Have any of you been reading Jennifer Rubin’s latest columns? They read like DNC press releases mixed in with missives from the Romney campaign. I really don’t understand the mentality of being a total hack in general, and being a hack like Rubin in particular. Is her uncharacteristic praise of Pelosi because she thinks it will help Romney, or is it because thinks it will hurt Trump (or both)? And does she hate Trump because he treated Romney badly, or is there something deeper going on? If Pelosi says something bad about Romney, will Rubin be hospitalized, or has her time as a Romney sycophant managed to blot out every trace of cognitive dissonance?
Also, AOC dances to every song [via Steve M]. (Background here.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
No. You read them so I don’t have to. And for that I’m grateful.
Plus, reading her columns means giving her and her ilk clicks. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Rubin is simply another GOP water carrier with Republican Detachment Disorder. The useful idiots took over her party and now her and the very important people want it back. I’ll grant that she’s probably more lefty shrill than David Phucking Brooks and George Effing Will but she’s part of the reason the Popular Vote Loser ultimately snuck into the White House.
Ben Cisco
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Say it again for the peeps in the back.
zhena gogolia
Uh, she has been writing incisive and principled op-eds against Trump for several years now.
zhena gogolia
And what’s most important is that people beyond the liberal bubble read her. I expect her to revert to her Repub ways as soon as our national nightmare is over (if it ever is), but for the moment, I’m glad she’s there in a prominent place telling the truth as she sees it.
[Individual 1] mistermix
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, but her principles are so malleable when it comes to Romney. That’s what makes her a hack. And the Pelosi stuff is new.
Kraux Pas
@[Individual 1] mistermix:
Exactly. It’s like she wants someone who lies about basically everything but isn’t so gosh-darned rude about it.
Immanentize
@zhena gogolia:
Enemy of my enemy. It is important that she has a big platform and is eloquent in her critiques of Trump.
I am sorry she doesn’t pass the Mixster’s purity test — well really I don’t care. When (if) she reverts, we can attack her then.
O. Felix Culpa
@[Individual 1] mistermix: So we’re supposed to hold that against her? Don’t we usually complain that the Rethugs aren’t open to new ideas, aren’t learners? How about celebrating the fact that Rubin sees the light at least some of the time? She’s a far sight better than that uber-hack DFB and lately she’s more often right than she’s wrong. Maybe she’ll slip back into her old ways, maybe not. In the meantime, I see little value in slagging imperfect allies when we’re in an existential fight.
Mike E
Any idea is as good as any other idea to a movement conservative…sorta like a reverse jujitsu Cleek’s Law!
oldgold
@zhena gogolia:
Agreed!
We piss and moan ad nauseum that Republicans will not join the resistance to the malignancy that is the Trump presidency. Yet, when one does, like Rubin, we mock them.
This purity posturing is not where wisdom lies.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
At this point in our current national nightmare I’m more than willing to look past the peculiarities of Rubin, Navarro, Wallace, Schmidt, Wilson and, fuck, even Bloody Bill Kristol, until the orange sack of shit is sent on his way. But, having said that, fuck Mitt Romney.
Charluckles
Is Trump the culmination of Rubins Republican party or an aberration?
I don’t think this is about a purity test.
Kraux Pas
@oldgold:
I would agree, but her apparent continuing love for Romney demonstrates that she’s either not serious or doesn’t understand how they got to the point they’re at now.
She is opposed to the current batch of lying sacks of shit but still loves the lying sacks of shit they were a few short years ago.
kindness
Rubin is honest about being offended by Trump but make no mistake, she is still a very conservative Republican. Ruben gleefully repeated far too many of the obvious lies about Obama and Hillary for me to actually trust or like her.
TS (the original)
@[Individual 1] mistermix:
In this she is by no means alone. Mika was all in for Romney after his op ed in the WaPo as were most on MSNBC. They are just waiting for trump to go & they will be welcoming the new revised republican party.
schrodingers_cat
Did she write about Romney in a fawning manner, recently? Does anyone have a link, because I must have missed it. Okay I found it, this is the latest about Romney from Rubin.
Doesn’t seem like fawning to me.
oldgold
@Kraux Pas:
So what?
Mitch does not pose an immediate existential threat to our Constitutional Republic. Trump does.
Mike in DC
Great to know that the GOP is now anti-dancing.
SFAW
Much to my disappointment, Scot Lehigh, who is what the Boston Glob now passes off as a liberal — he’s not, but he’s generally been OK — wrote a paean to Mittens in today’s edition, about how he’s standing up to Shitgibbon, and being principled, etc. His writing it was bad enough, plus I wasted the last of my “free” articles on it, but some of the comments, from the insane motherfuckers a/k/a RWMFs, were fucked up. Talking about Obama’s racism. When someone asked “What racism?” I was tempted to reply “He had the gall to be Presidenting while black.” I swear, those motherfuckers spike my blood pressure more than I should let them.
Fuck the Glob.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
I might be mis-remembering, but I think she was pretty virulently pro-Mittens during the 2012 campaign.
zhena gogolia
@kindness:
You don’t have to like her. You didn’t have to like Hillary either. She was trying to save the country.
Spanky
@oldgold: I expect that by the time this comment hits the blog you’ll have seen 3 or 4 comments already strongly voicing the opinion that McConnell is a far more serious existential threat to the country. He enables everything that Trump is getting away with. If there were a Democrat as Senate Majority Leader, Trump would be far less damaging.
ETA: Huh! First one to say it.
schrodingers_cat
At this point Jen Rubin with her acerbic and on point columns against the Orange Hairball coughed up the electoral college with Russian help, is more of an ally than a supposed pundit on our side like Sirota who spent column inches attacking Beto for not being as pure as his idol, BS.
schrodingers_cat
@SFAW: We are talking about Jen Rubin of 2018 not 2012.
