resemble American Idol contests more than issues-oriented debates, it probably does matter that a candidate was an asshole in high school, if the opposition can bake that into the narrative. I’m not saying it’s right, but it seems to be the way things work.
OzarkHillbilly
@weaselone:
Ok, let’s look at it from the other side of the coin: I smoked a little dope and drank way more than too much alcohol (and dabbled in other stuff) back in high school. Did that make me a hypocrite for trying to stop my son’s from doing the same stupid stuff when they were 16? Or just another person who learned a few things along the way?
As far as the whole Schiavo affair, THAT is the kind of relevant recent history I find instructive. But saying “he was a bully in HS, he is a bully now” may well be true (or not), but one does not necessarily lead to the other and really has very little to do with it.
If I could, I would stop the burning of coal as quickly as humanly possible. I wonder how many miners would call me a “bully”?
JPL
@weaselone: Since Jeb has first hand knowledge about drugs, and how they destroy families, he feels strongly that they not be legalized. He’ll give a sob story about his daughter, and then mention, children should not be part of the campaign. See how that works.
divF
O the current T: I have to get to Hartford, Conn. for a one-day meeting Monday. So I will fly there later today, San Francisco-Newark-Hartford, arriving at each Northeast destination just as the snow is supposed to start falling, according to the NWS. Then I will spend Monday at my meeting, which is walking distance from my hotel, while the storm dumps a foot of snow on Hartford. Monday night at the hotel, then fly out Tuesday morning (when the weather is supposed to be clear), Hartford – DC – San Francisco.
I feel like I’m just asking for trouble doing this – everything has to work perfectly. The only thing that might give this a happy ending is that DC is well south of the storm. That, and the fact that air traffic today is going to be light, what with most people watching the Superbowl.
buddy h
“I don’t believe that is true,” he said, referring to classmates’ recollections of specific incidents. “It was 44 years ago and it is not possible for me to remember.”…
Of course he contradicts himself. It’s impossible to remember, but he doesn’t believe it’s true.
I ask my cat “did you poop outside your box?” She replies “I don’t believe I did, no. But it’s not possible for me to remember.”
Callisto
@OzarkHillbilly:
Many of us were screw-ups as teenagers. Jeb, however, had a get-out-of-jail-free card because of his powerful family and he knew it and he used it. And that attitude doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere in the time since Andover. His part in happily enforcing terribly unfair drug laws and continuing to advocate for them goes to show that he has little empathy for people who do the same stuff he did when he was younger.
Baud
@Callisto:
Would it be any different if he had never done drugs and held the same views toward drug laws? It seems like his current views are what’s important.
Callisto
@OzarkHillbilly:
You wouldn’t be a hypocrite unless you would gleefully lock up the neighbor’s kid for doing the exact same stuff. Jeb seems to be in that category.
Rich Gardner
I certainly remember having taken part in bullying once of a kid that another comenter here would call “gayish.” Ah, poor “Gladys” (A name we made up for him that stuck like glue). ‘Course the reason I regret my taking part in the teasing is that I suffered a lot of teasing myself (Not so much for being gayish, but just kinda weird) and thought “There but fror the grace…”
But yeah Jebbie and George were the types to just keep it up year after year as they were never on the other side of it. They were always the top dog, so the suffering of those under them was invisible to them.
Callisto
@Baud:
His current views are most important.
But the past is prologue as they say, and his past is informative to say the least.
To me it’s just more grist for the mill.
JPL
@Callisto: The get-out-of-jail-free card might work. Everyone knows that his brother had certain advantages, and finding out that Jeb did too, might be a little much.
Just One More Canuck
@buddy h: In your cat’s case, it’s probably true. My cat can’t remember that it was snowing outside five minutes after she demanded to be let out and then turned around and came back in before I closed the door
currants
@divF: oooh, sorry, but you’re right–good luck….
I think you’ll get in all right–and probably out too, I don’t know. This feels minor compared to last week, and I think the heavier hit is going to be further north than Hartford.
(Had to go to Montreal not long ago and ended up not one of the four flights originally scheduled; bonus was getting put up in the Royal York in Toronto, one of the Canadian railway grand hotels. (Downside to the bonus: I got there after 9:30 pm and left at 4:45 am–didn’t see much)
Baud
@Callisto:
I suppose. I’m just not all that sure about the hypocrisy angle. When was young and rambunctious, I engaged in some trespassing without getting caught. Am I a hypocritic because I support trespassing laws today?
ThresherK
@weaselone: Yep. We’re talking about Yip Harburg’s “idle rich”* from the inside, the set who would not know the difference awaiting them if they were the “idle poor”.
(*I don’t use “idle” to suggest laziness, but at some point the ability to go to Andover because one is a member of the Lucky Sperm Club should be compared to, say, self-made movie moguls who invented Hollywood after, almost to a man, emigrating from unfriendly places in Eastern Europe and dealing rags, stitching gloves in Gloversville, or opening nickelodeons.)
Zinsky
Of course, since the mainstream media never touched the story of Jennifer Fitzgerald – George H.W. Bush’s mistress, even though he was carrying on an affair with her when he was Vice President, it’s doubtful they will cover the “Jebbie was a pot-smoking bully” story.
Callisto
@Baud:
I think if the enforcement of trespassing laws ruined lives and families en masse the way enforcement of drug laws does then I think it’d be a bigger deal.
Baud
@Callisto:
It is a bigger deal, but that’s irrelevant on the issue of whether a person is being hypocritical or not.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: How’d that work vs dry drunk, AWOL, coke addled C student, Mama’s boy, never ran a bidness that didn’t lose money, Shrub?
Yeah.
Morzer
I am waiting for the Jonah Goldberg column that explains that liberals who are really fascists are missing the key point of Jeb’s education:
the man can sew!
He’s a real feminist – not like them there PC liberals!
Morzer
@Keith G:
Dubya – failed to find oil in Texas, failed to find WMD in Iraq – and in both cases had to rely on Daddy’s partners in crime to bail his ass out, to the extent that it was possible.
Buddy H
@Just One More Canuck: I knew she wasn’t a liar! She really doesn’t remember…
OzarkHillbilly
@Callisto: If I’d had a “get out of jail free” card, I’d have used it too. As is, I just didn’t give a damn. ;-)
Again, I find this fact relevant, his lack of empathy is beside the point. It’s like an empathetic doctor who “feels my pain.” I don’t want a Doc who feels my pain, I want a Doc who makes my pain go away.
