True story: People are here to help decide who should be the most powerful leader on the planet
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) February 27, 2015
CPAC Day Two is behind us, and the consensus seems to be that Jeb Bush is the GOP Establishment’s Microsoft, Scott Walker is the Koch Brothers’ Apple, Rand’s faithful Paulistas are Phish heads, and everybody else is actually (a) auditioning for the VP slot, or (b) grifting. There’s lots of grifting!
NOW I understand why the Beltway political media pay such close attention to CPAC –>
http://t.co/4UNnGfaV5O pic.twitter.com/dzqz96hwC7
— Billmon (@billmon1) February 27, 2015
Jeb Lund, for the Guardian:
Welcome to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day-long performance from an improv troupe whose hat has only has one statement in it: you’re in terrible danger. But that doesn’t mean you’re in terrible danger right now. Right now, there are seminars. About the danger. I have been to them, as part of my quest to be America’s Most Impervious Man. I don’t even care to what…
This is like House of Cards except nobody is hot.
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) February 26, 2015
John Cassidy, for the New Yorker:
… After a couple of ho-hum speeches from Rick Perry and Marco Rubio, two of the would-be G.O.P. candidates in 2016, Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, took the stage. Many CPAC partisans regard the R.N.C. as the soggy, corporate-funded enemy within (which could also serve as a shorthand description of their feelings about the Bush family), but Priebus was there to be friendly. “There will be no coronation in the Republican Party,” he assured the crowd. “If you want to win the nomination, you’re going to have to earn the nomination.” Then came Donald Trump, who appeared to have spent the flight down to D.C. doing some handicapping. “Jeb Bush—he’s in favor of Common Core,” Trump said blithely. “He’s weak on immigration. I don’t see him winning.”
Many of the attendees would dearly love to believe that Trump is right in his analysis. He was followed by one of their heroes, Senator Rand Paul, who already seems to have been running for President forever….
Are you ready for President Rand Paul? Are you ready for four years of thinking, "I wish this guy would just clear his damn throat"?
— Jeb Lund (@Mobute) February 27, 2015
Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:
It is now conventional wisdom that CPAC this year has been a triumph for conservative hawks, and that, while Rand Paul is still popular in the hall, his extended moment as the lead act in that particular hootenanny finally may have passed. Folks are up there wanting to get their war on, and the laptop bombardiers in the audience are lapping it up. (This shebeen is in the market for any photo of the audience taken at that moment when Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods asked for all the veterans in the house to stand.) ISIS is coming for all of us, and most of the potential Republican candidates are waiting for it with Leadership, Authenticity, Exceptionalism, and a vast arsenal of featherweight banalities…
William Temple, the "Tea Party Patriot," holds press conference after walking out on Jeb pic.twitter.com/JETqdkX8fD
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 27, 2015
Speaking as an American, I would never say that.MT @SlagKogel: I'm pretty sure there's no way american politics could get any more retarded
— Billmon (@billmon1) February 27, 2015
I swear, every news tweet coming out of CPAC demonstrates the end of another Republican presidential candidate's career.
— Paul Constant (@paulconstant) February 26, 2015
Jim Newell, at Salon:
The most warmly received speaker as of mid-afternoon on the first day of CPAC has been Senator Ted Cruz. I mean, do they love this guy, or do they love this guy? Generally the worse you are for Republicans’ brand as a responsible governing party that can appeal to broad demographics, the better accepted you are at CPAC, and that’s why it’s America’s greatest conference…
Cruz noted the obvious: that every presidential hopeful who speaks at CPAC will throw out red meat. They will all say they hate Obamacare and abortion and love Israel and guns the most. Each will anoint him or herself the most conservative human of all time — maybe tied with Reagan, if they’re being modest. They will promise to crush the skulls of all Democrats and their urbane, fairy ways on Day One in the White House. They will screw the environment the way it’s never been screwed before, for capitalistic profits. They will singlehandedly save the culture from its uninterrupted, thousand-year descent into neon pornographic toilet water. In a way that no other candidate can….
