Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

When they say they’re pro-life, they don’t mean yours.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / We are all cleek now

We are all cleek now

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Establishment media is finally starting to understand contemporary conservatism.

And only five years after cleek gave the definitive definition:

today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today: updated daily.

(h/t commenter Jeffro)

Update. Cleek’s law isn’t meant as a put-down, it’s just meant to be accurate. My preferred foreign policy is the opposite of what the Washington Post editorial board wants, updated daily. I believe that history will show that would have been the wisest possible foreign policy. Maybe when the rapture comes and all is revealed, we will learn that liberals were wrong about everything and that conservatives were right to want the opposite of whatever liberals want.

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike G

    “at this moment in time”.

    Maybe in geological time, because conservatives have been cultivating ‘angry and stupid’ for decades.

  2. 2.

    Kryptik

    The whole thing would be laughable if it wasn’t so depressingly effective. What should be a disqualifying detriment to the party instead has become its greatest strength and carried it to electoral and rhetorical victories goddamn near everywhere. They pretty much own the narrative and may as well own the goddamn country in most ways.

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    The problem with that quote is that Schmidt is trying to make this sound as if it’s something new that Trump has introduced, and you can be sure the Nice Polite Republicans will interpret it that way. See, ¡Jeb! is still a Very Serious Person who is interested in the issues; it’s only the new crazies like Trump who are all about hating the liberals.

  6. 6.

    Jim. Foolish Literalist

    What did Schmidt think when, if Woody Harrelson can be believed,and how can he not, he agreed that Palin should accuse Obama of “pallin’ around with terrerrrrisssts”

    or when his surrogate daddy John McCain brought her down to AZ to save his ass in 2010, which I think was before he cut the ads about “build the dang fence!”

    (Michael Bennet, CO, is a yes on Iran)

    ETA: What put me in moderation? “Woody”?

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    What did Schmidt think when, if Woody Harrelson can be believed,and how can he not, he agreed that Palin should accuse Obama of “pallin’ around with terrerrrrisssts”

    or when his surrogate daddy John McCain brought her down to AZ to save his ass in 2010, which I think was before he cut the ads about “build the dang fence!”

    (Michael Bennet, CO, is a yes on Iran)

  10. 10.

    Luthe

    Seriously, the “contempt and anger” part of conservatism can be traced straight back to Brown v. Board of Ed and Atwater’s Southern Strategy. The monster has only metastasized since then.

  11. 11.

    Ryan

    You know, when you rely on the Culture Warriors to deliver you to office, and then you do nothing for them, for a generation, I think it surprising that the Establishment would be surprised they aren’t in favor anymore.

  12. 12.

    gbear

    @Belafon: I know I try to mention Cleek’s Law whenever the concept comes up on LGF. There are so many people at that site that take credit for every insight that it feels good to refer them back here.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    The irony is that the success of establishment hacks like GWB, Cheney, Paul, Jeb, Walker, et al, is actually a better example of Cleekification than the Trump circus. Anger and contempt were always the vote drivers used as cover to enact plutocrat-friendly policies. The unique thing about Trump is that he serves up the red meat without the veggies.

  19. 19.

    Another Holocene Human

    @gbear:

    There are so many people at that site that take credit for every insight that it feels good to refer them back here.

    Lol, truth.

    I enjoy the comments more than not, though. Especially after “Kilgore” got his ass banned after his Anthony Cumia fanboying. He could really stink up a good thread.

    Wonder if he’s one of our racist trolls?

  21. 21.

    Another Holocene Human

    Somebody save me from having to work today.

    In all seriousness, I feel a bit dizzy and I don’t know why.

  22. 22.

    NonyNony

    @Belafon:

    The Daily Kos article that shows up: That’s mine. :)

    Nice.

    I noticed that Google’s broken in one way though – I tried “define: Poe’s Law” and was shocked at the source of their definition. (I mean, it’s mostly correct, but the source is let’s just say unreliable).

  23. 23.

    Mandalay

    Trump may never apologize, but Clinton just said sorry for her email brouha.