Buddy H
Headline from “rawstory”
Gay Alabama lawmaker backs off outing adulterous lawmakers after receiving death threats
“My life’s been threatened in the past couple of days,” she told The Huffington Post. “A lot of my friends are worried about my safety. The police are patrolling by my house more often. I’ve got an alarm system. I am being careful. But they’re not going to scare me back into my house. I’m not going to let them do that.”
Todd said her original plan was to let fellow lawmakers know, “If you’re gonna cast those stones you better look at your own family values and think about it.”
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: Not so well, but not because such things don’t matter but rather because the made-up-out-of-whole-cloth, irrelevant bullshit about Al Gore stuck better. Earth tones. Alpha male. “Love Story” model. “Invented the Internet,” etc. All bullshit but nonetheless highly consequential in the outcome.
Buddy H
@Betty Cracker: Obamacare death panels. No go zones. etc
Kay
@Baud:
Anti-bulling is really mainstream. It’s not a higher-income or “coddled kid” issue anymore, which is how it used to be portrayed.
I get more complaints about bullying from low income or working class parents than I do from higher income parents. It’s kind of been rolled into their general perception that higher income kids are given special or better treatment by schools and police, and a lot of them do believe that to be true. It’s not race. This is 95% white parents. They roll a lot of things into the “bullying” category, but I think what they’re really objecting to is broader- their belief that certain kids get away with behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated in their kids. There’s truth to it, too, although maybe it’s not AS true as they believe. It’s everywhere, in all areas – they’re using “bullying” as a kind of proxy for “generally unfair”.
mai naem mobile
@OzarkHillbilly: i know the Schiavone thing is a current policy issue but i think the way somebody acted as a teen is an insight into their character. I don’t think people change that much. Ive got cousins who I’ve known since childhood.and the assholy.ones.are still assholy and the.nice omes are still nice.
Cervantes
@Mustang Bobby:
Sorry to hear you had a miserable year.
Just a question: Did you have siblings who attended any of those same St. G. schools?
Cervantes
@Kay:
Because the infrastructure is there to deal with bullying but not (nominally) with all the other stuff they’re concerned about?
Cervantes
@Morzer:
Don’t forget how he failed to find Vietnam as well.
Baud
@Kay:
I hope to stand corrected.
debbie
I read someone’s post here last night that Bush’s persecution of Michael Schiavo probably wouldn’t figure into the national debate. I think it should: How better to expose the GOP lie that they’re for less government?
PurpleGirl
@divF: Having helped a friend with a pet adoption expo in Hartford, I’d like to ask which hotel are you staying and is the meeting at the Exel Center of the other convention center? Exel Center is wonky to find rooms in, also to get from the expo center into the Hilton. A warning: trying to enter the Hilton from the inside hallway from the Exel Center, you need your room key to get in. (I liked my room at the Hilton.)
buddy h
@debbie: I think it should, too. But I can’t imagine Ms. Clinton bringing up the Schiavo case in a debate (if it comes to that). I just feel like the democrats always fight with both hands tied behind their backs.
Maybe I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong, in this case.
Kay
@Cervantes:
I think you’re right, although I didn’t consider that, and bullying has a definition and a name and a set of rules and is now accepted as fact- unlike their complaints about unfair treatment in sports programs or extracurriculars or “gifted” programs or the juvenile justice system, etc.
Just to be clear, I think some of what they say is true. I agree. I think there is bias there. I think it’s absolutely present in the juvenile justice system here, as far as “disposition” which is akin to sentencing and is almost entirely subjective for juveniles.
OzarkHillbilly
@mai naem mobile: I knew this kid in HS***. Class one A grade numero uno a$$hole. Beat up people for the fun of it. Not kidding. Once yanked his older brother off a kid because he wasn’t doing it right and then proceeded to show how one beats another into oblivion. Once went to a fair with 2 billy clubs up his sleeves and went cruising for ni**ers to beat up. And did. A real sociopath. One of those people who one is just certain is heading for a death row cell.
Then one day he got stabbed multiple times. Died on the operating room table twice. Unfortunately the doctors brought him back both times. And when he finally got out of the hospital….
It was strange. Dave wasn’t Dave any more. He was a nice guy. Last I heard he got a decent job, got married, had kids and was everything one is supposed to be.
Sometimes, many times, the past is prologue, other times the past is…Past.
***I only caught his act a couple times and stayed as far away as possible. Have not seen him since HS days and everything after I heard 2nd hand from mutual acquaintances.
smintheus
@Baud: Not many people admire bullies, especially the 6 foot 4 variety who gang up on short kids. Anyway, the coverup is as bad as the crime. He doesn’t get to shrug this off as a youthful indiscretion now that he’s on record denying he ever bullied smaller kids.
Cervantes
@M. Bouffant:
You make a good point about the differences but, actually, he did not use whatever he had. As his running-mate said on Election night while acknowledging that first victory in ’92:
It was one line in a short speech and not too many noticed it, but it stood for unspoken principle and pain — as may be apparent even in retrospect to those who remember the various Republican attacks in that campaign.
Yes, Clinton’s own personal behavior had made some of those attacks possible, but at least he did not stoop as low even when some urged him to, because that was not the kind of campaign he wanted to run.
Cervantes
@M. Bouffant:
So true it hurts!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
As one who escorted a son thru it… Oh yeah.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think anyone knows enough about Bush as a candidate yet, really. They don’t know if he’ll be a good national candidate. I know he successfully ran as governor, and we’ll hear raves about that, but people over-estimate how well “state candidate” translates to “national”. I was told repeatedly that Perry was awesome and a threat, and he was a terrible candidate in that primary. Mitt Romney? May have been great as “governor of a blue state!” but he was odd and stiff when he ran nationally.
Steeplejack
Recipe help request!
My brother is having a “dreadful foods” party for the Super Bowl tonight—you know, things your mom (or grandmother) made in the old days that get sneered at today in foodie America but still get mysteriously snarfed up in no time flat. I was going to make the classic green beans and Tater Tots casserole, but last night I saw that one of the other guests is doing the same thing, or something very similar. I’m still going to make the casserole—I’ve already got the ingredients—but I was thinking of doing something else as well.
I was considering cocktail wienies wrapped in Pillsbury dough, but not quite. What I’d really like to do is something like that but with Jimmy Dean sausage—little bite-sized sausage pastries that hit the Sunset magazine retro factor but also have a little zing to them. Am I straying too far from the crackro-American canon to think about puff pastry or phyllo pastry?
Your thoughts and suggestions, please.