SFAW
@oldgold:
So which is worse: Shitgibbon’s near-term destruction, or McConnell’s longstanding program of far-term destruction. Because there’s a reasonable likelihood that McConnell’s destruction will, in the end, far outstrip Shitgibbon’s.
Kraux Pas
@oldgold:
Mitch McConnell has done far more harm to our Republic than Trump has…to date. If you meant Mitt, he would have had the capability to do more harm since he’s basically competent, not visibly as awful, but still fundamentally awful.
Although while I stand by the crux of my earlier argument, that never-Trumpers who just don’t like Trump’s tone but still support the policy substance (such as it is) haven’t learned anything, Jennifer Rubin doesn’t fit that mold. In fact one of the top linked articles on the page mistermix provided us is criticizing Romney for being just that. She says he likes Trump, just minus the Tweets.
Jeffro
@oldgold:
Seconded.
@schrodingers_cat:(re: recent column knocking Romney)
Thirded.
I have better things to do than knock a consistent #NeverTrumper. Most of her columns the past two years actually make the case (quietly, implicitly) that the GOP needs to die and/or that the Dems are the center-center party of American politics right now. She just can’t bring herself to say the latter out loud. That’s ok. I’ll take a principled conservative who regularly beats Trumpublicans about the head from her WaPo platform any day.
schrodingers_cat
Here is Jen Rubin’s latest about Romney, which was written yesterday. And it is nothing like MM describes above.
Link here
kindness
@zhena gogolia: ??? I don’t know where you got the idea I didn’t like Hillary. You need better reading comprehension.
waratah
@[Individual 1] mistermix: I missed your morning posts, glad you are back.
Schlemazel
@zhena gogolia:
I want apologies. I want admission of past sins. I want acknowledgement that their past lies and cover up for GOP crimes are the reason we got Dump.
Forgiveness can only come from confession and an attempt to make amends. As soon as Dump is gone people like her, Dave From, Joe Wilson, Moaning Joe et al will revert to their old ways now with the sheen of “Well, the liberals like them too so they must be middle of the road honest.
This will be even worse when the GOP tries to pretend Dump was not their biy
MattF
Rubin is wary around Democrats– but, truth to tell, one should be wary around both Democrats and Republicans. She’s actually ‘way more positive about Pelosi than I expected.
That said, I have no idea where she’ll end up ideologically. And she’s not telling.
TS (the original)
@schrodingers_cat: Last paragraph
Other than attacking the wall – it sounds pro Romney to me. I’ve enjoyed reading the anti trump Rubin, but still believe she will return to the fold when trump goes.
Amir Khalid
@O. Felix Culpa:
Rubin is open to new principles that advance her ideals. This is a good thing if her ideals are worth advancing. I don’t think there are many jackals who see her ideals that way.
Frankensteinbeck
I had a thought about AOC and why Republicans are so weird about her. I would expect them to hate her, but there is a strange tone to it, attacking things that make sane people go “eh?” It relates to Kavanaugh’s nomination. AOC is young and attractive, and it’s a different flavor of misogyny from their fear of older women’s commanding them. They want pretty women to be vulnerable sex objects, and it drives them to fury that the man’s right to be a sexual predator is slipping away. So they react to stuff like the video that no one who doesn’t think women should be targets sees as a negative.
@oldgold:
Put me in the ‘McConnell is much worse’ camp. Trump gets away with his destruction because McConnell protects him. The system has defenses against Trump. McConnell has chosen not to use them. On top of that, he has been leading the charge of destroying the nation rather than sharing it since that charge started with his ‘one term president’ declaration.
Yarrow
Speaking of NeverTrumpers, I saw a short clip of Ana Navarro on some panel yesterday. They were talking about Dems who might run in 2020. She said she wanted Dems to nominate someone she and other disaffected Republicans could vote for, “Not Elizabeth Warren!”
I appreciate Ana Navarro’s voice as a Republican who can’t support Trump, but STFU with telling the party you aren’t a member of who to nominate to meet your special requirements. What is it with that kind of thing? It’s everywhere with NeverTrumpers. Recognize what you created in your own party and own that disaster before you go around telling everyone else how to run their party so it meets your snowflake needs.
schrodingers_cat
@TS (the original): Perhaps. But I have better things to do with my time than debate the purity of Rubin’s intentions. I appreciate her voice, right now. She says what needs to be said and she says it well.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Also don’t forget George Will. I mean, it’s understandable because he’s pretty forgettable. One of the silver linings of the Trump era is seeing these conservative “intellectual thought leaders” find out exactly how inconsequential and unpersuasive their “thoughts” are.
@Kraux Pas: Yes, McConnell has done far more damage to date. Ruthless, evil and semi-competent beats ruthless, evil and completely incompetent. On the other hand Trump could indeed try to bring on a tin pot dictatorship, which is far beyond anything McConnell dreamed of, though now that it’s kind of falling on his doorstep he probably wouldn’t have much of an issue with it.
Citizen Alan
@oldgold:
Strongly disagree. Mitch is the guy who’s going to ensure that by the time Shitgibbon leaves office, at least a third of the Judiciary will have been appointed by him. And we are relying on the possibility that RBG is secretly a Highlander-style immortal to keep Samuel Fucking Alito from becoming the swing vote on SCOTUS.
Barbara
Jennifer Rubin is a neocon. She rarely writes about culture war issues so it’s hard to know exactly where she stands, but her antipathy to Trump began, at least, out of what appears to be a well-honed instinctive grasp that Trump, his tactics, his appeal to his base, would quickly veer into scapegoating of Jews as well as others. In all honesty, I think she was actually afraid of what might happen if Trump obtained power. It’s hard to fault her for that. Her enduring shame should be her inability to grasp that Republican tactics were more and more likely to give us someone like Trump. She made common cause way too long with the same people who now adore Trump when they were criticizing Clinton and Obama.