    Just kidding! The word “sorry” came out of her mouth, but not in the way it should have:

    “At the end of the day, I am sorry that this has been confusing to people and has raised a lot of questions, but there are answers to all these questions,” Clinton said of her email server after being pressed by Mitchell on whether she should apologize for the controversy that has dogged her campaign from the outset.

    Trump has the hair and the trash talk, but nobody plays the victim better than Hillary Clinton.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodinger’s cat: She’s better, thanks! I moved the dog beds into my work area so she could flop down beside me, and she’s been there all day, with occasional forays to the food bowl and outside to attend to necessities. I got a picture of her earlier I’ll post later for an open thread. She still looks pathetic and sad, but much better than yesterday.

  26. 26.

    Haydnseek

    A lot of people waiting for the rapture will have second thoughts when they realize that they won’t be able to take their guns along with them.

  27. 27.

    mtiffany

    Maybe when the rapture comes and all is revealed, we will learn that liberals were wrong about everything and that conservatives were right to want the opposite of whatever liberals want.

    That’s the bet they wingnuts are going all in on, isn’t it.

  28. 28.

    NonyNony

    @Haydnseek: I’m fairly certain that American Fundamentalist Heaven has lots of guns. They wouldn’t consider it heaven if they didn’t have guns there. Republican Jesus will be there to dole out the guns and ammo.

  29. 29.

    elmo

    @Luthe:
    Seriously. After Brown, the official Southern state government strategy was what they called “Massive Resistance,” where they refused to voluntarily comply with the order and decided to force the Federal Government to bring individual enforcement actions, deploy troops, and show the rest of White America that it was full of Negro-lovin jackboot thugs, all in an effort to create chaos and delay.

    If that sounds like the Rowan County clerk’s strategy, it should. The anti-equality forces started in Massachusetts after the first marriage equality decision, and completely without irony, decided to call themselves “MassResistance,” complete with a website, massresistance.org.

    They don’t even try to hide it.

  30. 30.

    Cervantes

    Cleek’s law isn’t meant as a put-down, it’s just meant to be accurate. My preferred foreign policy is the opposite of what the Washington Post editorial board wants, updated daily.

    Useful note, thanks.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mandalay: Why should she apologize if she doesn’t think she’s harmed anyone or broken any laws? She’s said in hindsight that maintaining a private email address wasn’t a good idea because of the ensuing brouhaha but that it was legal under the rules and policies of the time. If that’s proved incorrect, an apology might be appropriate, but so far, she hasn’t admitted that. Is she supposed to apologize because the issue raised a Villager pitchfork mob? She might as well apologize for breathing in that case.

  34. 34.

    Germy Shoemangler

    Mara Liasson!

    Have the words “Bernie Sanders” ever escaped her lips?

    Or anything positive about Barack Obama?

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NonyNony: Maybe it’s like Valhalla, or a first-person shooter game: they can kill each other in glorious combat and respawn over and over all day long.

  36. 36.

    Another Holocene Human

    @NonyNony: You know, Jesus said there wouldn’t be male or female in heaven, and there wouldn’t be marriages either. I wonder if America’s Best Christians™ are aware of this?

  38. 38.

    Another Holocene Human

    @scav: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.”

    BTW, my father always interpreted this verse to mean that any religion could get into Heaven. Subversive!

  39. 39.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Cleek’s law isn’t meant as a put-down, it’s just meant to be accurate.

    I’m amazed that anyone would take it as a put down. It’s a simple statement of the facts.

  40. 40.

    srv

    Janell Ross at the Amazon Post delivers a tongue lathering of BJ old-time-cuck Hugh Hewiit (“Who Is Hugh Hewitt?”) and is perturbed Trump calls him out:

    The list of people Donald Trump has lambasted, ridiculed and publicly derided is notoriously long. On Friday, The Donald added another name when he called the much-respected conservative radio host and constitutional law professor Hugh Hewitt a “third-rate announcer,” after a Thursday interview

  41. 41.

    gbear

    @Another Holocene Human:
    I kind of like how the comments go immediatly off topic there and everyone posts links. It’s like having a continuously updated front page. I tend to like the commenters too.
    I’m a latecomer to the site so I missed out on the conservative purge. Same with Balloon Juice. I didn’t discover it until after John had his epiphany.