"Because of time constraints, we ask that you not take selfies with the senator." – Instructions for Breitbart #CPACAfterDark with Ted Cruz.
— Chris Moody (@moody) February 27, 2015
#CPACAfterDark starts early with Ted Cruz hanging at the bar with College Republicans. pic.twitter.com/c9DnYS6ohX
— Chris Moody (@moody) February 26, 2015
Cruz is part salesman part preacher part student government guy who tried to argue his way out of the friendzone sophomore year. #CPAC2015
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) February 26, 2015
Reince Priebus comes off as a crooked D.A. who gets his mob instructions by getting slapped and ordered around by his escorts.
— Jeb Lund (@Mobute) February 27, 2015
Foster Friess #powercircle with Reince Priebus pic.twitter.com/ltlvC59LhK
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 27, 2015
@CitizenSnap @Eykis yes. Right next to the Aspirin booth!
— Peg Mitchell (@PegMitchell1) February 26, 2015
Not much love for my personal choice to be the eventual Not-JebWalker, but then, it’s still twenty-one months before the actual Day of Reckoning…
Santorum gets some audience members on their feet by saying "separation of church and state is not in the Constitution"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2015
Poor Rick Santorum now speaking to a rapidly emptying room ??
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) February 27, 2015
What's softer than a softball? Q for Santorum "Given the world's current events, would you strengthen our military?"
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) February 27, 2015
Random snapshots of Your Modern GOP, cuttin’ loose and boogying down:
Mike Lee, at event Trump & Palin are speaking: "When conservatives elevate unserious presidential candidates… it's not the media’s fault."
— Reid J. Epstein (@reidepstein) February 26, 2015
Marco Rubio and Newt Gingrich are just… pretending that the net neutrality thing didn't happen yesterday. #cpac2015
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) February 27, 2015
(They were free.)
— Marin Cogan (@marincogan) February 26, 2015
I figured out how you can enjoy Carly Fiorina's overly fastidious form of speech: imagine Bill Nighy in a wig. You're welcome. #CPAC2015
— Jeb Lund (@Mobute) February 26, 2015
Do you plan on retraining America like you made your laid off HP employees train their foreign replacements, Ms. Fiorina? #CPACQ
— Erin Gloria Ryan (@morninggloria) February 26, 2015
I mean … pic.twitter.com/LabZ41rCAu
— Christina Bellantoni (@cbellantoni) February 27, 2015
This says so much. RT @JRubinBlogger: Newt was the most interesting and original speaker #CPAC2015
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 27, 2015
Subtlety is the name of the game here at #CPAC2015 pic.twitter.com/uL88kcA5yZ
— Chris Moody (@moody) February 26, 2015
#springbreakforever RT @moody: Just getting ready for #CPACAfterDark pic.twitter.com/WVuFVUZYeD
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) February 26, 2015
For some reason much of #CPAC15 carries the faint odor of gas station nachos
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) February 27, 2015
The 2016 cocktails at @ijreview's CPAC party pic.twitter.com/8nFCCk2r4A
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 28, 2015
Jeb Bush wins @ijreview cocktail caucus. Christie second, Walker third. Boos erupt in CPAC-adjacent bar.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 28, 2015
Baud
This post is long.
Zinsky
It sounds like a sophomoric freak show and no one in attendance should be allowed within 100 yards of places where adult, responsible governance occurs!
NotMax
Going for the record on tweets?
Neither is net neutrality. Nor an Air Force.
Baud
@Zinsky:
LOL. So no different from any other year, then.
NotMax
@Baud
And even had I the slightest idea who most of the names cited are, why should I give a fig about what random “authors” have to say?
Baud
@NotMax:
If liberal blogs didn’t talk about conservatives, what would they talk about?
Baud
Hal
So when is Christie’s gastric bypass weight loss going to kick in?
raven
@Baud: Dogs.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
No but, “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Funny how they forget that.
