I’m old enough to be Marco Rubio’s older sister, and he better thank merciful Christ I’m not because I would have stolen our dad’s lighter and melted the head off his Skeletor action figure and threw his Tonka trucks into the canal and buried his Mr. Microphone in the cat’s litterbox. And when he started blubbering about that, I would have dangled his head in the toilet and flushed it repeatedly while saying, “Whatcha gonna do about it, huh, crybaby?” Ask my siblings!
But we’re all grown up now. More than grown up, in fact — middle-aged — and while we’re not grandparents like the Clintons, Marco and I aren’t spring chickens either, and thus we’re prone to embarrassing errors when we try to act all hip and edgy, as Wonkette observes:
[Rubio] is going to be president (no he’s not), but not just any president. He is going to be president of A New American CenturyTM, because he is young and hip and SO down with the kids these days that he doesn’t even need to capitalize his name. THAT is how hip he is. Unlike some candidates (Hillary Clinton), who are really old (Hillary Clinton), and represent yesterday (Hillary Clinton). [snip]And then, as any young, super edgy candidate for the next generation does, he encouraged people to go to his website….
And, FAIL:
What happens when 50,000 people simultaneously go to http://t.co/0wnqx4LcRt? The site crashes… We'll be back online asap.
— Alex Conant (@AlexConant) April 13, 2015
Seriously, 50K hits and it crashes? To put that in (wildly misleading!) context, Balloon Juice currently averages about 47K page views per day, and FYWP only shits on roughly a third of your carefully crafted comments. And we’re not running for president. I get that there’s a difference between unique visitors, page views, temporal anomalies, traffic spikes, etc., but FFS.
And speaking of temporal anomalies, “New American Century”? I’m way old enough to remember the campaigns prior to 2000 and much yammering about “building a bridge to the 21st century.” That was lame, but it made a sort of sense because we were on the cusp of a “new” century according to how most of us reckon time.
In light of the fact that it’s currently 2015, how is this “New American Century” supposed to work? Is Rubio saying we got off to such a shitty start with Dubya that we have to roll the odometer back? Or is America just so exceptional that we can declare a new century 15 years into the current one?
The latter explanation appears to be the answer, based on the abysmally edited blather on Rubio’s now operational site, which is probably tallying tens of hits right now. The loser stink is strong with this one.
Open thread.
mai naem mobile
Also too, he was perspiring. Like physically not rhetorically. Perspiration is not your friend when you’re making your presidential announcement.
RaflW
Is that a whale-shaped Goldfish snack cracker dotting the i in Rubio?
Suzanne
@mai naem mobile: His bodily functions announce themselves at the most in opportune moments.
srv
MarcoRubio.com – vote for worser websmaster than Obamacare.
That will certainly win over the young ones.
Jerzy Russian
Would it be out of line for me to ask for your hand in marriage?
the Conster
What do any of these clowns think their electoral path to victory is? Do they really think they’re actually going to be elected, or is it just all vanity, delusion and grift?
Gin & Tonic
After that opening paragraph, I think you need to post a picture of your little brother holding up today’s newspaper, just so we can confirm he is actually still among the living.
Betty Cracker
@mai naem mobile: No shit? I haven’t seen the video, just read the script until my eyes glazed over (about 25 seconds). In Rubio’s defense, it is awfully steamy in Miami, but his peeps should have been on that and lowered the AC down to 60. Or he could have borrowed Charlie Crist’s fan.
srv
At least someone is running to Hillary’s left:
schrodinger's cat
Betty you were a mean older sister but I bet your siblings were scared of you. You do us eldest siblings proud!
Gindy51
As my husband said, “Rubio who?”
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: I used to tell my younger brother (six years younger) that my parents had leased him and would return him if he didn’t work out for us.
ETA: Also that it was a secret and he was supposed to not let anyone know.
Botsplainer
Does he not realize that for big announcements you shower immediately before and power down to lukewarm-to-cool immediately before stepping out? No muss, no fuss.