Baud
@Kay:
I agree. I’m still not 100 percent certain he’ll win the nomination. I don’t know what he’ll be like in a debate. That’s what sunk Perry.
Cervantes
@Steeplejack:
Damned elitist.
Tyro
@smintheus: Not many people admire bullies
I think you’re wrong about that– most people aren’t bullies and aren’t targets of bullies. They’re bystanders. And given the choice, they’d much rather be the bully and will blame the target for not being smart enough to either be a bystander or a bully himself.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think it’s pre-entry, too. In other words, certain kids are sent that way and other kids get sent other ways- other kids never enter it-they get “warnings”. That’s the toughest because it’s impossible to pin down without, I don’t know, statistical analysis on every step of the process.
When they did (one) analysis of bias and the death penalty, the bias wasn’t police or the court and it wasn’t juries. It was the prosecutor. Prosecutorial discretion on who gets charged with what. I think that’s there.
Steeplejack
@Cervantes:
I know. It feels wrong somehow, but the heart wants what it wants.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack:
I would say yes. The biscuits are part of what made them so horrible. One opinion anyway.
Callisto
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t think his empathy is very beside the point given his job helping craft and enforce the law (and his eye being on the big job). But I totally see where you’re coming from. There’s going to be a lot of these stories over the next almost-two years.
smintheus
@OzarkHillbilly: Sounds like the extreme exception that proves the rule: bullies remain bullies. All the bullies I knew as kids are still mean, cowardly scum – the ones who aren’t already dead.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
Cheese Whiz on toast points.
smintheus
@Tyro: Remaining a bystander isn’t the same as admiring bullies. It’s about burying your head in the sand. Labeling people as bullies makes it harder to pretend not to notice, thus the would-be bystander is more likely to reject bullies who’ve been identified as such.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: That is mostly what I was speaking of. On my son’s expedition thru the JC system, I have to say he was treated fairly by the JC Officers and counselers and judge. In fact his largest impediments were his mother and her enabling lawyer (supposedly acting on my son’s behalf). It did not take long for the JCOs to figure out who was really interested in my son’s welfare.
Of course, I am biased and quite sure my ex would tell a different tale.
Kay
@Baud:
I think there’s a weird in-state effect from people in states where GOP governors win or are popular. They’re always saying “watch HIM, he’s very appealing to moderates!” and then that governor goes on the national stage and people are like “a state actually voted for this clown?”
I have a wing-nut brother in law and my mother in law seats us together at her gatherings because she’s a die-hard Democrat and an instigator. She’s one of those “I’ll hold your coat, go fight with him!” people. He lives in Connecticut and he kept telling me “Romney won Massachusets!” as if it means something profound and I just don’t think it does. I don’t know what it means.
Josie
I find it interesting that in the span of two or three days, Romney decides not to run, an article is published in Politico that is not helpful to Jeb’s image and the article in the Boston Globe accuses him of taking drugs and being a bully in school. It’s almost as if someone is trying to clear the decks for a new Republican candidate. Any guesses as to who that might be? My vote would be for Walker, backed by the Koch brothers.
OzarkHillbilly
@smintheus: I know a couple others who turned around, I just picked Dave because his story is so extreme. You are correct that most don’t change, but I always allow for the possibility, and such people prove that rules are not inviolable. And as I alluded to above, one man’s bully is another’s stalwart defender of truth, justice, and righteousness.
It just depends on who’s ox is getting gored.
OzarkHillbilly
@Josie: Walker would be my bet too.
Schlemazel
I have mentioned this here before. We lived in FLA when Jeb first ran & lost for Gov. We had friends who were big in the state GOP & they told us (after he lost) that Neil was the smartest one but his involvement with the S&L scandal would prevent him from getting elected, Marvin was interested only in money, W was a junkie and that Jeb was the stupid brother. Imagine after what we saw from the junkie how bad it must be to be known as the stupid one.
raven
@smintheus: And just how do you know that?
Tommy
@Kay: There is just that “in state” thing. Seen it a lot lately. I live in a pretty darn “blue” state but somehow we just elected a Republican as Governor. Heck in my district we elected a Republican to a House seat for the first time in almost 80 years.
I hate to be the guy, I mean HATE to be this guy, but saying things like watch the seeds you sowed. It is not going to be pretty. That guy (and it is almost always guys isn’t it) you think is such a liberal Republican, will work with you, will knife you in the back the second he gets a chance. I would aruge almost take joy in it. Mark my words.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Brother Douthat’s columns for The New York Times are always silly, like everything else he writes. He’s as big a dunderhead as Bill Kristol. A few years ago, he wrote a book about contemporary Christianity in America that was very poorly reviewed in The NYT — facts all wrong, lazy assumptions, sloppy thinking, you name it. You’d think he would have learned from that.
buddy h
@Josie: I have to agree.
I’ve come to believe that nothing is random in the stuff that gets put out there for my consumption. There’s always an agenda.
Amir Khalid
Kids these days … A three-year-old boy in New Mexico shot both his parents while reaching into Mommy’s purse for her iPod.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack:
Crabby Snacks!
INGREDIENTS:
4 English muffins, split in half
1 6 ounce can crab, drained
1 jar Old English cheese
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon garlic salt
½ cup butter
dash of Tabasco sauce
INSTRUCTIONS:
Mix together the crab, old English cheese, mayonnaise, garlic salt, butter and Tabasco sauce. Spread crab mixture on the English muffin halves. Place muffins on a sheet pan, and put the sheet pan in the freezer until the muffins are fully frozen, about 4 hours or overnight. Remove from the freeze and cut the muffin halves into quarters. Place muffin quarters in plastic freezer bags and back into the freezer until ready to bake.
To Bake: Preheat the oven to 450°F. Place frozen crab corners onto a sheet pan, and bake for 10 minutes or until they are golden brown and bubbly.
PS: The recipe says they have to be fully frozen before cooking. I’ve found that this is not so. They just have to be cold enough so you can cleanly cut the muffin halves into quarters. Also, the spread mixture above is enough to cover six muffins, so you can go ahead and use the whole pack and have plenty for all. I know it sounds gross, but it’s really tasty — they go fast.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Or to look at the empathy/bully thing from another angle, Republicans are always feeling the need to say “We aren’t racists!” I am quite sure they are convinced it is true and for some it IS in fact true. It is also quite beside the point because their policies at the very least have the effect of reinforcing the racist status quo.
buddy h
@Amir Khalid: This was on fox news?? I thought toddlers/children accidently killing/being killed by firearms was the exclusive domain of raw story.com and crooksandliars.com with a bit of salon.com
I thought the gun enthusiasts at fox would want to bury a story like that.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Given the teams why not use New England Cheese?