  42. 42.

    gian

    @Betty Cracker:

    I read the non apology as a variety of “sorry you’re so stupid this confuses you”
    If she has nothing to apologize for she should avoid the insulting non apology and roll with “my practice was consistent with the practice of all previous secretaries of state who used email and I will no apologize for performing the job like everyone else”

    But really I have no idea why she had to get gossip emails from Blumenthal on the sort of official account. Most of us who have work email know that it lacks privacy and to use personal email for personal gossipy stuff.

  47. 47.

    NonyNony

    @gian:

    But really I have no idea why she had to get gossip emails from Blumenthal on the sort of official account. Most of us who have work email know that it lacks privacy and to use personal email for personal gossipy stuff.

    Would you give Sid Blumenthal your personal e-mail address? I certainly wouldn’t.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @gian: Since it’s a bunch of Beltway hacks who are doing the asking, I don’t mind Clinton insulting their intelligence a bit by implication, and she has repeatedly said a version of the “consistent with the practice” line. RE: the work email angle, most bosses don’t expect repercussions the rest of us proles routinely deal with, so that doesn’t surprise me. I’m no Hillary fangirl, but this email thing seems like a Villager-ginned-up nothingburger to me so far.

  51. 51.

    Cacti

    Most recent Georgia primary poll released today:

    Dem: Clinton 51, Sanders 24, Biden 15, Chafee 5, Webb and O’Malley 0

    GOPers: Trump 34, Carson 25, Jeb 11, Everyone else 6 or less

  52. 52.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Forgive my ignorance, but is that the same Cleek who designed the Pie Filter? Or is it just a coincidence of name?

    @SiubhanDuinne: Same guy. Very rarely has someone done so much for humanity and not been a publicity whore about it.

    Thanks for everything, Cleek.

  55. 55.

    Belafon

    @Cacti: Chafee 5 and O’Malley 0? If I lived there, I’d probably give up on the state. Not that I’d vote for O’Malley in any primary, but Chafee?

  58. 58.

    Cacti

    @Belafon:

    Yeah, Chafee at 5 percent was the surprise for me. Webb at 0 was also a bit of a surprise with him being a fellow southron from Virginny.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    @Cacti: GOP = 59% anger/outsider voters. That is the ballgame…just wait until over half the party learns they’re not gonna get their hearts’ desire…AGAIN.

  61. 61.

    piratedan

    @Betty Cracker: when is Mitchell going to apologize for being a journalist…. cripes she’s the Joan Rivers of the political beat… abrasive and pointless without purpose.

  63. 63.

    Villago Delenda Est

    As Keynes pointed out long ago, “Conservatism” has always been about providing a rationale for selfishness.

    It’s just now achieving it’s logical conclusion, that of a three year old throwing a temper tantrum.

  67. 67.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    HADES, n. The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the place where the dead live.
    Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in a very comfortable kind of way. Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris.
    – Ambrose Bierce

  68. 68.

    benw

    @Debbie:

    And those who thought Conservatives weren’t selfish enough went Libertarian.

    Ha! And those who thought Libertarians weren’t Intellectual enough went Objectivist.

  69. 69.

    Robin G.

    @Cacti: I’m really curious about whether Carson will keep that spot after a second debate. I really doubt that he’ll hold up under more direct questioning; he’s an idiot, and doesn’t have Trump’s swagger and media savvy to counter it. (And yes, in extreme cases, idiocy *can* sink a GOP campaign: see Perry, Rick.) I just have a hard time seeing him sticking around. Fiorina, in my book, is the real Trump challenger in this early game.

  70. 70.

    Anoniminous

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Trump has yet to break Perry’s 38% national polling of August 2011, the high point of the Not RomBot surge.

    While I think “polling ceiling” is a stupid concept if a number is sought, that’s what people should be looking at.

  72. 72.

    NonyNony

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Sid Blumenthal nothin. Did you see the slobbering email Lanny Davis sent her?

