Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The lights are all blinking red.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Fight them, without becoming them!

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Key Read: “The Day Political Journalism Died And The People Who Killed It”

Key Read: “The Day Political Journalism Died And The People Who Killed It”

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Since anything I write is liable to be misinterpreted as yet another effort to shove That Woman down unwilling throats, I’ll just leave explanation of the latest “well, there are so many rumors… “ ratfvcking to a trained professional:

There are three ur-texts that must be read if one is to understand the dynamics of ratfking in our modern politics. The first, of course, is All The President’s Men which, thanks to Donald Segretti, introduced us to the term in the first place. The second is The Hunting Of The President by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, which detailed the operation of what James Carville called “the puke funnel,” whereby information dug up, stirred up, or made up by various dingy operatives in Arkansas and elsewhere made it so deeply into the mainstream that, eventually, the halls of Congress were awash in it. And the third is Joshua Green’s lengthy survey of the long career of Karl Rove, who began by fking small-time rats in Alabama and ended up in the West Wing. If there is one consistent theme through all three of these essential studies it is the steady decline of the importance of the middle man to broker deals between the grassroots ratfkers and the elite political press. No longer does your Segretti have to travel the nation, cancelling rallies and writing fake letters. No longer does the elite political press have to launder the information that comes from Larry Nichols or the attorneys representing Gennifer Flowers. It’s easier just to buy it wholesale from the dealer.

Yesterday, several news outlets announced that they had obtained “exclusive rights” to the research compiled by one Peter Schweizer, a veteran Republican operative, for his upcoming hit-job on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. These outlets included, unsurprisingly, Fox News and Breitbart News. They also included The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Schweizer has a long history of fudge and nonsense in service to the conservative cause. His career is a pure creature of the well-funded ideological terrarium of the modern conservative movement…

Reader Interactions

65Comments

  1. 1.

    billb

    Honor used to be a ‘thing’ in this country. One had ‘self-respect’.
    criminals, wallstreet dirtbags, and whores [m/w/etc] were considered less than human. Now people that call themselves ‘journalists’ are mere tramps, scum, NYT WSJ incld. [present blog excluded]. Keep on rockin it Balloon Juice!

  2. 2.

    fleeting expletive

    Thank you guys for your encouragements, This whole business has left me weepy and sleepy and not right with the world. But I think I’ll get to be all right–the concept of moving scares me more than I can say since I have probably 30 boxes I have not unpacked since I moved here almost 9 years ago. I thought I’d be here for a year or maybe two so I was ready toad Move on Up but that didn’t happen. I’m a bit open to it now. My daughter Sarah has been such a champ–as I said, laundry, shopping, car repair (more has to be done), if I could reincarnate myself I’d live in her skin–radical, tattooed feminist anarchist vegan best-daughter-in-the-world. I learned some vegan cooking stuff–chocolate chip cookies that are excellent, as well as tofu scramble. I ate better food while she was here than I had for six months before.

    I hope uncle Gary isn’t a greedy bastard and that he’ll cut me some slack–family deal, and I can offer my landlord’s recommendation since I’ve sent my rent check in before the first of the month for the last seven years. Cusp of change, baby, cusp of change.

    Lordy, I wish I had a source for some…legal in colorado. Now would be my time. I’m tempted to ask my liquor store guy (I have been a reliable customer) but I have no idea what he would say.

    Thus spraken Oklahoma.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @fleeting expletive: Silly question for you: Are you taking advantage of your eye problems to wear an eye patch and pretend you are a pirate or Bond villain? If not, I suggest that you consider it – if it is not contrary to your Doc’s advice.*

    *I once gave a mohawk wig to a friend who was doing chemo. I thought she should take advantage of the opportunity to experiment with a variety of looks.

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    Why always the euphemism? It’s not “fking” or “fvcking” — it’s “fucking.”

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    @Betty Cracker

    Recall the elderly Groucho Marx introducing the young lady accompanying him (who was more than a few decades younger than he): “This is my euphemism.”

  10. 10.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid: In TV shows and “family friendly” movies, they say “freaking” or “fricking” a lot. Everyone knows what was meant. Same here.

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    Is anyone directly employing this Peter Schweizer guy, or is he just doing his thing knowing that any Republican challenger will benefit?