Baud
@raven:
Works for me! Better than CPAC.
Baud
NPR
Baud
LA Times
Full metal Wingnut
Time for some CLEs. Not a fan of my state’s requirement that I do half of them live (as opposed to online). I usually do them all in one big 2-3 day mega conference blitz, but I decided to space it out this time.
Also, *man* the temperature dropped overnight. Wife turned off the heat and blasted the AC in the middle of the night too. I thought I was gonna freeze to death in the shower.
Schlemazel
@Hal:
A man of his immense will power, drive and determination could power his way through the diarrhea, vomiting and pain of overeating after a bypass! It’s yet another reason this great American deserves to be our President!
Derelict
We laugh, we poke fun. Yet, at least one of these asshats will actually have a shot at being President of the United States. And he (or, unlikely, she) will have a Republican Congress and a Republican Supreme Court as backup.
Ha, ha. Yuk, yuk.
If you thought 8 years of Bush was a soul-crushing experience, you’ll be pining for February of 2006 in short order if one of these clodpates gets elected. So get ready to get out the vote to prevent this tsunami of stupid from washing over the country.
Baud
@Derelict:
The GOP feels the same way about our side.
Schlemazel
@Derelict:
Too true, but when you are on the deck of the TItanic all you can do is laugh. We struck the iceberg in the 80s, the 90’s were when the back half righted itself for a moment & people thought “Hey, maybe we will get through this OK after all”. Now we are just listening to Nearer My God to Thee and waiting for the sweet release.
ThresherK
@NotMax: Hey, thanks for the wine advice re beef bourgignon last nite. I’ll see what I get for the next time I try the recipe. Early results are encouraging*, with some deep, complex flavors that I didn’t know I could get in the fairly short time involved.
(*And I mean even more encouraging than “Yum, beef stew on a Friday night during a hellishly cold winter.”)
ThresherK
PS I don’t follow CPAC so closely, and am indebted to those who do for me.
That said, I have no idea who “Frosty Freeze” is (unless he’s a cartoon villain who, in real life, is a mild-mannered, but totally not creepy, Good Humor man), but his parents really shoulda thought that through.
How much pantsing did he suffer on the playground from his name, and how has that permanent damage led him to his leadership role on the right today?
Eric
@NotMax: Nor Christianity. Nor fetal personhood…
aimai
@ThresherK: Foster Friess is a really, really, scary rich guy–the one who advised women to keep an asprin between their knees in order not to get pregnant.
Thank you, AL, btw, for this long post. I’ve been avoiding CPAC and I loved being able to get the roundup here.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric: And don’t forget gravity, that’s not in the Constitution either.
Raven
@Derelict: Boogie boogie
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: WorryIng about you yesterday.
mai naem
@ThresherK: Foster Freedumb is the aspirin between the legs form of birth control guy. I think he was Rick Santorum’s sugar daddy in 2012. He’s a finance/hedgefund kind of guy.
OzarkHillbilly
@aimai:
I have heard that holding an aspirin between one’s teeth cures diarrhea of the mouth. He should try it.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Sadly, that disease is incurable.
mai naem
The CPACQ hashtag on the Twitter machine has some awesomely funny stuff.
ellennellee
@NotMax:
‘xcuse me? NEITHER??
first amendment ring a bell?
you do know this, right?
ThresherK
@mai naem:
@aimai:
Now that you mention it, I remember the “aspirin as birth control*” bit, but forgot his name.
It takes saying something that stupid to forget a name like that.
(*I can imagine my people, the humorless Germans at Bayer, who once had a trademark for Aspirin, saying “No, that’s not how our invention works at all!).
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Why?
WereBear
I loved the lineup!
I needed the chuckles, trust me. Mid-week I got smacked by a trooper car who I did not see coming. I believe he had just lit up the roof when he smacked into me.