Romney is such an obvious fraud I can never understand his appeal to anybody. Basically, Mitt Romney is no better than what the people around him want. When they want a practical solution to health care, as the people of Massachusetts did, he was a pretty good guy. When they want a border wall, he is willing to foment anti-immigrant hysteria right along with Trump.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid: Have you been reading her? She has been unequivocal about the immorality and illegality and stupidity of the administration’s wall and immigration policies. The child internment camps and the two child deaths happened in my backyard, so to speak. I will work with people whose principles fight such monstrous abuse.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: This.
Brachiator
If Rubin is a hack with nothing to say, why bother reading her or commenting about her?
I rarely read her stuff and stopped reading David Brooks long ago. I usually switch the channel if Brooks is on a panel.
Has Rubin called for Trump’s impeachment? That might be interesting.
JR
Um, yeah. It’s called antisemitism. Trump’s supporters are big fans of it.
Geoduck
Rick Wilson is a similar case. It’s fun reading his daily shredding of the shaitgibbon, but then he turns around and says things like “Romney is smart on the issues, unbribable, unintimidated, and moved by a love of country, not a need for ego gratification”.
The Pale Scot
Incel + proud boy = Fool who thought a video of AOC dancing would be seen as ridiculous like the way Theresa May’s dancing to the podium to the tune of Dancing Queen. I’ll bet a Quatloo that this becomes a meme in that bubble
Don’t know if AOC is trained, but she can sell the moves, sur’nuf
PS The May’s link is to the Heute-Show, a German Daily Show format,
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed. She’s doing good things, as are other NeverTrumpers. I appreciate their voices.
LAC
What the fuck kind of selective reading shit have you been doing? She has been writing some insightful pieces for a while now. Compared to the right wing hackapoolza that Ed rodgers, marc theissen, and hugh hewitt represent there, her body of work these past two years has been a breath of fresh air. She is proudly never trump and is openly contemptuous of what the GOP has devolved into, even giving her former fave zombie eyed granny starver the brush off. She is not perfect, but she is readable
mapaghimagsik
@Mike in DC: The GOP is now the plot of ‘Footloose’ Sad!
In my corner of the murderverse, I said goodbye to a co-worker who felt incredibly free quitting. If they had a plan, they weren’t saying, but they were emphatic that not working was better than working for the murderverse. While I admired his pluck, I like exit plans.
Still, its Friday, so good for us!
Barbara
@Geoduck: Like I said above, it’s nearly impossible for me to understand why anyone admires Mitt Romney. The fact that he should be unbribable makes him all the more contemptible that he is such an obvious opportunist. At any rate, one conservative writer who seems to understand Romney is Daniel Larison at the American Conservative. I don’t read it a lot, but I sometimes read it on issues related to foreign and military policy. Here is what he said about Romney’s op-ed, focusing on foreign policy. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/romneys-hawkish-boilerplate/
Also, one reason why Rubin likes Romney is because of what Larison sees as Romney’s misguided love of a maximal interventionist stance. That’s where Rubin and Romney overlap, and where they are both IMHO utterly wrong and dangerous.
Mary G
Rubin clings to the illusion that this is a majority center-right country and longs for the Prince Charming who can bring them to his side. Romney is her favorite go-to in this fan fic, but Kasich runs a close second and Evan McMuffin is in there too. Her recent numerous columns of advice to Democrats in a vain attempt to convince them that being liberal will doom them with this fictitious cohort are a tad annoying, but I just skip them. Her hatred of Twitler is rock solid and she can actually write, so I welcome her to the Resistance.
Hugely
@Schlemazel: add me to this camp. Im not saying I dont appreciate her new found clarity around the current GOP headed by trump but she has a lot of atonement to do before I might call her a friend.
oldgold
My comment says “Mitch.” But, I typed ( at least I think I did) and meant “Mitt”
That expressed, although Mitch McConnell does not constitute an immediate existential threat as Trump does, I would rank him with John C. Calhoun in terms of doing damage as a leader in Congress to our Constitutional system.
Betty Cracker
It’ll be fascinating to see which of the Never Trumpers reverts seamlessly back to the party when Trump is gone and which (if any) has been sincerely changed by this experience. My guess is that only those who admit their own and their party’s role in the rise of Trump are capable of learning and growing.
Max Boot seems to be on that path. MSNBC’s Schmidt and Wallace seem genuinely chastened by their role in foisting the aggressively dumb and belligerent Sarah Palin off on America, setting the stage for Trump.
Rick Wilson has admitted personal culpability, but I’m not sure he’s learned all that much from it. I enjoy his anti-Trump snark, but I get the sense he’s mostly pissed off about the prospect that Trump’s idiocy will blight the party’s future prospects. I’m not sure about Rubin. If she’s reckoned with her own role in all of this, I missed it. But she does seem to understand the magnitude of the danger and elected Republicans’ complicity.
As for how Democrats perceive Never Trumpers, it seems related to how they view Trump: 1) Is he just a louder and more overtly offensive incarnation GOP evil, no worse or possibly preferable to GWB? Or 2) Is Trump an existential threat to American democracy?
Folks in category 1 seem more dismissive of Never Trumpers, and people in category 2 more welcoming. I’m in category 2. Old-school Republican racism, sexism and xenophobia set the table for Trump. But I believe Trump is beholden to a hostile foreign autocrat, and we need everyone to address that urgent national emergency.
MattF
@Barbara: Larison is an outlier on RW foreign policy, to put it mildly. I stay away from American Conservative magazine generally, but the few times I’ve read his stuff, I’ve been taken aback. The problem is that there’s more than just a whiff of old-school isolationism in that milieu so it’s hard to be all-in on him.
Frankensteinbeck
@oldgold:
Yeah, Mitt isn’t a fraction as bad for our Democracy as Trump. He would have been an absolute horror show of moving this country backwards, but he would not have tried to destroy its systems and norms in the process.