    In any event, so much crap has been thrown against the Clintons that I don’t know that it a new attempt will have the impact that the GOP might hope.

  12. 12.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Gin & Tonic: Shit, I hadn’t noticed that AL had done it too. OTOH, this is supposed to be a fucking family-friendly blog, for fuck’s sake.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    Actually, as no money from the NYT or the Post is changing hands, good on them for providing a preemptive fact-checking counterpoint to what FOX and Breitbart will spew, the latter almost surely unedited and unverified.

  17. 17.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Well, “freaking” is a cromulent word in its own right. So is “fricking”, even if it’s not as meaningful. Not so with “fking” or “fvcking”.

  18. 18.

    Renie

    Is this the big secret Rand Paul said he knew that was going to be exposed about Hillary? I don’t know if I can take a year and a half of this garbage.

  19. 19.

    catclub

    @Brachiator:

    In any event, so much crap has been thrown against the Clintons that I don’t know that it a new attempt will have the impact that the GOP might hope.

    This. The Clintons have been vilified by the right wing for almost 25 years and are more popular now than when they started.
    There are not a lot of undecided people whose minds will be changed by one more made up scandal.

    I need to order the Gene Lyons book.

  21. 21.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amir Khalid: They are, nevertheless, euphemisms for “fuck” and its variants. BTW, the word fuck is incredibly useful. The sentence, “Fuck, the fucking fucker’s fucked.” makes sense.

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @Omnes Omnibus

    One odd example of English usage that remains stuck in a brain cell lo, these many years after a linguistics course is:

    eggplant plant plant plant

    Perfectly fine and concise if one is describing an industrial spy at a large-scale commercial enterprise which grows and supplies eggplant seedlings.

  33. 33.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Omnes Omnibus: no need to be catty, sorry if my tone was off.

    I would say “my favorite kind of sentence like that is…” but I don’t actually like them :)

    It’s like the natural language version of the interview question “write me a y-combinator in xyz”

  38. 38.

    SoupCatcher

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Well, getting swept by Colorado at home wasn’t pleasant. And holding down the cellar in the west well under 500 …

    I have a co-worker who took the train up to the game and had resigned herself to the highlight of the evening being the Caltrain cocktail hour. I’m glad she’s pleasantly surprised.

  40. 40.

    shortstop

    In the last 24 hours, five friends’ dogs have died. Not one of them had the creepy dog flu going around Chicago.

  45. 45.

    fuckwit

    @Omnes Omnibus: Louis C.K. does a hilarious and inisightful indictment of people who passive-aggressively use euphemisms to get YOU to say the offensive word in your OWN head in order to translate their chickenshit bullshit into English, and how, well, offensive that is.

  46. 46.

    SoupCatcher

    In regards to the thread topic, I agree with those who think there’s not much fertile ground for Clinton attacks.

    I was on the other side of the political aisle when Bill Clinton was president, in my twenties doing a lot of driving and listening to talk radio, and I remember recycling some of what I’d heard on Limbaugh to my grandmother. She got really angry and said she couldn’t believe how people wouldn’t leave the Clintons alone.

    I realize I’m in a bubble out here in California, but it certainly feels like most everyone I deal with on a regular basis is now where my grandmother was then.

    Or, to put it another way, is there anyone out there who has neighbors who would fall for this latest hatchet job?

  48. 48.

    Violet

    @SoupCatcher: Of course. 40% of the country, or something like that, will vote Republican. So I don’t know if that means they’ll “fall for it” but it won’t matter. They’ll vote for the Republican.

  49. 49.

    danielx

    @catclub:

    There are not a lot of undecided people whose minds will be changed by one more made up scandal.

    There are a lot of people who vote based upon the last thing they heard, although they may have been predisposed to vote that way anyway. Whether the last thing they heard had anything to do with reality or not..as witness the number of Limbaugh listeners who happily shovel down heaping helpings of complete horseshit on a daily basis. But the truly undecided exist in numbers greater than you’d think, although they are more likely not to vote at all. Someone who is truly undecided a week before election day and can be swayed at that point by a Rovian hate bomb should probably be checked for a pulse.