Amir Khalid
Does Marco Rubio’s website eat your comment when you happen to mention Hermione Granger by the actress’ name? Do the commenters there have to importune Marco for the latest news about his pets? Huh? Huh?
@RaflW:
I believe so.
lol
His New American Century sounds like it might be quite the Project.
Sherparick
A “New American Century” that wants to go back to the Middle East Policy of Dick Cheney and Dubya, the Cuban policy of the 1960s, the Russian Policy of the 1950s, the economic policy of the 1890s, and the racial policies if the 1850s. On the Environment he and all the Republicans not only want to abolish everything since Abraham Lincoln, they really aspire to follow the road map of a foreign country, China.
A personal aside about “Marco.” He may speak Spanish, and originate out of “Little Havana,” but in looks, dress, social attitudes, and Galtian principles, he is basically a late 20th early 21st Century Prep School Wasp Dick (see Tucker Carlson).
P.S. I am 50% WASP and 50% Irish RC, and non-prep school, but I have been in immediate contact with the species my whole life.
Comrade Dread
“The New American Century” is simply our way of saying, “The Sun never sets upon the British Empire.”
Eventually… I hope… we’ll get over it, settle down and be an adult country, only occasionally acting like a belligerent toddler when some country far closer to one of our remaining territories tries to annex it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s perfect. Makes me wish I’d had a younger sibling to use it on.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not the first to observes that Li’l Marco’s fresh face is offering us Bush’s first term all over again, deficit-ballooning tax cuts for the rich (which will honest and for true trickle down this time!) and an overt call for a land war in Asia. At least when he was campaigning, Dumbya was against using the military for nation building (I think).
and about a dozen Democrats are apparently ready to sign on to a foreign policy guided by one Kristol pupil who thinks Obama is going soft on ISIS to appease Tehran, and another who says war with Iran would last a matter of days. Sometimes I think we’re so far down the rabbit-hole there’s no point. I might as well start smoking again.
dubo
@lol: Exactly. He’s really clearly trying to whistle to the neocons while stealing (PNAC signatory) Jeb’s thunder
Sherparick
@srv: It is always amazing how $80,000 a year “becomes” wealthy when Republican come to cutting Medicare and Social Security. And $200,000 “rich, rich” but when it comes to raising taxes on capital gains, the middle class starts at $1,000,000 a year. But this will go over great with the VSPs on Morning Joe’s Christie fan club and the Sunday Shows.
RaflW
@srv: Yeah, wrong.
F*king with Social Security is not to the left. As soon as SSI becomes a program for the middle-class and the poors, it becomes welfare and something for the 47%/takers, which is exactly the positioning the GOP wants. As a uniform program that pays out to all who paid in, regardless of post-retirement income, it is a strong program that people of all ages comprehend as fair.
Make it about transfer payments only to those in need, and it’s on its way to oblivion.
pete
Yup. It’s phony used-car salespeople all down the line. Great analogy!
boatboy_srq
@Sherparick: Isn’t all this PNAC 2.0? Haven’t we been here already?
BTW: marco rubio. That’s so e e cummings. Isn’t he cute, thinking it’s somehow new and brave?
‘Scuse me while I log off so I don’t b#rf over lunch.
Brachiator
@the Conster:
Let’s see, now. Congress (both houses) is controlled by Republicans, as are many state governor’s offices. Once the GOP clown care empties out, you may find some strong challengers ready, wiling and able. Meanwhile, some Democrats are finding it hard to warm to Hillary Clinton.
It’s all well and good to ascribe GOP aspirations entirely to vanity, delusion, and grift. But I doubt that anyone outside the blogosphere quite sees it this way.
chromeagnomen
fucker rubio was probably one of the pinheads whinging about the ACA website having problems when it was taking on an order of magnitude more hits than 50K.
schrodinger's cat
@boatboy_srq: Its funny how Rubio and Mike Lee are being touted as thoughtful and intelligent by our Pundits.
shell
Not the TONKA TRUCKS!!