As I’ve said around town, “When your husband is sitting beside you and says there was nothing you could have done to avoid this accident… there’s nothing you could have done.”
NO ONE WAS HURT.
ellennellee
@OzarkHillbilly:
au contraire, and even better:
not quite sure how much clearer that separation can get than this.
WereBear
@Baud: The weather in Florida during the Ice Age would be quite nice.
Baud
@WereBear:
Glad you’re safe.
Baud
@WereBear:
I wonder if they had “Florida man” back then.
Schlemazel
@ellennellee:
There is only one valid amendment to the constitution, the second. And even that is only 50% valid, just the second half, the first half was inserted by liberal judges trying to legislate from the bench!!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Vodka and Sprite? “Cocktails” designed by middle-schoolers daring each other to try things from the liquor cabinet?
WereBear
@Baud: Having lived in Florida, I have a feeling they did. Did one of those fossils have its foot crushing a human skull?
‘Cause that kind of “whoopsie” is so Florida. Provided they brought it on their ownself.
WereBear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know. There was entirely too many awful things being done to bourbon in that list.
Baud
@WereBear:
Standing your ground, neolithic style.
OzarkHillbilly
@ellennellee: Where’s the contradiction?
Kay
Republicans had another disaster in the House yesterday. They had to cancel the vote on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization bill. They had too much opposition in their own ranks.
It’s the exact same bill the GOP House passed in 2012, but the House is now more conservative so they had to pull it in this big dramatic implosion.
I personally don’t care- their bill was horrible- but it means Congress won’t get it done (again) so the executive branch will continue to work around NCLB (which everyone admits doesn’t work) which means the executive branch is essentially both drafting and executing laws.
Congress really can’t complain that more and more power goes to the executive. It happens again and again because they can’t pass laws. This particular rewrite is seven years past deadline for reauthorization.
Baud
@Kay:
Right. Obama spent much of his presidency practically begging Congress to do its job. All the critisms about executive overreach are truly laughable.
WereBear
@Baud: LOL!
I picture a Neolithic form of the Bermudas & sandals with socks.
debbie
I listened to Sean Hannity interviewing Donald Trump while driving home from work last night. It was like that scene in old movies where two tough guys talk tough until there’s a shadow at the end of the alley. They turn and run for the hills, and the shadow turns out to be a little kitten looking for food.
debbie
@Kay:
With only a month in power, it’s not GOP vs. Democrats. It’s GOP vs. GOP. Who’d have thought this was possible? Somewhere, Lee Atwater is weeping.
Zinsky
@Kay: interesting tidbit, one more data point that shows modern Republicans are some of the most confused and conflicted politicians in American history! Thanks,
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: The shootings, wasn’t sure where you are.
Botsplainer
Does anybody actually plan to watch that awful looking Will Forte sitcom I keep seeing advertised?
Kay
@Baud:
It’s been fun to throw it up to conservative lawyers here because they were absolutely spitting mad at the Obama action on immigration. Some of them are anti- immigration, but the rest of them were strutting around yelling about “process!”
Now I just tell them to pass a law. They’re honest enough to admit that would be one solution the GOP-led Congress could consider.
Obama threatened a veto on the House version of the ed bill . He doesn’t even have to bother. They can’t get their own members on board.
debbie
@Botsplainer:
I thought I’d at least give it a look, but it runs against Downton Abbey, so no.
Botsplainer
Also, I wonder about how many hot MlLFs bored with flabby, pasty white conservative husbands attended the Project Veritas cocktail party in the hopes of getting roofied by some college republican frat boy and taken to a boat somewhere for some 50 Shades style transported bliss.
Mike E
@Baud: Florida man…is that a subspecies of Area man?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Ah got it. Nah, that was about 40-50 miles south and west of me (I live in Washington Co), tho I have spent a considerable amount of time in Shannon and Texas counties. But yeah, those are “my people”….ack gack hack… Sorry, that last part caught in my throat for some reason or other.