The Pale Scot
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s the best description I think I’ve heard
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: (3) T is an existential threat, personally. Rubin as a Jewish person, and me as a immigrant can instinctively see this.
Mary G
@Barbara: I am another Larison reader. He’s been a lone voice in the wilderness screaming about the horrific behavior of the Saudis in Yemen for years now.
geg6
@oldgold:
This. I’m over the purity police. She’s been pretty exceptional in speaking out against the evil that is this current illegitimate administration as far as conservatives go. I’m not interested in bashing those who are against this president and this Republican party. I’ll go back to bashing her if she fall back into her former schtick and when existential threats to the Constitution and country aren’t quite so literal.
chopper
@Barbara:
right. she’s a neocon. lots of people became them after 9/11. and after 17 years, many of those feelings have faded for people like her. without an international boogeyman like al qaeda to freak out over, they start slowly acting a bit more rational again.
CliosFanBoy
“If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” Winston Churchill.
If Rubin want smack Trump around, more power to her. That doesn’t mean were allies on any other issue.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid: As to your point about what jackals think, it appears from the comments on this thread that mine is not an isolated jackal opinion. (Checks personal jackal membership card: yup, it’s been good for over a decade. Growing old together!)
Tyro
@Barbara: Jennifer Rubin is a neocon.
The neocons have been the most fervently against Trump compared to every other conservative faction. I don’t think they’re upset that Trump isn’t as enthusiastically pro-war as they are. I actually give them the benefit of the doubt on this one and think they have a very strong moral worldview (however fucked up it may manifest itself) and they see Trump as a moral malefactor and find his racial scapegoating dangerous.
[Individual 1] mistermix
I was out for an hour or so, so I’m just going to summarize my responses:
On Romney: Rubin is still fairly pro-Romney. That last column is tougher than usual, but she wrote a relatively pro-Romney column a couple of days previous: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/02/good-start-romney-what-next/?utm_term=.74eba92f7bfe It is pretty easy on old Mittens, and if he makes the right noises, Rubin will come around. Also, devoting two columns to Romney in the span of a couple of days is also positive.
Is it worth talking about Rubin (or Brooks or whomever)? Maybe not, but we all have different mainstream media personalities who we find interesting as hate reads.
Is she incisive in her anti-Trumpism? Absolutely. She’s a very intelligent person and as a lawyer she makes good arguments for whoever is her client du jour. Is she principled? Hell no. Her client for the last couple of years has been the never Trump wing of the Republican party. She makes “principled arguments” for never Trumpism because there are a ton of them to make. When Trump is gone, she will throw whatever she believes will stick against whichever Democrat stands in the way of the never Trump wing of the party, just as she did against Hillary and Obama. She has the attorney’s habit of piling on the best set of arguments on behalf of her client. It doesn’t matter if they are good arguments. That’s why I call her a hack. (And this isn’t a knock on lawyers – they are out to defend a client. Rubin doesn’t have to choose the least worst Republicans as her client.)
Will I continue to read her? My many deficits of character will provoke me to do so occasionally when she pops up in one of my feeds.
Do I, in general, appreciate the never Trumpers? Well, it’s better than them being pro-Trumpers, and it’s good that they use their platforms against Trump, but really, they are reaping what they and the party they supported sowed. As long as Reagan, Bush I and Bush II kept the shit at shoe level, meaning that they courted the votes of the white supremacists quietly, the never Trumpers were happy with the power and influence they gained by being associated with Republicans. Now that Trump says the soft parts out loud, they’re angry and upset. But all they’re doing is pointing their anger and frustration against Trump, not against the parts of their party that gave birth to Trump. They will never take responsibility and as soon as Trump leaves office, they’ll revert to form. So I appreciate them the way I appreciate a medicine that helps cure me but has a lot of nasty side effects.
mapaghimagsik
I try not to forget the never Trumpers gave us Drumpf. Like the New York Times, I don’t expect them to learn from the mistake until it has a catastrophic impact on them directly.
Amir Khalid
@O. Felix Culpa:
I gave up on Rubin early on. I know she takes some positions people here agree with, but I don’t care for her stuff as a whole, the humanitarian garnishes notwithstanding. She’s still a partisan Republican at heart, and her disgust at Trump seems to me more about the damage he is doing to the party brand than anything else. If her political core is evolving in any way, you can’t see in in her continued worship of Romney.
L85NJGT
If Romney had any greatness in him, he would have done the road to Damascus bit, and then run and won as a Democrat. That sets up the 2020 run as a serious go at VP or SoS. As it stands, being the GOP candidate who claps real hard for a return to 1986 is pretty pathetic.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
As far as the Rubins go, Conservatives aren’t very constant. Remember Kelly Ann being a Me Too er even though she supports the biggest masher in US history? Rubins considers herself a feminist, Pelosi is making history as a woman, there for Rubins is pleased. That it Pelosi pisses off and humiliates the hard right which drummed Rubins out of the culture war last Novermber adds to the fun for Rubins.
O. Felix Culpa
@Amir Khalid: Agreed that she’s softer on Romney than that weasel warrants. And maybe she’ll go back fully to her old neocon ways if/when the GOP becomes “polite” in its awfulness again. In the meantime, I’m with Ms Cracker, SC, geg6, et al, who view our situation as an existential battle. Which it is. Real people have already died and many more suffered grievous harm. I’ll take today’s allies in today’s battle. I’ll fight them tomorrow if they prove false.
Mandalay
@Schlemazel:
Well said. I find it astounding that folks here are embracing Rubin. Just google “jennifer rubin” obama between 2008 and 2016 to see what she believes. She is a vile and nasty opportunistic hack who spent eight years with her drawers around her ankles shitting on Obama and the Democratic Party, and all that they stand for.