Mike in NC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The only tool for fighting a Bush is an even worse Bush.
MattF
I can understand why a Republican would want to forget about the recent past. Well, you know, it’s just so complicated and not groovy. And it simplifies the task that his speechwriters have to deal with.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: Gosh I wish that NPR interviewer had asked how successful the last 55 years of Cuba policy have been in changing its government. Also, if we should have diplomatic relations with China and Vietnam.
Rob
And nothing says young and hip like Bill Kristol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Downpuppy
@Sherparick: Yep, Project for the New American Century was exactly the name used by the Neocon nutters who brought us the Sack of Iraq.
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Bush was planning on a war against China before being elected. But totally ignoring Osama binLaden, over whom the Clinton admin was losing its shit.
Now, the GOP wants a land war in in the middle east, while (I think) the Obama admin is worrying about cyber-warfare (China, Russia).
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If war with Iran becomes the foreign policy debating point, we will all need something stronger than cigarettes.
Betty Cracker
@Downpuppy: At least the scheming, bloodthirsty ghouls had their sense of timing right: PNAC was formed in 1997.
germy shoemangler
The Onion has been informative:
Campaign Slogan: “Laying the groundwork for 2020”
Campaign Strategy: Leverage Latino voter base, large-scale grassroots movement, death of Jeb Bush
Vision: Ready for America to reclaim strong conservative values held by 38 percent of its populace
Birthplace: Closed-door conservative think tank strategy session in 2010
Supporters: Good, hardworking, extremely wealthy Americans
Signature Issue: Strongly in favor of Marco Rubio being president
Biggest Liability: Close ties to state of Florida
Ideas For Turning This Country Around: 4
Conservative Voting Record: Will downplay or proudly stand by it as necessary
Stance On Welfare: Strongly favors increasing support to beleaguered corporations
High School Yearbook Superlative: Most Likely To Take 11% Share Of Vote In 2016 Iowa Caucus
kindness
When I see New American Century I can’t help but read it as Project for the New American Century. You know, the old neocon cabal that thought a domino theory in the Middle East was a given and took us into Iraq expecting to end up in Iran. Sadly for them Iraq was such a quagmire that whole domino theory kinda exploded. Didn’t matter though. The same neocons are still doing it but now they use Iraq as a good reference to their madness.
Iowa Old Lady
@RaflW: Exactly. Compare to how Medicare is viewed as opposed to Medicaid.
schrodinger's cat
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Thanks! It worked for quite a while too, little brothers can be very gullible.
D58826
Only slightly OT since it peretains to the clown car field. The full article is on huffingtopn
Now I’m sure we will hear about the non-scandal Whitewater and the Clinton’s till we are blue in the face. I wonder if we will see much of-this about Jeb. It seems Chris Christie has a way with handing out big pension fund checks to his friends also.
I didn’t just fall off the banana boat so I know this is not all that unusual in high political circles but the MSM makes it sound like the only people with ethical problems are the Clinton’s. In this case everyone DOES do it, its just that it’s only an issue for some
>
japa21
First of all, Betty, are you my older brother writing under a pseudonym? And if not, why did the two of you behave in such a similar manner?
Secondly, to echo what RaflW said. What Christie is proposing is one of those tricks, like term limits, voter ID etc., that the GOP likes to pull. At first it sounds semi reasonable, but upon closer examination it is a trap.
And finally, people like Rubio had the gall to say that a website that had millions of hits and crashed was a complete failure (inconvenient yes, failure no) but crashing from 50K hits is to be expected.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@srv: To answer his question, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Means testing SS benefits has always been something I’d like to see…but he’ll be walking this back by tomorrow. Maybe they didn’t do any research before announcing that plan?
The wealthy ones “earned” that money, goddamit, and if you want to see a bunch of super pissed-off geezers throwing a tantrum this country won’t soon forget, cut the piddly payments to the rich people who don’t need the money. Hilariously enough, no one would give a shit if he proposed the exact opposite – reward “the makers” by giving all the SS benefit money to the rich and cut payments to poor elderly people to zero.
japa21
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He was also against using the military for nation building after the invasion of Iraq. In fact, he closed the department in the Pentagon that was involved in nation-building planning. One of the many reasons Iraq became such a mess (beyond the primary one of the invasion).