    Oh heck yeah – there’s no way that Lanny Davis gets my personal e-mail info either.

    In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s why all of this nonsense was in her State Department e-mail. She wasn’t going to give out the personal account and these guys couldn’t take a hint.

  74. 74.

    catclub

    @Robin G.:

    Fiorina, in my book, is the real Trump challenger in this early game.

    Business, powerpoint, bullshitting but looking knowledgeable. Could be.

  76. 76.

    Turgidson

    Of course, Schmidt can’t or won’t acknowledge that conservatism has been stuck “at this moment in time” for at least 20 years and has been stumbling towards it for more than 50.

  77. 77.

    catclub

    @Anoniminous: 17 candidates this year means 38 may not be reached by anyone.

    OTOH: if Trump holds 25% he wins, because with all the ‘unlimited corporate cash’ not enough will drop out.
    Cruz, Bush, Walker, Carson, Kasich and Rubio all have enough money to stay in a long time. The longer they are all there, the longer Trump keeps winning all the delegates.

  79. 79.

    Turgidson

    @Betty Cracker:

    Is she supposed to apologize because the issue raised a Villager pitchfork mob? She might as well apologize for breathing in that case.

    Ron “Severe Dementia” Fournier would say yes, of course. But as Charlie Pierce, among others have correctly pointed out, no amount of contrition from Hillary will “put an end” to this story. Whatever she says will invariably “raise more questions than it answers” and give the Village Idiots an excuse to write more “stories” about how this “story” isn’t going away and that “some say” the “story” is damaging Hillary’s campaign, which will give them another excuse to keep covering the “story’s” political consequences.

    It’s a perpetual motion machine in print and talking gasbag form. Powered entirely by stupidity and pure, distilled Clinton Hate. Fournier will probably still be shagging this chicken when Hillary gives her 2nd inauguration speech in 2021.

  81. 81.

    Hal

    it’s not about the issues…

    We knew that when Steve Schmidt convinced McCain to take Palin as his VP. Or how about when he was on Chris Matthews invoking massive destruction if the Iran deal went through.

  82. 82.

    Another Holocene Human

    @gbear: Oh me too.

    I had trouble following anything going on in the early days of the liberal blogosphere, actually. The tone was relentlessly sarcastic and tended towards the insidery. I hated Bush and Cheney too, but I couldn’t keep track of the minutia, pet names, and the blogging world inside baseball.

  83. 83.

    Anoniminous

    @catclub:

    Trump is at 32% (according to Huffpollster,) the only other candidate in double figures is Carson, there are ten candidates below 5% and 4 below 1%. . While technically there are 17 candidates running, for me the real choices are Trump, Carson, Bush, Cruz, and Rubio. I include Cruz and Rubio just to make things “fuzzy.”

  84. 84.

    catclub

    Kevin Drum notes that only the Hugh Hewitt interview has raised interest in how lazy and uninformed Trump is;

    But today’s headlines are all about Trump’s “struggles,” “stumbles,” and “gaffes.” That’s all totally fair, but why did it take this interview to suddenly wake everyone up?

    My theory: Because Hewitt was trying so hard to be nice ( or at least appear to be nice) and Trump still took it as attack journalism.

  85. 85.

    Redshift

    @Robin G.:

    I’m really curious about whether Carson will keep that spot after a second debate. I really doubt that he’ll hold up under more direct questioning; he’s an idiot, and doesn’t have Trump’s swagger and media savvy to counter it. (And yes, in extreme cases, idiocy *can* sink a GOP campaign: see Perry, Rick.) I just have a hard time seeing him sticking around. Fiorina, in my book, is the real Trump challenger in this early game.

    Carson was an idiot in the first debate (while doing a good imitation of being heavily sedated) and it didn’t seem to hurt him at all. I don’t think any of us have a good understanding of where his support is coming from. He’s beloved because he’s a black guy who attacked Obama in his presence at the National Prayer Breakfast, and I’ve heard the evangelicals love him, but I haven’t seen detailed polling telling if that’s actually true.