Jinchi
@OzarkHillbilly:
It does if you want to toss him in jail for doing it.
aimai
@JPL: Just like Sarah Palin saying she’d be a advocate in the white house for special needs children because of Trig, but actually supporting all the policies and the party which rejects health care coverage for all kids, and rejects funding for the ADA and things like that. See also Texas’s new governor-in-a-wheelchair who is against everythign that would make life easier for other disabled people.
Betty Cracker
@raven: It has to be that jarred, processed crap. I reckon Cheez Wiz would work, or those little tubs of cheese spread in the dairy section. I’ve only used Old English brand, so I can’t vouch for substitutions!
Iowa Old Lady
Sadly, I won’t get to eat Beatle-themed food today. There’s so much snow that we can’t get out of our driveway and the brunch is 90 miles away.
Amir Khalid
@buddy h:
It’s interesting that the Albuquerque police don’t seem inclined to take the lenient “they’ve suffered enough” line with Mom and Dad, considering it was them who got shot.
smintheus
@OzarkHillbilly: No, bullies are not defenders of truth and justice. They seek to inflate themselves by harassing and humiliating others. Nothing to do with truth/justice.
HRA
What Ozark, Raven and a few others have said is where I stand on this thread. It’s an unworthy thread beginning with “beady eyes”.
JPL
@aimai: Texas’s governor also made it more difficult to sue for injuries. He was injured in a tragic accident when a tree fell. He was able to sue and receive a nice sum. For the other suckers who are injured by a falling tree, good luck. funny how that works
Tommy
As a kid in the 70s I had a path I could run home from school, over fences and stuff to get away from bullies that beat me up most days after school. When I went back to Leavenworth, KS as an adult many years later with my parents I started to walk that path.
My mom is like Tommy what are you doing? You’re trespassing!
Told her I just needed to know I had not imagined those nightmares. She is like nightmares? The path I ran was actually just as I recalled it. When I told her what I was doing more than a few hugs were shared.
The only good I can say of this story is a few years after we left Leavenworth my father taught me how to defend myself. I’d wrestle from like 8 until 18. I still have never started a fight, but if I can take that first punch and grab you, things are going downhill for you. Long before the days of UFC and shit, but I will make you tap out!
Funny how bullies only need(ed) this to happen once and they never come around again.
Just saying …..
Now off to wipe off some tears because even at 45 talking about what happened almost 40 years ago isn’t easy!
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’m sorry to hear that. Now I’ll never find out what traditional Merseyside food is.
Steeplejack
@debbie:
LOL. I thought Cheez Whiz had been banned by the EPA because of the fluorocarbons.
RaflW
2015: “Bush said in the interview that he has no recollection of this or other bullying incidents raised by classmates.”
2012 “‘As to pranks that were played back then, I don’t remember them all, but again, high school days, if I did stupid things, why, I’m afraid I’ve got to say sorry for it,’ (said) Romney”
They’re all assholes. They continued to love bullying right up to today, but it has a different name for grownups: getting rich(er), fucking over “the 47%”, etc.
Total shitheel behavior.
smintheus
@raven: What are you asking about, my observations with regard to bullies?
And fwiw, experience leads me to think that most people who defend, excuse, or minimize the significance of youthful bullying are either close to or were themselves bullies. I pegged this way back in my own youth, watching our arrogant and feckless principal go softly on the school bullies. As I’d surmised, he’d been a bully himself (though he’d admit only to having been “a troublemaker”).
Callisto
@Baud:
I think it matters; he’s in charge of locking people up over a non-violent petty crime he himself partook in, and it’s not like he really thinks it should be applied fairly. He made a famous exemption for his daughter, and I’m sure if you asked him today if he deserved to go into the criminal justice system as a youngster for drugs he’d make up an excuse as to why he should not have.
This isn’t a matter of someone growing up and realizing what he did was wrong and deserved jail time. It’s a matter of growing up and thinking what he did was wrong and other people and their kids should be locked up over it.
NotMax
@Steeplejack (#67, above)
Well, there’s a sausage and apple casserole on page 24 of this paean to mediocrity which might fill the bill.
Also made with sausage: “Chinese Baked Clams” (doesn’t just the name make your mouth unwater?) on page 3.
For the green beans, there’s always this gag-inducing concoction from the “why hasn’t this been excised from human memory” category.
Singular
I know this is completely, utterly off-any-worthy-topic, but I just found out that they are making a “spiritual successor” to Planescape: Torment. It’s ridiculous for a grown man to be this excited about a computer game…. but c’mon!
Tommy
@RaflW: It it a hard thing to understand. I posted that comment about being bullied but it could have gone longer. Much longer. Wanted to say things like bullies have told me and I said “when you pissed on me and laughed, at me, but now we have some connection where you want me to do business with you. What fucking world do you live in!”
I always say no you are just a sociopath. That you can do what you did to me, say we were just kids, and then want my business. It happens more than you might think.
Denali
It is probably useful to understand that for Republicans, Jeb Bush’s actions in the Schiavo case were appropriate. As for his bullying, well, they are all for the big guys(see Grenada,Panama, Iraq) After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Randy P
@Steeplejack: Is there still time to make a green jello mold?
Our adopted grandma (our parents’ first landlady, who became our “grandma”) used to make a lime jello mold with something crunchy in it, I would swear it was iceberg lettuce. And I would snarf it up even while thinking how bizarre it was.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Or Velveeta?
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. On Planet Wonk, all the citizens study their policy proposals and have debates to the death over it.
Here, a huge chunk of the electorate gives more time and agonizing over what to watch first on the DVR.
Violet
@Steeplejack: Your solution is not either/or but both/and. Make the classic pigs-in-blankets–the cocktail weenies in Pillsbury dough. Then try the sausage in phyllo. I think the sausage will be too greasy and make them a mess, but they could be good. Won’t know unless you try.
Cervantes
@smintheus:
Do you mean that in the sense that you think he is going to be held accountable in some way?
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
How is he doing, by the way? It’s been a while since we talked about him.
NotMax
@Randy P
Got yer appetizingly named Congealed Salad right here.
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack: Swedish meatballs with grape jelly sauce.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks for this! I have saved it for future reference.
I called bro’ man a while ago to get a feel for any food gaps I might be able to fill, and I got a cease-and-desist order instead. The menu is oversubscribed already. Leave it to the snarky gay foodies to answer the call. We may have left Sunset behind and gone into full old-school McCall’s/Family Circle territory.