Keith P.
@dubo: Ditto for thinking PNAC when I read Rubio’s new slogan.
BTW: Most of these guys are really running for vice-president. Rubio, Jindal (bwahahahahaha), I think Walker was until he saw how easy it was to jump to a polling lead.
D58826
Also somewhat OT but still related to the corruption of the political system. The Atlanta teachers convicted of test fraud have been sentence to 20 years but will serve only 7. The banksters who almost destroyed the world economy have been sentence to large tax cuts and weekends in the Hamptons
MattF
@Keith P.: Committed to upholding the honor of Republican Vice Presidents– Nixon, Agnew, Bush, Quayle, Cheney. Quite a group.
Amir Khalid
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
If I’m not mistaken, an argument against means-testing Social Security benefits is that that makes it a means of assistance for the elderly and poor — an “entitlement” that then becomes politically vulnerable to the benefit-cutters of Congress. Your thoughts on this?
muddy
@mai naem mobile: @Suzanne:
He probably over-hydrated so he wouldn’t need to take a drink.
D58826
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Couple of points. SS was set up to be a universal program rather than means tested since means testing sounded to much like welfare. As far as the hissy fit all you have to do is go back to the mid 80’s when Reagan signed the catastrophic heath extension to SS and required a co-pay from the better off geezers. Hell hath no fury like a wealthy geezer asked to pay a bit more in taxes/co-pay. Congress repealed the program so fast it challenged the speed of light.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
Flop sweat.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: The problem is that proposals to ‘fix’ Social Security are, in fact, disguised attempts to destroy it. And everyone with a set of at least two functioning cerebral neurons knows it.
Mandalay
@the Conster:
Well I hate to defend Rubio, but he has put his cock on the block by giving up his Senate seat to run for president. And while he has no chance of winning, he may view this is a useful dress rehersal for another run in 2020.
His real problem is what will he do until then, once he leaves the Senate. Sure he can join some DC think tank, or get a TV gig, but those are hardly fertile grounds for building credibility for 2020. Had Rubio waited until 2020 to run he could have kept his Senate seat while running for president since he won’t be up for re-election then.
Brachiator
@MattF:
Republicans don’t even acknowledge the past. For them, chaos in the Middle East is the fault of a black radical idealist incapable of making the Muslim rabble fear the US. And the bad economy? Not enough free market, too much regulation.
Elizabelle
Meh. Rubio’s just auditioning for VP on the 2016 ticket from/to hell.
I wonder if newspapers are going to see their page views drop slightly. I know I just walk on by the Villagers’ “content providing” on potential GOP candidates. Not interested. They’re cretins beholden to the basest of bases and moneybag gazillionaires.
It’s depressing to think we won’t have Obama anymore in January 2017.
Although I am excited for Hillary. Because we can’t let the GOP anywhere near the White House and Supreme Court appointments.
germy shoemangler
@Mandalay: And thus a campaign slogan is born:
“I put my cock on the block for you!”
gene108
@D58826:
I do not think Bill was corrupt at all, when he was in office.
Nothing he did as President was actually corrupt.
He got stuck with Gingrich’s decision to abuse the Office of the Special Prosecutor by appointing and funding Ken Starr until the cows came home or the blue dress that was never washed made headlines.
None of the Clinton “scandals” had anything to do with actual abuses of power, but the media got fixed on a narrative and rode it for 8 years.
Chris
@Sherparick:
In contrast to my WASPer-than-WASP Southern relatives who hate multiculturalism and think it’s destroying America to not recognize the plain and obvious superiority of the involved culture, but who, after Rubio’s announcement, suddenly rediscovered that our family is “Cubano!” (“that one grandparent’s grandparent” kind of thing).