    I’m skeptical of Fiorina’s appeal. I feel like a good chunk of her rise since the first debate was because the Fox hosts were openly promoting her during the wrap-up. I think that’s the little-remarked second half of their attempt to deal with the Trump “problem.”

  86. 86.

    Another Holocene Human

    @gian:

    But really I have no idea why she had to get gossip emails from Blumenthal on the sort of official account. Most of us who have work email know that it lacks privacy and to use personal email for personal gossipy stuff.

    In the late oughts I had grown people at work sending me chain emails on government email in accounts in a state where any asshole could walk up to City Hall with a CD-ROM and request the contents of your inbox AND the computer department had sent several emails reminding everyone that chain emails with lots of images in them were verboten.

    Pretty sure Hills and Sid were older olds than the olds who were defying our employer’s written policy.

  87. 87.

    Another Holocene Human

    Hell, around 2000 I was working for another government and some inept coworker sent me about 5 instances of Anna Kournikova virus.

    It was hard to be mad at him, actually. He was tricked by the Outlook contacts trick and thought it was a real email from one of us.

  88. 88.

    Eric U.

    I had a conservative tell me that his political philosophy was to piss off liberals. I think that’s as close to Cleek’s law as you can get.

  90. 90.

    Jeffro

    @catclub:

    OTOH: if Trump holds 25% he wins, because with all the ‘unlimited corporate cash’ not enough will drop out.
    Cruz, Bush, Walker, Carson, Kasich and Rubio all have enough money to stay in a long time. The longer they are all there, the longer Trump keeps winning all the delegates.

    I dunno about Kaisch – I don’t think he has significant PAC, ground-troop, or sugar daddy support but I could be wrong. And don’t forget, Huck and Paul are in there for as long as they can keep the grift going, too.

  92. 92.

    Digger O'Dell

    Cleek’s Law isn’t meant to be a put down? It sure is used that way. Conservatives have no ideology of their own, they just reflexively oppose what liberals want. Sometimes it causes them to oppose positions they only recently held.

  93. 93.

    Anoniminous

    @Calouste:

    I looked-up Gravis Marketing/One America News. The first is a PR firm, the second is a Conservative news outlet formerly tied to the Washington Times. Neither inspires me to confidence in their objectivity and polling accuracy.

    You’re right about Romney. By all rights, JEB! should be polling in the double digits. It’s got to be worrying his campaign staff. JEB! has an overwhelming advantage, structural-wise, but the dope has to win some primaries, somewheres. As it and he is now … darned if I know where.

  94. 94.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Cacti:

    Webb at 0 was also a bit of a surprise with him being a fellow southron from Virginny.

    Sure, he bombed with likely voters – Democrats. But how did he fare among unlikely voters – Independents?

  95. 95.

    Schlemazel

    @Another Holocene Human:
    My favorite is when someone mistakenly blasts an email out to a huge list and dozens of people reply all with “Why are you sending this to me?” or “Please remove me from this list” messages. We have literally brought Outlook to its knees in a Tsunami of this stupidity, hundreds of emails in a few minutes. But the real turd cherry are the folks (and it is never just one moran) that replies all to the storm with a message quoting the policy we have against reply all to large email lists – You are a special kind of stupid to do that.

    The last time it happened several people had their email accounts locked until they had been retrained.

  97. 97.

    Jeffro

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Put a fork it in, O’Malley. You’re done.

    No real distinguishable constituency that Hillary and Bernie aren’t already covering, and doesn’t even bring much to the ticket as a possible Veep.

  98. 98.

    Schlemazel

    @Anoniminous:
    Lemme put a fine point on that fer ya

    America One News is the network that carried Palin’s interview with the tRump. That is real ‘Murica qualitee right there.

  100. 100.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Turgidson: I relished the call on one of those npr/pri shows last week when a millennial white male, maybe he lurks here, basically called the email scandal Village nonsense than nobody on Main St cares about.

  102. 102.

    Ruckus

    @Mike J:
    If you accurately describe them, it will be insulting to them. The only way not to insult them is not to deal with them at all. Unfortunately they can’t be locked in a closet until they grow up so they don’t hurt anyone.