She might not like Trump, but when do you ever see her calling out Trump lapdogs like Cruz and Rubio for being spineless and enabling enabling him? She doesn’t – she just safely goes for the low hanging fruit, so gullible rubes will think “Ooh! She can’t stand Trump! She’s just like us”. The enemy of my enemy is not automatically my friend, and Rubin is just another enemy.
cmorenc
@O. Felix Culpa:
Yes, exactly.
Also, too the principle that purity ponies lose far more races than they win.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Your first paragraph sums up my thoughts. I’ll read those folks for now because they are doing some good work but when or if they start to make my blood pressure rise, I will just dump them from my reading list.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mandalay: Kindly cite where anyone on this thread said “She’s just like us.” As I (and others) have commented, we’ll take imperfect allies in an existential battle. There’s precedent for that: see Uncle Joe Stalin in WWII. Real people are suffering from this maladministration, and I’m not going to set stringent purity tests against those who can help me defend the vulnerable.
Mandalay
@O. Felix Culpa:
Get back to me when she shows the same concern about the immorality and illegality Israel’s wall and immigration policies. Until then Rubin can GDIAF.
A Ghost To Most
If someone is bitching about Rubin at this point of time, they need to check their aim.
There are plenty of more worthy targets.
bemused
@A Ghost To Most:
Yes, there’s definitely no lack of more worthy targets!
Celebrity Bowling
J. Rubin is a windsock and hack.
When the Democrats are in power, she’s against em’. When the Republicrats are in power, she’s dissatisfied and nipping at their heels. When Herr Groppenführer stirs up the serfs, Jenny clutches her pearls and feigns shock at his lies and hijinks.
Ruckus
@Kraux Pas:
She hasn’t become a democrat, she’s still a republican. She likes the stories they weave but not the story this one weaves. She sees the difference and it’s that difference that she doesn’t like, not the policies that we see that make all the republican politicians equal.
Ella in New Mexico
Sorry, but I’m not in the mood to punish people when they finally see the light. Imperfect or not. We need all the friends we can get. This is a battle for the very heart and sole of the country.
At least Rubin walks the walk by speaking out in the media for what’s obviously right and wrong. And she’s darn good at it.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mandalay: Tell that to the parents of Jakelyn and the Guatemalan boy who died in ICE custody. Imperfect ally. I’ll take it and call her out on where she’s wrong.
rikyrah
I posted yesterday about the indictment of powerful Alderman Ed Burke. The odd thing about this case is that he was charged with anything. Everybody knows that he’s a crook.
You know how something seems ordinary, but blooms into something way bigger?
The Laquan McDonald murder just seemed, at first, another police killing. …to be pushed into the pile of young Black men killed by the Chicago Police Department.
You never know what case will be the spark.
But, everyone even tangentally with Laquan McDonald has had bad befall them.
Burke, in all the shyt that he has done for DECADES, winds up being arrested for a shakedown of a Burger King owner…
The same Burger King where McDonald was murdered…
Laquan McDonald has taken out..
The Police Chief..
The States Attorney…
The police officer who killed him..
About to take out the police officers who lied for the officer that killed him…
Rahm Emmauel (he never recovered from the revelations about this case)….
If Burke goes down too?
Wow….
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@A Ghost To Most:
Cue the inevitable jackass that will chime in with their disappointment in Chris Matthews circa 2002.
A Ghost To Most
@Celebrity Bowling: As a multi-decade WaPo subscriber, I cancelled my sub a decade ago because of Rubin In 2017, I returned in part because of the lucidity of Rubin towards Shit Hitler.
We take the allies we have, not the allies we wish we had.
Chyron HR
@A Ghost To Most:
You’re right, I’m going to go join the 24/7 progressive protests outside Pelosi’s office.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay:
Rubin on Rubio:
Rubin on Cruz:
I certainly don’t think Rubin is “just like us” — nor has anyone else said that, AFAIK — but your assertion that Rubin doesn’t call out people like Rubio and Cruz is incorrect.
rikyrah
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
No lie told
Sis
I disagree with Rubin about Romney and don’t understand her admiration for him, but I have a lot of respect for her. She’s been outspoken about Trump and his unfitness for office from the beginning, and she hasn’t pulled any punches. It’s got to be tough to stick your neck out as she has. I think that for Republicans, the past three years and a half years have been a test of character, and she’s passed with flying colors.
A Ghost To Most
Fools (Pelosi protestors). Little better than the hoveround brigades of the Tea party.
Just using WaPo columnists, you have Theissen, Rogers, Abernathy, and G. Fucking Will who are better targets.
Better snipers, please.
Eta also Fugh Fuckwit
Richard Guhl
You should ask John Cole. I’d say he’s the go-to guy on political conversion experience. Pick his brain on how bumpy the ride was.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Great point. I believe Max Boot expressly cited his background as a Jewish immigrant as a factor that alerted him to the danger of Trump.
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker: Shit. I recognized the danger of oncoming fascism more than a decade ago, while Max was still talking about glassing over the ME, and I am as whitebread American as anyone.
You wanna bitch about the zealotry of converts, bitch about Boot. I trust Rubin WAY more than Max.
Fair Economist
These are easy questions:
She hates Trump.
She hates Trump because she recognizes his administration is fascist, she is Jewish, and she doesn’t want to risk going to the ovens.
She will defend Romney/criticize Pelosi for it. She is perfectly capable of holding mixed opinions about people.
tobie
@O. Felix Culpa: Well said.
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks for the excerpt. Sounds like she’s aware that Romney thus far has talked the talk but not walked the walk.
O. Felix Culpa, whenever I see your nym, I’m reminded of Thomas Mann’s novel, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. I don’t know if you’ve read it but the first half is virtually a pun on ‘felix culpa.’ It’s a romp of a novel and unusual for Mann in that he lets himself be playful. Your nym always makes me smile.