I got demoted to booze patrol. Will have to check the price on a case of Lancers or Mateus rosé at Total Wine.
I did find a recipe at the Jimmy Dean site that involves sausage and Pillsbury dough. May try that in the future.
JPL
@Violet: I agree with you on the grease factor when using the phyllo.
Mike J
@Betty Cracker:
All of those things were about the (then) present day Al Gore. If you believed the story, you could see a connection. Yes, the stories were all bullshit,but they were about Mr Boring Gore wants to aggrandize himself.
The stuff about what Bush did in high school is sort of interesting in a way, but I don’t think it helps define the opposition candidate the way Gore or Romney got defined. Nobody cared about Romney being a bully in high school. A rich guy who thought shutting the factory down was a great idea was the image that killed him.
The teenage argument is as useful as the moronic “dynasty” argument.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
You might even think the Times would have learned from that.
Tommy
@Cervantes: Many adult males could write this off as “kids being kids.” None of those people are running for POTUS last time I checked. That is where Jeb has a problem. I was bullied as a kid and I will harp on this 24/7 that he did it. I would never be able to get behind the guy and say he learned from this mistakes, but if he can’t speak on this issue, when I will find a way to dislike and dare say hate him a lot more.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I will make those. Sounds delish.
Sprinke of paprika over all.
Glidwrith
@Tommy: “When you pissed on me and laughed at me and now you want my business?”
Yep, and this can be extended to the banksters. The whole financial industry acts as if nothing happened. I once told a car dealership I wouldn’t do business with them because they offered financing from B of A.
Cervantes
@Tommy:
Not easy, no, but talking about it can help.
Randy P
@Steeplejack:
This gave me an amusing image of someone going to court to get a cease-and-desist order to stop church ladies bringing over casseroles. Such as NotMax’s “Congealed Salad” at #117
rikyrah
That Jeb was a bully was no shock.
rikyrah
@weaselone:
The daughter was arrested for stealing, because of her drug abuse.
Yet she didn’t wind up in JAIL like so many others
tybee
@NotMax:
the chinese clam recipe has potential. particularly if one stuffs the mixture back into the clam shells and then bakes. the clam shells would only be available if one has fresh clams on hand.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Boy, those do cause the mouth to unwater. LOL. Apparently you overlooked the “mysteriously snarfed up” part. That last one really takes me back, because in the ’60s we did eat Vienna sausages (pronounced “vy-eena”), although only on road trips. Typical thrifty lunch for the big family in the Ford Falcon station wagon was at a roadside rest area with Vienna sausages and cheddar cheese slices on saltines, apple slices and a Coke. Maybe some pralines from Stuckey’s for dessert if we had passed one.
When these retro dinner ideas come up I always threaten to make my (mythical) signature dish, blackened Vienna sausages flambé. I may have to work on actually creating that. It would be a show-stopper.
Violet
@Mike J:
It didn’t happen in a vacuum either. If the economy had been going gangbusters the story about Romney shutting down a factory wouldn’t have got any traction. People might have even seen it as a positive. In the 2012 economic environment it was a negative.
If some high profile bullying incident had just happened and the story about Jeb being a bully came out, it might get more traction. He could be tied to whoever the other bully was. Not saying it would work, but what’s happening in the rest of the country plays a part as to what sticks.
buddy h
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) accused Jeb Bush of hypocrisy after The Boston Globe reported the former Florida governor was a heavy marijuana smoker while at an elite prep school.
Bush opposed a Florida medical marijuana ballot initiative last year even though he partook liberally of the herb while in high school.
“You would think he’d have a little more understanding then,” Paul told The Hill while en route to a political event in Texas.
“He was even opposed to medical marijuana,” Paul said of Bush, a potential rival in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. “This is a guy who now admits he smoked marijuana but he wants to put people in jail who do.
“I think that’s the real hypocrisy, is that people on our side, which include a lot of people who made mistakes growing up, admit their mistakes but now still want to put people in jail for that,” he said.
rikyrah
@Josie:
The Koch Candidate is Walker.
buddy h
@rikyrah: Then Walker it will be.
He seems like he has the gift of teflon. Survives recalls, embarrassing taped phone calls, corruption.
I wonder who Walker would choose as VP? Who would “balance” his ticket?
rikyrah
@Tommy:
Rauner was elected because Quinn made missteps and did not push what he did as Governor.
Did not vote for Rauner and will not even listen to anyone :
A) who voted for him
B) who did not vote
weaselone
@OzarkHillbilly:
Somehow, I think your method of dealing with your child who gets into trouble with drugs wouldn’t involve jail time and a felony conviction, so no I do not think you are a hypocrite for wanting your own child to avoid drugs.
The way to prevent drugs from ruining peoples lives is not to ruin their lives if they get caught doing drugs, yet those are policies JEB supports, policies that explicitly deny other people’s children the opportunities he and you had to gain a little wisdom.
NotMax
@Tybee
Somewhere in among the mass of disorganized recipe files and clippings* squirreled away in the abode is one for a clam and eggplant casserole, an unexpected pairing which is actually darn tasty.
*For more decades than care to admit have been meaning to buckle down, cull and organize them. One of these days. Maybe.
Violet
@OzarkHillbilly:
The dying on the operating table could have affected him mentally and he truly wasn’t the same person he was before. Brain issues after heart surgery is a known phenomenon, and that’s under planned, controlled conditions usually.
In your friend’s situation the doctors were just doing what they needed to do to save him. As he “died twice” his brain may have been affected and it altered his personality–for the better–as a result.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Belly wedges: a sort of cake sandwich, the filling being made out of stale cake-mix past its sell-by date.
More appetizing, Liverpool Judies: tarts made with lemon and dark sugar, decorated with a Liver Bird in outline or silhouette.
Scouse, of course: a lamb stew, sometimes beef.
Still hungry?
NotMax
@buddy h
Romney?
(Gag me with a spoon.)
Steeplejack
@Randy P:
When the idea for this dinner came up last week it sparked a surprisingly detailed discussion of Jell-O salad technique. Our mother had some complex, multi-stage process that ensured that fruit bits—grapes, pineapple chunks, etc.—got suspended all through the 3-D Jell-O space and didn’t just sink to the bottom.
Eric S.
@Tree With Water: it is a family legacy. Papa introduced the term voodoo economics then embraced it to gain power within the GOP. If memory serves he did the same with abortion rights. W led his party against marriage equality while being very welcoming personally. Plus he had his own drug use. I don’t think they had evolving opinions. They just cynically used the issues to further their own power at the expense of many many people.