Omnes Omnibus
@japa21: Why do older siblings do stuff like that? Do you have any idea how annoying you younger siblings could be? Ye gods.
mai naem mobile
@Betty Cracker: okay, its not like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News or anything but the pic they had on him on Google News showed his left side where you could see the perspiration drops forming above his cheek. To be perfectly honest one of my thoughts when they said he was going to be speaking at Freedom Hall where Cubans were processed decades ago was “Hmmmm wondering if it has a/c?” but I’m not a professional campaign consiltant so.what do I know?
trollhattan
Being a soothsayer [“sooth, sooth”] I sooth, er, foresee Dan Price being taken behind a Morton’s Steakhouse and kneecapped by a gang of CEOs for this nonsense.
D58826
@gene108: It was an investigation in search of a crime. The Monica report was issued in late August of 1998. The entire fall campaign revolved around waiting for the other shoe to drop with additional referrals from Starr. Well a week after the election it did ‘drop’. Starr announced before Congress that he had come up with nothing but lying about sex.
But the narrative has been established that the Clinton’s are somehow more uniquely dishonest and untrustworthy unlike other politicians who are as honest and honorable as the day is long (a dangewrous analogy in Alaska in December which probably explains Sarah)..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: I wonder how much of the MSM’s lazy acceptance of the Bush family’s crony capitalism is just old-fashioned forelock tugging, upwardly mobile first-generation Ivy Leaguers who are still a bit overawed by having been invited to their roommates’ families’ summer homes
shell
Just dropped my tax returns in the mail. Owed Federal; small refund from the State.
And listening to some Moody Blues (To Our Chilren’s Children’s Children) and feeling very old.
Cervantes
@gene108:
Did anything he did give you pause? Any of the presidential pardons, say?
D58826
@Cervantes: I’m not sure the pardons broke any laws. The commentary at the time was the presidential pardon power is basically unlimited. It did reek of bad judgment and taking care of ones political friends.
boatboy_srq
@schrodinger’s cat: Complete sentences. They impress the MSM. Had Teh Palin not indulged her passion for word salad, she too would have been respectable in those circles.
gene108
@D58826:
The thing that really pisses me off about the treatment of the Clintons was the free pass the media gave Bush, Jr., with all his failed business dealings and being bailed out, time and time again, by his father’s powerful connections.
Or maybe there’s an old boys club, with regards to cronyism and failing upwards, and if you are in it you get the free pass and the Bush’s, being old NYC banking money, were definitely in it.
PurpleGirl
@srv: No, no, and No. Making SS means-tested is making it like a welfare payment and therefore, easier to cut for everybody. I care that Warren Buffet gets what he gets from SS. I want them to raise what I get paid so I’m living at a poverty level.
gene108
@Cervantes:
Not really. I mean compared to the charges leveled against him nothing he did came close to Watergate or Iran-Contra.
See above. Maybe something was fishy, but it was nothing close to Bush, Sr. pardoning the henchmen convicted in Iran-Contra, who were about to serve jail time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gene108: Didn’t Weinberger have it in writing–notes or a diary– that Poppy perjured himself when he said he was “out of the loop”?
sharl
Haha, awesome first paragraph, Ms. Cracker! As for Rubio: meh
catclub
@PurpleGirl: I agree. The payout from SS is already progressive. Very low income results in a better
return than for people who have paid in more – and presumably will have more assets when older.
Making it more progressive is useful, but too much and it becomes a target like welfare.
D58826
@gene108: They had the connections that go with old money to lean on people and make bad news go away. There was a book written about W’s alleged cocaine use. The family leaned on the right people and the book disappeared. W’s military record was glossed over as opposed to ‘draft-dodger Bill’ and ‘swift-boat Kerry’
The Clinton’s on the other hand were just Bubba and Daisy from the hick state of Arkansas.
I remember in 1981 comments in the press that ‘class’ had been restored to the White House with the arrival of the Reagan’s. The Carter’s were never in any way disrespectful of the office but they didn’t give Hollywood style parties so they were looked down on
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: The family leaned on the right people and the book disappeared.