Barbara
@A Ghost To Most: I think the test for Rubin will be whether she goes back to ignoring the things that she ignored in the past, like voter suppression, gerrymandering, and flagrantly anti-democratic power grabs, once Trump is gone. Those things arose from the same racist wellspring that non-stop insults directed at Obama did, which she participated in rather gleefully, seemingly inured to the idea that it would take only a little twist to turn that foul source into anti-Semitism. I haven’t seen much acceptance of responsibility on that front, so I won’t hold my breath, but she authentically hates Trump and is critical of his immigration policies. Of that I have no doubt.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Wow. Had no idea about the connectivity there.
Please keep us informed.
A Ghost To Most
@Sis:
One of the very few.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for those quotes. I knew about the Rubio one, but not the Cruz one. But they are somewhat beside the point; the specific context was “when do you ever see her calling out Trump lapdogs like Cruz and Rubio for being spineless and enabling enabling him“.
Look at her recent columns on the government shutdown:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/11/trump-has-already-lost-shutdown-fight/?utm_term=.bdf299cf428f
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/12/15/jennifer-rubin-not-even/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/28/how-does-trump-escape-trap-he-laid-himself/?utm_term=.5fd08d8cb9af
They are certainly critical of Trump. But of the Republicans in Congress who could end the shutdown in a heartbeat if they chose to stand up to Trump? Not so much.
Now that may partly be because the shutdown is being framed by the media (with help from Democrats) as a Trump shutdown. But Rubin is savvy enough to know that if Republicans showed some spine they could end the shutdown anyway. But she chooses not to talk about it too much from that perspective.
O. Felix Culpa
@tobie: Thank you. I studied German literature in my wastrel youth, so I’ve read the Thomas Mann work, although my nym is taken more directly from Augustine.
A Ghost To Most
@Barbara: True. She still considers herself a “conservative”, as if that term had any meaning beyond “fascist”.
She is not a friend, but she has been a reliable enemy of Mr. Creosote.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Rahm Emmanuel never recovered from trying to prevent the facts about this case from becoming public knowledge in advance of the mayoral primary. It was the kind of unprincipled, nakedly tactical self-serving decision making he tried to bring to the Obama administration. Never forget that Emmanuel would have caved in the winter of 2010 when the ACA needed 60 votes in the Senate, and that it was Nancy Pelosi who told him to go cry in his corner while she figured out how to push it to the finish line.
ETA: that is, while Pelosi and Harry Reid figured out how to push it to the finish line. But it was Pelosi who told him to keep out of it.
Rand Careaga
I despised the Jennifer Rubin of the Obama era. The fact that I generally find myself nodding agreement with her columns the past few years I take as a sign that the End Times are upon us. Among the Never-Trumpers (those who haven’t capitulated yet), I think she’s the best*, and will cheerfully accept her as a pretty eloquent ally of convenience for the duration of the crisis. I assume that afterward, if there is an afterward, Harry Truman and Uncle Joe Stalin will part company.
*by contrast, there’s (for example) George Will, who still loathes “liberals,” and toward whom his closest approach to civility is concern trolling. There aren’t enough lepers’ sores in the world for George to bath by way of atonement for his iniquitous career.
tobie
@O. Felix Culpa: Thanks. Now I need to look into Augustine!
Mandalay
@A Ghost To Most:
Trust any of them as far as you can throw them. Especially those who focus their criticism on Trump, rather than the Republican Party as a whole. And as Schlemazel pointed out (post #31), they need to own up about their past selves.
Trump is a just manifestation of an underlying problem. Some – especially Steve Schmidt – understand that, and speak cogently about it. But those who focus on Trump’s behavior need to reflect on what America might become under President Cruz. At least Trump has the saving grace of being thoroughly incompetent, but I wouldn’t count on that from Cruz.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck:
Mitt personally isn’t, but the Republican voter suppression regimes that he would allow to run unimpeded are. You see it in states like WI and NC where the Democrats would have to win by 20% or more to get the legislatures back, *and* the states create a lot of artificial barriers to Democrats voting. Bluntly, a number of our states are not true democracies anymore; they’re more banana republic level, and I mean that literally, not rhetorically.
The fact that even “normal” Republicans have thrown in with the neofascists is probably the greatest danger to the Republic, because there’s no loyal opposition anymore.
charon
I see people here keep saying Rubin is still a Republican, but I recall seeing her say (on MSNBC) that the GOP is irredeemable.. (She seems to have this idea a new center right party is possible, unrealistic IMO).
If the racism, anti-semitism and assorted other bigotries (gender, ethnic, religious) of the GOP are a factor, it’s hard to see how she could ever go back, considering how closely bigotries correlate with the Christian Right, which is increasingly the dominant influence in the GOP.
WaterGirl
With so many toadies with a platform still giving tongue-baths to Trump, why are we wasting time complaining about Jennifer Rubin?
We are our own worst enemies.
It makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
tobie
OT… but I just saw that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 312,000 new jobs for December, seasonally adjusted to account for short-term holiday work, and no one is talking about it. I wonder if it’s because no one believes any numbers that come out of the administration any longer even from once respected offices like the BLS. My own reaction, too, was frankly that Kevin Hastert and Steve Mnuchin must have cooked the books.
cintibud
I am surprised that no one has brought up our esteemed blog host in this discussion. I rarely post but have been coming here for a long time. I was reading lefty blogs at the time and thought I should check out some conservative blogs to get some “balance”. However, just about every one I checked out induced projectile vomiting within 2 paragraphs, with two exceptions. One was Andrew Sullivan, but I eventually got tired of him. The other one was Balloon Juice. John was part of Pajama media, a right wing circle jerk of blogs, but he seemed reasonable. We all know how that story turned out. Looking back on John’s conversion I wonder what stage we might put Rubin in. I am thinking maybe just a variation of John’s first stage – “Hey, these guys are lying to my face!” “How stupid do they think I am?. John’s stage two was “OMG! The Dirty Fucking Hippies were right!”. The point of no return was the next stage in which John declared that he needed to prove he had changed by actually registering as a Democrat, not an independent as he originally considered.