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: Maybe so. There was also the little fact that Al Gore’s worst enemy during that campaign was Al Gore and his own staff.
But that’s just it. These personal attacks, including brutal attacks against Andy Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, mean so little in a campaign. All they seem to really do is thrill the extreme partisans on either side.
Iowa Old Lady
I know boarding schools are sometimes necessary because, for whatever reason, the kid can’t get what they need locally. But it still seems like a cold choice for a parent to make.
JPL
@NotMax: Kelly Ayotte would be my guess.
Cervantes
@Keith G:
As factors in his victory (he wasn’t actually defeated), how do you rate (what you see as) campaign mismanagement vs. the disgraceful behavior of the national media? You seem pretty sure that the former was the bigger problem — but why?
Mike in NC
The Bush gene pool needs to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
JPL
i’d love to know what percentage of the population thinks Terry Schiavo could actually see those balloons.
buddy h
i’d love to know what percentage of the population even remembers Terry Schiavo.
Schlemazel
@JPL:
I’ll take 27% for 2000, Alex
@buddy h:
OK so maybe JPL’s is the 1000 dollar question & yours is 2000
kc
@Steeplejack:
Those aren’t “dreadful,” they’re AWESOME.
Cervantes
@Iowa Old Lady:
Convenience. “Tradition.” Pre-positioning for college. Kid’s preference. Kid’s real need.
Or as you say, lack of a good local alternative.
Steeplejack
@Violet:
Re sausage in phyllo: I thought I could (mostly) cook little balls of sausage, degrease them, then wrap them in the phyllo or puff pastry and bake them long enough to brown the pastry and finish the sausage.
Turns out it won’t be happening today, but maybe it’s an experiment for a rainy day.
tybee
@NotMax:
if you run across that clam/eggplant recipe, post it, please.
this is clam harvesting season, water temp below 70, so we’re out gathering them every week or so. some get frozen as trade bait for venison that a friend ambushes. seafood makes a great bartering item.
about to head out to an oyster roast near Isle of Hope.
Violet
@Mike in NC: Good luck with that. There are millions of them. And the next generation is entering politics. George P. Bush–the spawn of Jeb–was just elected Land Commissioner in Texas. Stepping stone to higher office in the state. Bush family. Mexican mother. Speaks Spanish.
They’re not going away.
Steeplejack
@jeffreyw:
First I was relieved that wasn’t a link to your site. Then I read the recipe and found myself repulsed and oddly attracted at the same time. May actually try that some time.
Violet
@Steeplejack: Yeah, if you de-greased the sausage it might work. You’d need to do something because phyllo won’t absorb the grease like Pillsbury dough does.
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack: I’ve eaten and enjoyed those things, never bothered to make them although I have no principled reason for not doing so. Just lazy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Given what the cops usually say in these kinds of instances, that’s just harsh.
martha
@rikyrah: Agreed. And as a WI resident about to move to Colorado (hooray!!!), all I can say is his candidacy will be the final, last gasp test of the national media to expose a charlatan. I actually have more faith in blogs and social media to get the word out about him. But he’s a perfect mouthpiece for the plutocracy. Bought and paid for since before college.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Keith G:
Sure, but the way someone handles change and grows as a person matters. Our backgrounds are part of who we are and it influences how we see the world. And change is hard.
In isolation, what people did in middle or high school is irrelevant when they’re in their 50s or later. But election ballots list people, not policy proposals. Remember that W and Al were arguing about what would be done with the huge surpluses as far as the eye could see (Tax Cuts vs the Lock Box). Did you want to vote for the brainiac guy who grew up in a hotel, or the guy who was a drunk and a failure?
:-/
We cannot know in advance how people are going to react to changed circumstances. All we can do is look at how they’ve acted in earlier points their life.
That’s why battles over painting candidates’ personalities and histories are so important. This stuff does matter because it paints perceptions of the candidates and it also gives a (not always accurate, of course) picture of how they react in different circumstances. Of course, looking at their recent history matters too. But ceding the field by ignoring this historical narrative stuff doesn’t help.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
scav
@Amir Khalid: My favorite detail might be that the double shot took place at an America’s Best Value Inn.
Cervantes
@SiubhanDuinne:
More: The officer, who was first responder, says he’d recommend the parents be charged with felony criminal negligence.
SiubhanDuinne
@buddy h:
He will “choose” whomever he is told to choose.
Bob Munck
That means he was far, far over the line at which a normal student would have been out on his ear. Phillips Academy isn’t known as a particularly difficult prep school, so his academic level must have been abysmal. I thought that Jeb was the smart one.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: I wonder what the family’s skin color is. That response by the police would indicate to me that the family is not white.
JPL
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Callisto @ 30 mentioned the get out of jail free card. That could sting.
martha
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes he will. Whomever the Kochs have groomed as their preferred 2nd choice. Or, if it’s clear he cannot win the nomination, they will ensure he’s the VP on the ticket.
I’m making myself physically ill just having to face this reality.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
Good point, which had not occurred to me. I would hope, of course, that the LEO’s response would be identical no matter what the skin color, but … sigh.
Cervantes
@Bob Munck:
His performance as a student was worst in his first year. By the time he graduated he was on the honor roll.
Not that it proves anything.
Consider the competition.
SiubhanDuinne
@martha: I’m guessing someone like Nikki Haley, unless two governors isn’t a sufficiently balanced ticket.
Edited to reduce possible ambiguity.
scav
@Violet: Indeed, one first suspicion, but this is the Albuquerque Police. The fact they haven’t shot (or as a second choice) arrested anyone already is confusing. Maybe they’re jealouse of the success rate (2.5 people w/ one bullet without even trying?) or don’t want to share their targets?
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: Affluenza.
It’s real, and it’s condoned.
This needs to stop, if there is anything at all to the notion of a “classless society” left in this country.
Because that notion is betrayed every time a Mitt Romney or a Jeb Bush gets away with something because of who their daddy is.
Or a George W. Bush gets away with desertion from the Alabama National Guard.
Amir Khalid
Footwear with clownish design and eye-searing colours has unfortunately been a thing in association football for the past couple of decades. I’m sad to see it afflicting the American code as well.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course, there isn’t. By some measures the US is as class-bound as, say, the UK.
More interesting question to me: When was the US a classless society, in your view?
JPL
Well ABC This Week has anointed Scott Walker as the Republican nominee, so we don’t have to worry about Jeb anymore.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Make those Liverpool Judies with red food dye and you’d have Liverpool FC Judies, which would definitely get my attention. And litlebrit did mention lobscouse/Scouse stew yesterday, which sounds appetising too.