    On another topic, or rather to hark back to one that was covered in an earlier thread: call me foolish, call me irresponsible, but these ring/ass kissing ceremonies that Republican presidential hopefuls are going through are truly beginning to irritate me. Bad enough when they all went trucking off to Las Vegas for an audience with Jabba th…er, Sheldon Adelson, but…auditions? Candidates for the highest office in the land are going to audition in front of two fucking plutocrats? As in, just what are you willing to do for us in exchange for x million dollars? Not going to be any listening or recording devices in those meetings, nosiree.

    I know all this went on before, in various shapes and forms; that’s the way of the world and politics. No big surprise. But to have it actually proclaimed that the Kochs are screening who they’re going to buy – above and beyond Scott Walker, who they already own – is just….nauseating.

  50. 50.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Amir Khalid: the best f-bomb in modern PG-13 cinema is in X-Men: First Class. When they’re searching around for mutants, and they come up to Wolverine in a bar, he’s smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey, and they say “I’m professor xav–”

    And he just says “go fuck yourself.”
    You only get one in a PG-13 after all.

  51. 51.

    SoupCatcher

    @Violet:

    Of course. 40% of the country, or something like that, will vote Republican. So I don’t know if that means they’ll “fall for it” but it won’t matter. They’ll vote for the Republican.

    Well, they’re sunk cost.

    Is there anyone who wasn’t already planning on voting Republican who will be swayed?

  52. 52.

    fuckwit

    @Renie: Agreed. Can we just hold the fucking election now and get this all over with? Christ this is going to be miserable.

    What’s next? In 2017, a few weeks after the inauguration, the 2020 candidates declare and start their campaigns? This is getting ridiculous.

  56. 56.

    shortstop

    Thanks, all. They were all just very old dogs. One died in his sleep and the others were euthanized due to advancing illnesses. It breaks my heart to see my friends’ heartbreak. The only thing that ever truly lessens it is time.

    Sometimes I wonder if dogs are worth the excruciating pain that comes with their leaving us. I wonder that for about five seconds. Because of course they are, a thousand times over.

  57. 57.

    Violet

    @danielx:

    but…auditions? Candidates for the highest office in the land are going to audition in front of two fucking plutocrats? As in, just what are you willing to do for us in exchange for x million dollars?

    Heh. That makes it sound like some politics version of “American Idol.” The old school version with Simon Cowell. Let’s see…which one of the Koch brothers is going to be the Mean British Judge? And will they bring in a woman to play the Paula Abdul role?

    Someone smart could create a really great TV show about this.

  58. 58.

    Violet

    @SoupCatcher:

    Is there anyone who wasn’t already planning on voting Republican who will be swayed?

    Who knows. It’s way too early to tell. The election is a year and a half away. If they are swayed to vote Republican it’s more likely to have to do with something personal to them than some book that was relesed 18 months before the election.

  59. 59.

    Amir Khalid

    @Major Major Major Major:
    If you get only one “fuck”, use it well.

    I remember that moment in The X-Men: Days of Future Past, when McAvoy as Younger Xavier throws that very GFY right back in Wolverine’s face.

  60. 60.

    David Koch

    They really don’t like Hillary over at NYT. They’ve been trying to scandalize her for years. It’s more than political, it’s personal.

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    @danielx:

    but these ring/ass kissing ceremonies that Republican presidential hopefuls are going through

    They make one think of mid-level hoodlums at an audience with the Godfather, don’t they?

  62. 62.

    Mike J

    Whenever I read Charlie Pierce, all I can think of is what Lillian Hellman said to Norman Mailer.

  63. 63.

    Peale

    @Renie: i dont think this is aimed at you per se, except maybe to get you to say “both sides do it” when it comes to having large donors who want things in return. The fact is, some foreign captain of industry or sheik of the oil kingdom giving money for global health isn’t that scary, at least to me. What our own billionaires want to do to our country is far more immediate…and affects me directly. That sheik isn’t the reason our schools aren’t properly funded for instance.

    But im thinking that this scare is aimed at potential donors to clinton’s campaign. Its too far away from the election to hit most voters minds, but donors are another story.

  65. 65.

    JustRuss

    @catclub:

    There are not a lot of undecided people whose minds will be changed by one more made up scandal.

    True, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about revving up the base to get them to show up to vote against Clinton, because the only candidates they have that the base actually likes (Cruz, Paul) will not be on the ballot. And this will give the Foxbots and radio bloviators lots of red meat to work with.

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