Kay
@debbie:
They’re blaming it on the distraction of the homeland security funding mess- they couldn’t concentrate or something because the Homeland wasn’t secure- so they’re now pointing to one disaster to explain another.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Botsplainer:
No I’m busy not watching the “Odd Couple” reboot.
Botsplainer
@debbie:
My thing is that Will Forte was one of the least funny cast members of SNL, and was generally in a supporting role in the skits. No presence, no charisma, and as I understand it, this show is all him.
He must have video of a stoned Rupert blowing a dead male goat and being frustrated by the lack of response.
aimai
@ThresherK: A trick I learned to increase umami in things like coq au vin and boeuf bourgignon is to either burn the roux to an almost dark chestnut color or to burn some sugar (caramelize it to the black) and then make your roux on top of that. Many recipes also call for adding a little brandy or ccognac at the earliest stage of searing the meat and then flaming it. All of these will create a long simmered, umami, flavor that would otherwise be lacking if you rushed the process.
Schlemazel
@Baud: ASSUMING FACTS NOT IN EVIDENCE! The people they are talking to have no clue that the GOP is their own problem & so the just “know” that Kenyan Muslim usurper is trying to be king.
@debbie:
Weeping at the fact that the rubes will not leave the real GOP in peace so they can continue to enrich the rich and impoverish the rest of us.
Mike in NC
These people would have to go a very long war to even qualify as “scum of the earth”.
Tenar Darell
@debbie: While he roasts in the fires of hell? (Don’t believe in it, but certainly enjoy imagining some villains in it /evil grin).
WereBear
@Kay: I guess it’s better than this Congress actually accomplishing anything.
Schlemazel
@aimai:
I’m OK with a very very dark roux but burn? NEVER! Burnt roux tastes terrible. Just take the extra time to reach a chocolate color, if black bits start showing up the roux is not going to be good. I’d say the same for sugar though some people like the bitterness from burnt sugar.
Robert
Ya know, If these folks haven’t scared ya enough, I will do it for them…think about any one of these ummm, candidates with their finger on our NUCLEAR button….there, now, I can go back under my bed and cozy up to the dogs and dust bunnies…
gelfling545
@Hal: You know, I wondered about that. A family member had one last year (he has thyroid & liver issues) & dropped weight in weeks and now, a year later is slim, trim & healthier. In fact they cautioned him about observing for losing weight too quickly at first. I don’t understand how Christie hasn’t seen better results than he seems to. Of course everybody’s metabolism is different but still it hardly seems worth going through it for the results Christie has had.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: good
Kay
@WereBear:
It was interesting to watch though because the media who follow that specific policy (it’s like a not-very-famous subset of specialized reporters) got it so wrong. They seemed genuinely surprised that it imploded. They thought this WAS something Congress would accomplish.
It’s not over. Patty Murray is the lead Dem in the Senate and she has to work with Lamar Alexander. He put forth a Senate version with no Dem input which went nowhere, but now they say they are back in negotiations. Her personal “brand” seems to be “gets stuff done” so maybe she’ll make progress.
Debbie
@Botsplainer:
Yeah, it could be “Gillie with Balls.”
raven
Reminder on the dog bleg from yesterday.
WereBear
I can’t see this bunch able to do anything of the kind. It’s like building a house and all the blueprints say is “The President is black!”
Amir Khalid
I like the guy with the “Muhammad is a homo” shirt. Never forget Charlie Hebdo!
rlrr
@Amir Khalid:
I wonder what his reaction would be to a “Jesus is a homo” shirt…
aimai
@Schlemazel: I’ve found that toasting the flour first works to make a stronger roux. Also I use burnt caramel, asthe Vietnamese do, in lots of things.
Amir Khalid
Having won a Best Actor Oscar, Eddie Redmayne is apparently going after a Best Actress Oscar now.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Amir Khalid:
@rlrr:
He was trying to keep it classy by using “homo” instead the word “faggot”.