(Odd, isn’t it, that Liverpudlians pronounce the “Liver” in Liver Bird to rhyme with “diver” rather than with “giver”.)
Chris
@Bob Munck:
“I thought Jeb was the smart one.” Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking when reading this – dear God, and THIS was the SMART one in the family? Hell of a commentary on George W. Bush.
mai naem mobile
@Villago Delenda Est: what about Jeb!’s daughter not doing some.long hard time in prison for stealing a doctor’s prescription pad.and falsifying the RX for some.oxycontin or whatever the fuck she was on. And it was at least.the second time.she got.in trouble for controlled /illegal drugs. Show me a black guy not serving time for.the same offense. BTW, I.better not hear from Huckster about what a good daddyo Jeb! is when he gets.the.nomination, after criticizing the Obamas.
Pogonip
The grape jelly/BBQ sauce meatballs are very tasty, weird as they sound. And the cocktail sausages wrapped in whomp-biscuit dough are also tasty.
Somebody earlier on got confused about processed cheeses. The one in a can you squirt onto crackers is Easy Cheese, and everybody likes it but nobody wants to admit it for some reason. Cheez Whiz comes in a jar and a dab of it on a cheeseburger is pretty good. Velveeta comes in a loaf and you use it with Ro-Tel tomatoes to make that crockpot dip, unless you’re me and then instead of the tomatoes you use a couple of cans of turkey chili (don’t use regular canned chili, it’s too greasy). People always ask me to bring That Dip to parties. I go home with an empty crockpot every time. They will also ask you for the “recipe,” such as it is. “Open cans. Dump into crockpot. Slice Velveeta into little cubes. Dump into crockpot. Stir. Put lid on pot. Turn pot on low.”)
JPL
I copied this from Wiki
One wonders why he left during the spring term… hmmmm
In the olden days, education mattered, but now some think of it as a sign of a common man. Just what we need, good common sense.
FlipYrWhig
@SiubhanDuinne: Feels too young (although I suppose Clinton/Gore ’92 was similar). Walker needs someone steady and known, the way Bush needed Cheney and Obama, Biden. McCain? Lamar Alexander?
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
It’s painful to ever admit that Douthat is right about anything (which fortunately, he usually isn’t, to the point of easy caricature) – but unfortunately, rather than being silly this column is one of those exceptional times when Douthat is actually onto something validly important with it’s main thrust, even if he doesn’t get everything right. You want proof of this at-first seemingly incredible assertion? You need look no farther than the daily assortment of “diaries” and comments over at DKos, where the more hard-core over there daily indulge in angry Hillary-bashing for being too establishment-corrupt to be worthy of progressive support, and if you post a comment departing more than slightly from hard-core left orthodoxy on cultural issues you will be met with the political equivalent of slut-shaming.
True, right at the end of the column Douthat indulges in a little wishful hoping that the powerful tensions within the progressive camp he cites will open into fatal fissures in the 2016 election – and his column doesn’t at all address the analogous potentially ruinous stresses that may afflict the GOP’s 2016 chances. But that doesn’t mean he’s being “silly” and isn’t onto something about the progressive camp. Wouldn’t be the first time tensions and divisions within the progressive cap was a key (though not only) factor in an electoral defeat.
mai naem mobile
@JPL: Do you mean to say “ABC, This Week, has named Scott Walker as the GOP presumptive nominee. Next Week, John Kasich, might see his stock go up.
danielx
A douchebag in his native habitat.
Few things more satisfying than waking up and thinking ‘there is not a thing i have to get up for’ and going back to sleep. Now to blow snow, set up crockpot Italian beef, take a nap or two….
JPL
@mai naem mobile: yes. Polling out of Iowa shows that he is at 16 percent and that’s enough to win the state. Poor Rand Paul, he was 14 percent and he’s already written off. There was even a discussion that maybe Jeb should just skip Iowa.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes: It’s always been the ideal that those in the top class wanted to convince those below them was here, right now.
We got pretty close to it during WWII and in its aftermath. When social democracy seemed to be winning the day.
Then, 35 years ago, something terrible happened.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Except that in some historical documents, the name of the city itself is rendered “Lyverpol,” “Litherpol,” and so on.
Schlemazel
@buddy h:
Scotty Walker is this season’s Timmy Pawlenty. Looks like a dweeb which hurts him with the wingnuts, who all loves them real macho mens. He speaks like a fag (sorry, Idiocracy is on & now that term is stuck in my head) but the point is he does not really have the wingnut patter down. He has no intellectual depth and can’t fight a lick.
If he makes it out of Iowa and New Hampshire he will die when they go South. I doubt he will make it out of Iowa, Kochwore or not.
Davis X. Machina
@Schlemazel:
He’ll do fine down south.
Walker hates the same people they hate.
FlipYrWhig
@cmorenc:
Yes, but that is a silly place, like Shakesville, which has virtually no impact on anyone. It’s like GamerGate. Have you ever heard anyone in offline reality say a word about it? I haven’t. Tempest, teapot, some assembly required.
Davis X. Machina
@cmorenc:
There wouldn’t be any fissures within the progressive camp if Hillary the Bankster-Buffing Warmonger would just stand down and allow a real progressive to be nominated…
What’s Russ Feingold up to?
scav
@Amir Khalid: The way they’re talking about those shoes, it’s almost as though the game itself was just a very agressively managed catwalk, handily filling in time between the musical portion of the show and the ads. The footwear finally makes the whole event fun!
FlipYrWhig
@Schlemazel: @Davis X. Machina: It’ll be an interesting case. He has all the right beliefs and an absolute zero in charisma. He’ll either be so bland and whitebread that everyone likes him, or so bland and whitebread that everyone likes someone else better. But there’s some strength in being everyone’s third choice. I still think Ted Cruz is going to cut Walker to ribbons. The guy who turns up his nose at “lesser Ivies” is not going to stand for a college dropout getting headway against him.
Mike J
@Mike in NC:
Now you sound like Sarah Palin with her targets on politicians. Congratulations.
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Hmm … Doug Hofstadter bagged a Pulitzer for Gödel, Escher, Bach?
Southern Beale
“He never viewed himself as a bully.”
Of course not. They never do.
There are probably pictures of a stoned Jeb in someone’s dorm room, which is why this has come out. But good lord, the idea that Jeb was an even WORSE student that Augustus D+? Horrendous. What a horrible family.