Kitty Kelly’s book? It didn’t disappear, but she had a bad reputation. I confess I bought it out of spite and couldn’t make it beyond the first hundred pages. I found the little stuff, Barbara’s long term nastiness, and Poppy being a petty cheater at sports and agmes, in his youth, more interesting than the sensationalist stuff
NCSteve
A New American Century? Does he have, oh, I don’t know, a blueprint, or, shall we say, a Project by which he intends to bring out this New American Century? Do his platform’s calls for higher defense spending, reversal of Obama’s progress in dealing with Iran and Cuba and generalized call for replacing diplomacy with across-the-board bellicosity have anything to do with bringing this Project for a New American Century, as we are calling it, to fruition?
Tree With Water
I understood a new generation had arrived when Ronald Reagan re-instituted mandatory draft registration. My class had been the last to have its numbers drawn, and a handful were indeed drafted. Shortly after Reagan’s edict, I asked a group of draft aged boys how they felt about it, and they felt just fine. I remember thinking, “they have no concept of The Machine”. When I was their age a relatively few short years earlier, I approached high school teachers about vouching for the C.O. status I intended to file for if cornered (plan B was Canada). People around my age grouping- which includes Digby, I’m proud to say- have a political slant shaped by a tumultuous decade denied those on either side of that generational divide. My older sister’s class were the Ozzie and Harriet generation that fought (and opposed) the Vietnam War, whereas the above mentioned kids may as well have been born on the moon for all they politically comprehended.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All I remember about it was it was a guy that wrote the book not the one written by Kelly
dirge
@japa21: Yes, that 50k is fine for a Mom & Pop shop, but it’s not a serious number for a public web app or site that you’re trying to drive big traffic spikes to. At the last place I worked on something like that, if somebody said “50k” I’d have assumed they meant per-second, and that they were bringing it up because it was intolerably slow.
Warren Terra
Several people have pointed out that “New American Century” is almost indistinguishable from “Project for a New American Century”, a bunch of neocon policy entrepreneurs who got totally played by Chalabi, Curveball et al and whose basic philosophy could be summed up as “Exterminate The Brutes”.
But: there’s also the New America Foundation, basically a bunch of centrist technocrats that Rubio probably doesn’t talk to. And there’s American Century, apparently a firm of money managers.
germy shoemangler
@gene108: Just saw this joke (it’s from the early ’90s):
Bill and Hillary Clinton are driving near her home town. They stop to get some gas, whereupon Hillary recognizes the station attendant as a high-school boyfriend. After they drive off, Bill tells her, smugly, “See, if you’d married him, you’d be working at a gas station.” Hillary smartly replies, “If I’d married him, he’d be President.”
tom
The reason a website crashes at 50k visitors is because they *never expected to have 50k visitors*.
trnc
@srv: Not necessarily. First, it’s already somewhat means tested.
https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/why-arent-social-security-and-medicare-means-tested
The truly liberal position (IMHO) is to keep the current structure but raise benefits. I think any attempt to provide more means testing is actually a step toward turning it into another welfare program that can be demonized, then whittled away.
trnc
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
That pretty much describes social security privatization.
Adam L Silverman
For everyone that tied Senator Rubio’s “New American Century” slogan to the Project for a New American Century, you’re not only correct, but this is a bit of strategic messaging by the Rubio campaign. He’s been making a big deal out of his foreign policy chips as compared to the rest of the GOP field, his use of this slogan is a signal in regard to that. I would expect to see a number of the new-Cons show up as advisors in fairly short order and for his statements on foreign policy to fit solidly within the new-Con worldview.
WaterGirl
@Adam L Silverman: Really interesting take. Thanks.
sm*t cl*de
Sounds better in the original German (but it’s a 1000 years, not a century).
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: you’re welcome and I apologize for the verdammt autocorrect on my iPad – the most recent update turned it back on. That should be chops, not chips and neo-Cons, not new-Cons…