Bystander
I noticed that one of their repeated talking points was that even Obama has admitted “22 times” that his executive order was unconstitutional and therefore all three branches are in agreement, so the order must be gutted.
I’m guessing this is their interpretation of Obama’s challenge to the Zippy Pinheads that if they don’t like his order, take action and present a bill. Not that he ever says that what he is doing is unconstitutional. In fact he has taken pains to show that his order is similar to orders previously issued by Reagan and Bush.
Another reason why they won’t nominate Jebula: As much as they admire his wife Cujo for attempting to smuggle French-made couture across the border and defraud the federal government, they don’t want a second offbreed in the WH. Too soon.
Kay
@WereBear:
There seems to be a real yearning to maintain the idea that there’s some possibility that Congress might work with just the right approach or something.
I tend to think it’s because these people- Congress, staff, and the reporters who follow what they do- are essentially co-workers. They know one another. Maybe as individuals they are decent or well-intentioned or hardworking or whatever.
WereBear
@Bystander: They have lost all sense of sense at this point. Not that they ever understood it in the first place.
After much informal study, I truly believe they “think” with their brain stem.
Baud
@Kay:
Hope springs eternal when it comes to the media and Republicans.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Of topic but the Amazing Atheist does an excellent impersonation of one of Obama’s Black Panther Storm Troopers evicting a hapless white conservative from his home…
http://youtu.be/uzwofV1eHFY
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t agree. I don’t think that if Congress was in Democratic hands and was this dysfunctional, the press would be far more cynical.
WereBear
@Kay: From my admittedly more distant vantage point, I think it’s denial.
Sure, we Juicers are completely on board with the realization that one of the major political parties has completely lost their programming and is blinking SHUTDOWN in a vain attempt to reboot. But they are not.
But it’s reached the point where the country has had a massive stroke, lost the use of their left side (because that part of the brain is on the right) so they can still write legibly and drive a car but they just can’t figure out why they keep falling over and how long it now takes to dress themselves.
Schlemazel
@aimai:
Agreed about the carmel, in some things it is not bad but a little goes a long way for me. I have never oven roasted the flour when I make roux, I’ll have to try that thanks. Maybe if I didn’t need to stand & stir for an hour I’d make darker rouxs more oftern
EriktheRed
@Baud: Speak for yourself. This is great stuff, I tell ya!
Mike J
@Baud:
Nah, they’d be telling us how good it was that Joe Manchin is saving us from the evil Kenyan occupying the White House. And that would be the “mainstream” news.
NotMax
@gelfling545
Go back and look at pictures of him prior to having the surgery. Not that it is any of my business, but would guesstimate he’s dropped at least a hundred pounds since then. He’s hardly svelte, but there is definitely less of him.
@ellennellee
Note that that part of the 1st amendment applies to Congress, not to the government in toto. You’re aware there are three branches of government, presumably.
And yes, for the record, am firmly in Jefferson’s camp of there being by both design and necessity an immutable wall.
kc
@Hal:
Did he have the surgery already?
Villago Delenda Est
@OzarkHillbilly: James Madison was an Islamic atheist commie.
bemused
@Baud:
Last night Rachel Maddow said the Republicans rushed to book themselves on the Sunday news shows. They did this before the end of the night DHS funding extension bill was done.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemazel: I’ve oven roasted roux with success a few times. It’s an especially helpful technique when you’re trying to coordinate a bunch of dishes simultaneously and might otherwise fuck up the roux by being inattentive.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: He is prettier than many women.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: How do you do that, can you elaborate? What temperature do you set the oven to?
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think “cynical” is the problem. They have enough of that. I think there’s a reluctance to admit that relationships matter to people and influence their thinking and actions.