  103. 103.

    Jeffro

    @Digger O’Dell:

    Sometimes it causes them to oppose positions they only recently held.

    It would be so easy, and so incredibly amusing, to see a supposedly “GOP” candidate giving full-throated conservative defenses of things like the ACA, the Iran deal, ending of corporate-welfare subsidies, etc (and you could, it’s not that hard) – and watching as a very significant portion of the GOP rose in righteous, angry agreement. Just because Cleek’s law, that’s why.

  104. 104.

    Doug R

    @Betty Cracker: Typical Clinton rules strike again. She did what every Secretary of State had done before her and then they CHANGE THE RULES and she’s retroactively supposed to follow them?

  105. 105.

    NonyNony

    @Jeffro:

    I dunno about Kaisch – I don’t think he has significant PAC, ground-troop, or sugar daddy support but I could be wrong.

    Kasich pissed off the insane billionaires by taking the Medicaid expansion. And then further pissed them off by defending it by saying something about how it was unChristian to turn it down.

    In fact, I just Googled it to confirm and it’s quoted here.

    The Ohio governor reportedly alienated attendees at the Koch-affiliated conference in 2014 by giving a fiery defense of his decision to expand Medicaid. “I don’t know about you, lady,” Kasich told one prominent Republican donor. “But when I get to the pearly gates, I’m going to have an answer for what I’ve done for the poor.” According to Politico, roughly 20 attendees walked out of the room in protest at the Ohio governor’s answer.

    He’s not getting billionaire sugar daddy money with THAT attitude.

  106. 106.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Redshift:

    Carson was an idiot in the first debate (while doing a good imitation of being heavily sedated) and it didn’t seem to hurt him at all.

    I know, right?

  107. 107.

    Citizen Alan

    Maybe when the rapture comes and all is revealed, we will learn that liberals were wrong about everything and that conservatives were right to want the opposite of whatever liberals want.

    Except that conservatives still want the opposite of whatever liberals want even when liberals throw up their hands and say “okay, we’ll do what the conservatives want” at which point the former conservative position instantly becomes Marxist.

  108. 108.

    trollhattan

    @Digger O’Dell:
    IGMFY isn’t an ideology? I thought it was a guiding principle, marchinggoose-stepping alongside “The real problem is government (i.e., that part of government that isn’t either throwing money directly at me or regulating in a way that helps me make and keep more money).”

  111. 111.

    gex

    There’s a bit more to conservative philosophy than the opposite of liberalism. I don’t think, for instance, that suddenly wanting to ban gay marriage will make them go the other way. There are some base principles that are immutable. But other than that, yes, Cleek is basically spot on.

    ETA: The hate. They will never stray from hate and fear.

  112. 112.

    dedc79

    @Turgidson: Yeah, why hasn’t Fournier turned his ire on Colin Powell:

    STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. So we’ll cut back to you on that later on.

    But I do want to ask you one final question on this Hillary Clinton e-mail controversy. Which, of course, put you back in the news a bit this week, as well.

    You were secretary of State during the early days of e-mails. You were one of the first secretaries, I believe, to set up a personal e-mail account. And you pushed to modernize the State Department’s system.

    Based on your experience, what do you make of these revelations this week and what would you recommend that she do now?

    POWELL: I — I can’t speak to a — Mrs. Clinton and what she should do now. That would be inappropriate.

    What I did when I entered the State Department, I found an antiquated system that had to be modernized and modernized quickly.

    So we put in place new systems, bought 44,000 computers and put a new Internet capable computer on every single desk in every embassy, every office in the State Department. And then I connected it with software.

    But in order to change the culture, to change the brainware, as I call it, I started using it in order to get everybody to use it, so we could be a 21st century institution and not a 19th century.

    But I retained none of those e-mails and we are working with the State Department to see if there’s anything else they want to discuss with me about those e-mails.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So they want…

    POWELL: (INAUDIBLE) have a stack of them.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: — they’ve asked you to turn them over, but you don’t have them, is that it?