In short, there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of Rubin, but I’m in the camp of wait and see. In the meantime I’ll take any support against the orange menace
Juice Box
In 1992 my Republican parents were revolted by the Iran-Contra scandal, the anti-abortion sentiment on the right, and open racism. They reluctantly voted for Clinton, voted an all-D ticket in 1996, and finally changed registration in 2004. Nowadays, my dad sends me articles that he tears out of Mother Jones (he’s 89). My policy is to encourage people who start taking baby steps in the right direction. My mother often says, “I can’t believe I used to think that way.”
cintibud
OK, I can’t edit my comment but I wasn’t the first to mention Cole. I did go into detail though
Barbara
@Rand Careaga: I find the inability of Rubin (along with others) to discern the seeds of radical anti-democratic, not to say fascist tendencies in the Republican reaction to Obama to be a moral failure on her part. She actually thought that being hyper critical of Obama was okay and failed to evaluate her own comments in light of what a fair person would have seen as, at best, unconscious racial bias on the part of Republicans in general. Maureen Dowd and quite a few other “Barry haters” can join her in the club reserved for useful idiots when the next Democratic president is inaugurated.
Jinchi
I have, and personally her columns on Romney read more like “Put Up or Shut Up” than they do missives from the Romney 2020 campaign.
I’ve been critical of Rubin, but she’s a pretty unrepentant “Never-Trumper”, directing her fire straight at Trump and the Republican party. Unlike say, David “I am a Nationalist” Brooks, who spends more time scolding the tone of the Resistance than the man in the office.
Suzanne
@cmorenc: Yes.
Political wars are about advancing your interests when you can, and doing your best to prevent backsliding when you can’t advance. Right now, to prevent backsliding, I will take anyone who recognizes the Trump threat. When conditions are different, I can do things differently.
But I want to win in 2020, and if Rubin can convince a few old conservatives to either stay home or to vote for whomever we nominate rather than pull the lever for Trump, that can be very helpful. I’ll take it.
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: Me, I plan to take my right-leaning allies when and how I find them, and then discard them ruthlessly once they have outlived their usefulness – just like the Republicans do.
Brachiator
@tobie:
The Guardian reported on it, and they also noted that Trump is bragging like a son of a bitch about it.
And because some of the data is compiled from independent sources, it would be hard for Trump’s people to cook the books.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker: Actually, I have to completely withdraw my claim that Rubin doesn’t call out the GOP for being spineless. She does:
I was wrong.
Spanky
Something over at the WaPo:
Need to reboot before I can read it….
Lee Hartmann
Sorry, she is not a total hack. She is a Likudnik, which is bad but not the same. And her columns have been continuously damning of Trump and R enabling for months now.
I think we are in very dangerous times now with an out-of-control narcisstic sociopath as president and spineless hacks in Congress (and a majority of total hacks in the Supreme Court). I’m not going to impose purity tests on people whose politics are bad in normal times but who are willing to speak out against the current dire threats.
Jinchi
@Chyron HR:
All the serious opposition to Pelosi is coming from the right not the left.
tobie
Again, off topic, but for those interested in a long read, this article on the progressive case for PayGo is quite interesting. The two big takeaways are:
(1) PayGo replaces the truly toxic CutGo introduced by Republicans when they retook the House in 2011 and which expressly prohibits raising taxes and closing loopholes to fund social programs;
(2) Democrats were shoe-horned into voting to waive the Pay-As-You-Go law once the Republicans passed their tax cut for the rich bill in 2017 since if the law (not the rule) had not been waived, it would have triggered automatic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It sounds ironic but keeping PayGo rules (not the law) now in the House allows Democrats to pass progressive legislation and pay for it with targeted tax hikes. Without such a rule, Democrats would have to rely on their Republican colleagues to give them a super-majority to waive the Pay-As-You-Go law, and we know that’s not happening.
Sorry if this account is laborious. This is not a matter that fits in a tweet.
tobie
@Brachiator: Thanks for the information and your remarks.
Elizabelle
I am glad to see the pushback against mistermix’s unfounded assumptions here. It has been very interesting to watch Jennifer Rubin and what she writes about. Yes, she still has a lot of blinders. So do all of us.
That’s why I always love when someone puts up a link to the source material. A lot of times, you check it out and … it is not what others are screaming about or blithely assuming.
gwangung
I wish people would understand that being an ally is NOT the same as being part of the coalition. One is temporary; the other is permanent. One is situation-bound; the other is ideological.
Elizabelle
@A Ghost To Most:
Me too. I cancelled even earlier, and it was definitely because of the insufferable JRubin. Finally picked the sub back up because I liked the work Jim Tankersley was doing (wrote about economic effects on people around the country — one really good series, in particular — he’s now with the DC bureau of FTF NY Times.)
And now J Rub relishes stilettoing the many shrills and thieves and hacks she used to swim amongst. I’ll take it.
Spanky
bluehill
I’m in the rather-have-Rubin-with-us-than-against-us camp even though I loathed her pieces during the Obama years. I respect her willingness to repeatedly use her platform to warn the country and hope that it will dissuade her Trump-curious repubs readers from voting for him and his supporters in the future. In my view, she’s done more (and shown more courage) to atone for her contribution to the rise of Trumpism than actual repubs in a position to do something like Flake, Corker, Collins etc.
However, reading through the comments, I’m curious what people would consider to be a “‘principled” repub set of positions? What do “legitimate” differences in policy views look like?