My own leaning would be to admit that and roll it in: assume it’s operating because being aware of it is really important. There’s the prickly defensiveness about “professionalism” that seems like over-compensating to me. They work with these people. They know some of them and like them. That shades what they write. If you think Lamar Alexander is a great guy and “serious” about education you might not notice that he seems to have some basic misunderstandings, based on some of what he’s said so far in this particular area. My sense is he hasn’t really dived into this since 1993 or something.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear: and @Kay:
I think it’s because their social/professional group is dominated by 80s ‘Reagan Democrats’, and that creates their group’s preconceptions. They honestly believe that Republican policies are mature and responsible. They think, for example, that the social safety net encourages laziness, so the tough but adult thing to do is to cut it off, like a stern father*. Since they believe Republican polices are mature and responsible, it follows that Republicans are mature and responsible. When Republicans are in charge, surely they will behave in a mature and responsible way. The media desperately searches for proof of this, and is gobsmacked when it doesn’t happen.
*This is actually the philosophy of abusers, not mature adults.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree with that. It’s more than media though. It’s prevalent among “centrist” rank and file Democrats.
One of the saddest thing to me about being a Democrat is when Democrats say “even Republicans agree with X, Y or Z!”
Republicans haven’t pointed to Democrats for validation and legitimacy since they coined “Reagan Democrats” and “Reagan Democrats” have now been Republicans for 30 years. I just call them “Republicans”. It’s less complicated and more accurate.
Kay
@Baud:
I think there is no more hurtful charge to a “serious” person than incompetence, so give it time :)
You can be a complete asshole, wrong about everything or even truly evil but “serious” and as long as you’re not perceived as “incompetent” in execution you’re okay.
My favorite part of the Bush implosion was watching all those puffed-up “executives” with their hurt feelings and giant egos frantically trying to project competence.
Dick Cheney is the fucking master of this charade. It’s the key to his whole career.
Ruckus
For some reason much of #CPAC15 carries the faint odor of gas station nachos
That smell is not the actual nachos, that’s the after effects of the nachos. And it’s not that faint an odor either.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Their philosophy is based on them being the mature adults who know what’s really good for everyone, unlike childish idealists who want to be straightforwardly kind. It insults the Hell out of them to imply that they don’t know better than everyone else, and that’s also why they react in every other way except evaluating whether they might be wrong.
And yeah, Cheney is the King of Abusive Narcissists. He’s been thoroughly pissed at America since the late Bush years that we don’t understand he’s always right about everything, no matter what the facts are.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
They can’t be wrong! The just CAN’T be. Their whole world view rotates around them being the adults in the room, the ones in somber power suits and all the ideas. But it’s all the 4th grade school play (with adult props) and the teacher has arranged for them to actually take over the city government for a day. So they act serious but screw up everything. Like Boxing day on a continuous loop.
Tim in SF
Wow. This is one of the best posts I’ve read on this blog in a long time. Thank you.
TR Donoghue
Leave Phish the hell out of this
notorious JRT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My thoughts exactly, and I don’t drink.
JGabriel
@NotMax:
Which, to be fair, Santorum is also against. Ricky Ass-Froth is stupid on multiple fronts.
Tree With Water
“I’m pretty sure there’s no way american politics could get any more retarded”.
I felt much the same hope once, when I was younger so much younger than today.. That hope was extinguished the first Tuesday in November, 1980. RIP.
Howard Beale IV
@Kay: Mehtinks It’s time to come up with the “Howard Beale IV” thorem:
“People who are politically wrong within the pundit class rarely face significant personal consequences.
Corollary: Citizens within the government who successfully identify wrongdoing in whatever administration is in power will be unilaterally destroyed by the government in order to hide the complicity of the government which allowed such egregious behavior to occur unchecked in the first place, using the most flimsiest defenses (“State Secrets) to hide their true actions.”
mazareth
Scott Walker
Drink should be Everclear and Antifreeze.
DissidentFish
Iced Tea and Tequila is now a Ted Cruz? Seriously? I used to drink a lot of those at school. My suite mates dubbed it a “Dude, You Have Drinking Problem.”