    POWELL: I don’t have any — I don’t have any to turn over. I did not keep a cache of them. I did not print them off. I do not have thousands of pages somewhere in my personal files.

    And, in fact, a lot of the e-mails that came out of my personal account went into the State Department system. They were addressed to State Department employees and the State.gov domain. But I don’t know if the servers the State Department captured those or not.

    And most — they were all unclassified and most of them, I think, are pretty benign, so I’m not terribly concerned even if they were able to recover them.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

    [via Digby]

  113. 113.

    trollhattan

    @NonyNony:
    Only way that could have been better is if the billiohusband had protested, “Hey, that’s no ‘lady.’ that’s my wife!”

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @NonyNony:

    He’ll be the heart throb of centrists though, because he wants to privatize Social Security:

    Reminded of Bush’s months-long political campaign, which included town halls in swing states and personal pressure on Democratic senators, Kasich explained that the last Republican president “never had enough Democrats involved” in the reform.
    “I asked somebody who was involved with that,” Kasich said. “I said, how many Democrats would go down to the White House and talk about it? And they said, none.”

    Dear God. The key to getting things done is getting everyone around a table where Democrats can then agree to destroy the single most popular and relied-upon program ever invented.

  115. 115.

    Calouste

    @Anoniminous: There’s also a recent YouGov/Economist poll that has Trump at 36%, with Carson 2nd at 11 and Bush3 third at 8, if you’re looking for something with a better reputation.

    And it’s not just that Bush3 has to win some primaries. Historically, Bill Clinton is the only candidate to get the nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire, and that was when there were a Governor from Iowa and a Senator from Massachusetts in the race. A candidate who doesn’t win either of the two starts with a good amount of loser-stink, and misses out on the publicity that goes to the winners.

    Currently Bush3 is polling around 5th in both states. Iowa is Carson’s for the taking, they love them some evangelicals. New Hampshire doesn’t particularly like establishment candidates, and Bushes in particular. It’s not going to be easy.

  119. 119.

    ? Martin

    This is broader than Cleeks law. Trump’s support is coming from people that largely reject the GOP establishment policies as well. After 2012 the GOP said they needed to bring latinos into the tent. That’s out. Trump has talked about raising taxes on the wealthy, which the GOP strenuously hate. He’s opposing free trade, which the GOP has widely supported.

    I think the bottom line is that Trump promises to do something, which the Congressional GOP has strongly resisted. They created this backlash against their own party from within their own party.

  120. 120.

    Elizabelle

    @? Martin: I’m glad to see that basement and falling Congressional approval rating — mostly driven by Republicans, who won’t work with Democrats or Obama on anything major — finally coming back to bite the party responsible.

    ETA: I hope the Iran deal has repercussions too. It was so obvious that was partisan politics Republican intransigence, AIPAC and talk radio squidinking the waters.

  122. 122.

    Ruckus

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    Surely you jest. All that SS money would have saved them from having to beg for 100% recovery for their asinine behavior. They want it for next time they screw the world. Which is, I’m sure in the planning stages, if not farther along, as I type.

  123. 123.

    tones

    The ONLY thing I associate with [Effing] Steve Schmidt is and always will be “Yes, of course Sarah Palin is qualified to be president of the USA”.
    Same goes for that dipshit Michale Steele -same quote.
    Why in the hell they are on msnbc is the reason I keep wanting to delete those DVR times permanently.
    Ef those guys.

  124. 124.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Kay:

    The one thing saving us with Kasich is that he will NEVER be able to get the nomination. Jeb is the billionaires’ choice and Trump is the people’s choice, and I honestly doubt that Kasich will be able to thread that needle and present himself as a viable third choice. He’s too much of a hothead.

  125. 125.

    Elizabelle

    Is the Steve Schmidt quote still up? I can’t see it any longer. And couldn’t find it in Mara Liasson’s story transcript, although it was in the audio.

    Very strange.

    Here is the NPR link with full audio. It’s got Schmidt and lots more than the text that appears below, which hits some points but does not track.

    Might the transcript still be in preparation? The audio and text are not equal; does NPR not want to see Schmidt’s comment in print? (And Liasson led off talking about Bernie Sanders.)