In other news, since it’s an open thread, we have a 2nd Amendment Hero from Massachusetts this week.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Strictly standardised spelling (ETA: and, for that matter, pronunciation) is only around a couple of centuries old in English, whereas Liverpool has existed for 800 years.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, the historical documents I’m talking about are from the time of its founding, or older.
danielx
@Southern Beale:
Everybody has their failings; Molly Ivins claimed that somewhere there is a picture of her sitting on George W. Bush’s lap while he was wearing a Santa suit.
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: What FlipYrWhig said. Remember all the PUMA hype? Not just on blogs, but on TV and op-eds, etc.? The PUMA phenomenon turned out to be a fart in a whirlwind.
divF
@PurpleGirl: I will actually be outside Hartford, the the U. Conn. Health Center. I was there just after the blizzard two years ago (?), and getting to the meeting from the hotel was no problem, even though a member of our panel from Yale had to attend via Skype since the snowplows had blocked his driveway with a wall of snow higher than his car.
ETA: sorry for the long delay in responding, I have since gone back to bed, got up, packed and driven to the airport.
Rand Careaga
@Amir Khalid: If only the parents in the New Mexico case had the elementary sense to carry back-up heat on their persons they could have defended themselves.
Tree With Water
@OzarkHillbilly: He smoked grass, and enjoyed ruining and/or jamming up the lives of others that also did. It’s similar to his brother’s support of the Vietnam War, and his subsequent desertion in time of that war from a goddamn champagne Guard outfit.
different-church-lady
And there you have the entire Bush family in a nutshell: endlessly surprised that the outside world finds anything strange or off-putting about their personalities or behavior.
kc
@scav:
The family was living there. Suggests to me that they are low income. Hence the criminal charges. IMO.
Keith G
@Cervantes: Sorry for the inattention to your good question. I’m at work and I had to be away from communication devices for quite a bit. I still have to attend to issues here. Please re-ask that question again when we’re hanging out in the same thread a bit later. I’d like to have a few seconds to think about it anyway.
Cervantes
@Keith G:
No sweat.
Incidentally, re the same general topic, I assume you are aware of Bob Somerby’s analysis.
Xenos
@Mustang Bobby: Tucker Carlson was actually expelled from St George’s for smoking pot, which is a pretty amazing feat. I was a Middlesexual from the class of ’84, and we considered ourselves quite sober and modest compared to the pre-Reagan-era classes.
We also had untouchables, the sons of trustees, who could get away with things that would have the rest of us expelled or jailed. We we just there to keep the academic standards up, but the school belonged to those guys. Every notable prep school was like that, or at least as far as I heard.
Xenos
@Southern Beale: Ha! I have met Pat, of the famous Pat’s Gun Shop. He did not like me very much, threatened to call the cops on me. He had decent reason I suppose, it was all an unfortunate cross-cultural misunderstanding.
NotMax
@tybee
Made a note to dig it out. But it may take a while. Last time I made it was when had visitors circa 1988.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
I’m certainly with you BC hoping the kerfuffle turns out to have no more adverse effect on the dem’s 2016 chances than a “fart in a whirlwind” – just as the PUMA thing in 2008 dissipated enough to be a nonfactor by the time of the general election. The point in the electoral cycle where the choice boils down to the relative contrast between the winner of the democratic nominee A vs the GOP nominee B often helps folks move on from earlier focusing on what their preferred picture of democratic nominee X is relative to the alleged shortcomings of front-runner A. But alas, not always – see e.g. Gore in 2000 vs the persistence of the attractive flame of Nader to too many purists.
Frankensteinbeck
@buddy h:
Every once in awhile I am briefly worried because Rand knows what to say to sound reasonable to Democrats. It passes quickly, because I remember his campaign here in Kentucky. He’s actually a more compulsive and less convincing liar than Mittens. Rand doesn’t bother to cover his trail or pretend consistency – he just says whatever he thinks the audience he’s addressing wants to hear.
rikyrah
@martha:
A high school graduate who has had nothing but public sector jobs, railing about how bad government is.
GMAFB.
There used to be a time where an unqualified clown like Walker would have been laughed out of the room.
But, then, Barack Obama became President.
And suddenly there was no floor to which some folks wouldn’t support.
Like I’ve said before.
Some would rather justify White Mediocrity than promote Black Excellence.
rikyrah
@Pogonip:
Yum Yum Yum
just thinking about it. could eat a whole bowl of them.
kc
@rikyrah:
I’m not old enough to remember such a time.
Chris T.
Not so strange for these guys: for them, none of the Little People are people. Do you remember any of the ants you may have stepped on while walking between buildings on campus? Perhaps if you were another ant, you would.
For these guys, taxes, laws, rules, the consequences of failing: those are all for other people. Want to do drugs that might even get other white guys tossed in jail? No problem!
Zinsky
Since the mainstream media didn’t bother to cover the fact that Dubya committed statutory rape on a young woman named Robin Lowman by imprenating her before she was 18 (story here) and paying for her to have an abortion even though this was 1971 and it was pre-Roe v. Wade which made it illegal, I doubt they will cover the fact that Jebbie was a bully who smoked some weed.
CathyC
And brother George, head football cheerleader, was said to have really brought it.
Lurker
So, Jeb Bush was an entitled little prick? What a surprise!
buddy h
@FlipYrWhig: “I still think Ted Cruz is going to cut Walker to ribbons. The guy who turns up his nose at “lesser Ivies” is not going to stand for a college dropout getting headway against him.”
They both look like crooked used car salesmen to me, but then again that’s what they said about Nixon.
Cervantes
@buddy h:
What one of them — Norman Mailer — said about Nixon was that he resembled “a church usher, of the variety who would twist a boy’s ear after removing him from church.”
Not to be outdone, Marshall McLuhan compared Tricky Dick to “the railway lawyer who signs leases that are not in the best interests of the folks in the little town.”
chelsea530
The minute I read about Romney and the Cranbrook incident was the instant I knew he was a someone who should never, ever be president.
But republicans voted for him and the AWOL guy who was handed two terms, somehow. And then sent a few thousand to their deaths and many more wounded. Not enough money to fix them, so we have “Wounded Warriors,” which my sister (a Republican, sadly) tells me is bogus because the guy is keeping most of the money. Shocker.
Republicans. They’re a strange bunch.
Doesn’t begin to address the country of Iraq and Afghanistan and the losses inflicted there.
Cervantes
@chelsea530:
Not saying you’re wrong about Romney but consider this: George Washington didn’t just bully a class-mate or seven; he owned slaves, outright; should he never, ever, have been president?