In the war and politics creates strange bedfellows category, from my limited reading about Bob Menendez, he seems to have some baggage to put it mildly. Based on my limited knowledge, I wish he wasn’t a dem, but I guess I’m willing to overlook his indiscretions for his vote, so I find myself to be “flexible” when it benefits my point of view.
Humdog
@Mandalay: I appreciate that you double checked what Rubin had been saying and corrected your record.
Similarly, I appreciate that Rubin has been checking her own record and confessing where she erred, even if I find more for her to reckon with than she is admitting so far. I also really respect that Rubin has kept up her criticism of the direction of her former party even after it surely cost her most of her social circle. That is a difficult thing to do, lonely and professionally risky, but Jen feels strongly about this and is paying for it personally. I don’t expect o agree with her a lot whenever this crisis has abated, but I do respect her holding herself and her former colleagues to high principles.
Spanky
Speaking of Ms.Rubin, today’s piece is on Speaker Pelosi:
I’m down with allies like this.
The Midnight Lurker
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: First comment wins!
Anytime the Grand Old Party catches a glimpse in the mirror of the sick, twisted thing they have become, Rubins and her ilk rush out to assuage the Republican collective conscience. All this “Isn’t it great that Nancy’s in charge again?!” shit is just that. Rubins is lucky to have a job peddling this junk, but as you pointed out, she’s hardly the worst. That’s why the word journalist appears in parenthesis after her name in her Wiki entry.
Trump’s setting fire to democracy and Congressional Republicans are having to look the other way! “Jennifer! Clean up on aisle four!”
WilliamC
@rikyrah: it’s rare that read the comments and disagree with you, Sistah R, but on Rubin I have to disagree. Been a WaPo subscriber for a couple years now and she is as fervently anti-pussygrabber as most liberals I know (I say most because I still meet some libs who think Pussygrabber is hastening the revolution and love him for it). Long time Rubin hater here too, but outside of her wistfully wishing that her Conservative former heroes would grow a spine here and there and push back on the President, she hates all the right people now. We can go back to hating on her after the current crisis if she reverts back but maybe you should start reading her columns. She’s tough on the White House and the Republicans in Congress. I think most of the hate towards her is that she was super anti-Obama, but let’s take all the resistance fighters we can in this new world. I think of it like this: he’s making us all feel crazy, let’s use some of that crazy he’s inspiring in some of the deplorables to help us bury conservatism.
Brachiator
@tobie:
Thanks for this. I will make a note to take a look at it later.
Betty Cracker
@A Ghost To Most: I heard Boot on a podcast recently (can’t remember which one), and he was more introspective than any Never Trumper I’ve heard so far. To cite one example, he admitted that his climate change skepticism was driven by partisanship, owned how stupid that was, and said he’s examining other long-held views that he suspects are similarly ideological. I’m not saying we should trust him completely or book him as a speaker at the next DNC, but I do give him credit for owning his mistakes and trying to do better. Better late than never and all of that.
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: A much better example than the two I provided — thanks for setting the record straight!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I wonder if it was on Stay Tuned with Preet. I was pleasantly surprised by Max Boot in that interview – he certainly didn’t hold back on his views or use any weasel words.
PJ
@A Ghost To Most: This is the thing about most Republican “converts”, it’s not that they suddenly developed principles that they realized were incompatible with Republican policies, or that they realized Republican policies were in opposition to principles they’d always had, it’s that they realized Republican policies might actually affect them personally – it’s only when they find out their son or daughter is gay, or that their ethnicity or religion might mean the pogram is coming for them, then they realize that the leopards they assiduously supported for years for might eat their own faces. It’s this lack of empathy that characterizes Republicans, and that empathy for the plight of others, which I’d say is at the heart of liberalism, is very slow to develop in them.
PJ
@Mandalay: Trump is a malignant narcissist, while Cruz is a sociopath, and, in the long run, the sociopath will do more damage.
nasruddin
1. We’re going to need every ally we can find to deal with the problem we have.
2. People can change – it is difficult tho
3. Once this is over, we are going to have a lot better idea about those holding views we oppose – who is a bullshit artist (eg Kellyanne Conway) and who is worth following (eg George Conway). It’s good to read opposing views, but you really want quality and authenticity.
Barbara
@Spanky: Yes, she now sounds like she has NFLTG. She probably stopped getting invites to primo conservative events a long time ago.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
There is more to being a progressive leader than hating a vile and despicable monster like Trump, and J Rubin doesn’t make it just based upon her rage at Trump stealing her preeciioouus political party.
She hates any policies that help people less high-class than she, and is ignoring the fact that she would be part of the second or third tranche of people murdered by the fascists were they to actually take control of the nation.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Amazingly enough, I figured that out, all by myself.
But … so? Unlike John Cole or Charles Johnson, she hasn’t semi-suddenly become one of the converted. And were it Mittens doing all the same things that Shitgibbon does (or has done), I have a feeling she’d be OK with that. I suspect that her revulsion at Shitgibbon’s behavior and “demeanor” is a large part of what drives her slagging him. Would she do the same if Pence were in place, doing the same things? Can’t tell, but I’m guessing probably not.
Although I appreciate some of her take-no-prisoners writing, it’s not too much of a stretch to consider her as a more-vociferous version Flake or Corker. Until she slags the entire Rethuglican Party, and says “fuckem, I’m re-registering as a Democrat,” I remain unconvinced.
ETA: So, of course, I didn’t read Mandalay’s comment @ 118 until after I posted. Still not convinced, but less iron-bound than I was.
J R in WV
@Jinchi:
You need to adjust your snark detector, that was clear sarcasm, tho without the
snark typeface!LynnDee
@zhena gogolia:
That’s right, she has. I’ve been enjoying her for a while. Believe me, I’m as surprised as anyone. And if she’s a flack for Romney, well, that’s not too surprising, I guess.
Darkrose
@rikyrah: I am so happy about this. Burke is a racist shithead and has been so ever since I was a kid in the 70’s.