  127. 127.

    Turgidson

    @dedc79:

    Because in Ron “Severe Dementia” Fournier’s world, that would be “false equivalence.”

    He really said that.

    …and also because he’s a Republican hack who smugly preens about like he’s above it all, when he’s in fact, and purposely, a malignant tumor on this nation’s political discourse.

  128. 128.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Elizabelle:

    That Schmidt quote (“We are at this moment in time”) is actually from 2008. It was referenced in a thread yesterday or last night, which I can’t (won’t) look up on my phone.

  130. 130.

    Shana

    Out of curiosity, how long after Cleek coined his now famous definition did it take to become known as “Cleek’s law”?

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    @NonyNony:

    Dang. I could *almost* start to think well of him for that remark. Will review his labor policies till that feeling goes away.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Regarding “Hell for the company, Heaven for the climate” quote, I had 2 elderly teacher friends as a youth who used that saying, without referencing Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain) at all.

    Are you saying the Misses Keyser were appropriating a saying coined by another intellectual?

    Actually, it was so common among the Unitarian/Universalists as to be past footnoting to Mark Twain… just part of how things are.

  133. 133.

    gelfling545

    @Another Holocene Human: I used to get emails on the school district network telling me the copy machine in room such & such in City Hall was out of paper or meetings which were none of my business were scheduled or cancelled. Everybody in the district received them. There are 60 buildings in the district. It was quite annoying because I’d have to sift my inbox to find the few emails I really needed. The absolute bottom was when I got (everyone on the list serve got) emails from some loser promoting Republican candidates. I raised hell but apparently everybody else just ignored it with the rest of the junk. I find a lot of people can read their email but still have some problems with the ins & outs of sending & replying. My experience has been that the more support staff you have the worse you are at it.

  134. 134.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @J R in WV: All I can tell you is that I was introduced to that particular quote as a Samuel Clemens quote. It certainly sounds like something he would say.

  135. 135.

    Chris

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    I thought “Hades” was simply the name of the deity who was in charge of the afterlife? The place itself was, as you say, the Elysian Fields (if you’d been good), or Tartarus (if you’d been bad).
    /pedant

  136. 136.

    Chris

    @? Martin:

    I think the bottom line is that Trump promises to do something, which the Congressional GOP has strongly resisted. They created this backlash against their own party from within their own party.

    That could be…

    I think after fifty years of Southern Strategy tying them to Republicans, an increasing number of Angry White Voters are sensing that this shit is not working, in two ways. First, the same way everyone else feels it – the economy is in the shitter, everyone knows it, decades of Reaganite promises haven’t made things better, only worse. Second, in a way that’s more specific to them, the America of their “traditional values” isn’t coming back – the non-white share of the public is still growing, one of them is in the White House, gay people have rights that they’d never have dreamed of thirty years ago, women’s rights movements are still around.

    So they’re more and more dubious of Republican elites. That doesn’t mean they’re going to listen to Democrats, that ship sailed a long time ago and that mental block isn’t going away. But someone like Trump, who’s proposing doing something different but couching it in the racist and antiliberal terms they love? That’ll pique their interest.

  137. 137.

    Jeffro

    @NonyNony:

    He’s not getting billionaire sugar daddy money with THAT attitude.

    Absolutely. The guy isn’t anti-entitlement, anti-government to satisfy the Kochs and the pretend deficit hawks; he’s not fake-religious enough to satisfy the religious crazies; and he has no ethnic or gender “cover” to offer the ticket. No sale as far as the GOP is concerned (but of course the Villagers love him)

    You know, if only there was a political party that was interested in taking care of the less fortunate in this capitalist playground…if only there were people who appreciated sincere religious beliefs (such as, say, “love thy neighbor”)…if only there were a party that appreciates business but doesn’t give it the keys to the kingdom (yet)…why, Kaisch might actually fit within such a party. Hmm…

  138. 138.

    chris9059

    @Turgidson: This is the guy who gave us Sarah Palin and he’s complaining about the intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party? If he had any sense of shame he would have crawled into a hole eight years ago.

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