GIULIANI: Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes.
CAVUTO: Well, that was kind of like perfunctory.
GIULIANI: But he makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.
Larison has a good piece about hawks like Rudy and their talk of “leadership”:
I would add that the abuse of “leadership” as a concept is in some ways even more obnoxious and misleading than the reliance on the “isolationist” slur. It’s true that hawks typically assume that real “leadership” requires the use of force or at least the threat to use force, but it can also function as a generic euphemism for U.S. hegemony. In this usage, there is really only one kind of international leadership that qualifies, and this is one in which the U.S. is dominant, preeminent, and preoccupied with policing the globe. This tends to view leadership more as an exercise in giving orders and dictating terms.
For more evidence of that, see McCain, Grandpa John.
raven
Joe had walnuts on this morning and, after strongly calling in to question this ranting against the president, never said a word about it to McCain.
moonbat
And these are the same dicks who call Obama a lawless, unconstitutional dictator in the next breath. Oh, but wait, that only applies to domestic issues. Right. When he puts on his foreign relations hat, the president is supposed to be a lawless dictator to the rest of the world.
Cermet
The issue of Ukraine’s error in “giving” up its Nukes is all the rage. Bullshit! First off, if these Nukes had stayed in Ukraine, then they would be guarded by Russian soldiers, manned by Russian officers, and all launch codes would be linked to Moscow. Second, if these Nukes were still in Ukraine, no one, and I mean NO ONE would sit by and be happy if Ukraine soldiers assaulted these silo’s – that would be total war for Russia and we, Europe and everyone else in the World would be screaming for the Russians to protect those silo’s!
Still, every ass licking crackpot is calling for President Obama to take charge – Earth to these fucking ass wipes, he has, is and has been doing exactly what any great leader of our country should be doing.
As for the WP edit page and Senator McInsane, these assholes need to get a flight to Ukraine and go to the Crimea and directly confront Russian soldiers. That would be the only useful thing these piles of shit would ever do, and the last.
Cervantes
This kind of nonsense comes up regularly — always the usual bootlickers, always sulking about a Democratic president — Yeltsin > Clinton — Brezhnev > Carter — and so on (and on, and on). You could set your clock by it.
Suffern ACE
Another sign of a great leader is sticking with that rash decision to the end. Swift, ill thought out solutions to non problems stubbornly clung to until a dishonorable death. That’s who I want to follow.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
and then a day later the Russian markets tank and Putin has to start back peddling to avoid an economic crises. Thinking is hard for the authoritarians, isn’t it?
Cervantes
@moonbat: That’s precisely how they think. Please don’t hold your breath waiting for them to be embarrassed about it!
Punchy
And if Obambi had done this instead, out come the howler monkeys screaming about an Imperial Presidency and No Checks and Balances and Abuse of Power.
Amir Khalid
The way Putin has set things up, when he has had a massive rush of testosterone to the brain, there’s no one who can talk him out of doing something stupid like sending troops into Ukraine. That’s what’s wrong with government set-ups like Russia now, where one person has all the power.
Suffern ACE
Yeah. But you understand that not dropping everything to support street protests in Iran with bombs and weapons is how Obama lost Iran. Some real leader would say “finally. A chance to invade Iran. We’ll be greeted as liberators.” But not that weakling Obama.
Elizabelle
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yeah, thinking is hard for authoritarians. Reactivity and swagger is not.
Watch the US press closely on this one. They’re digging their own graves again, with their capped telegenic little teeth.
Sherparick
I am surprise not see retroactive criticism of George Washington for not intervening to prevent the Partition of Poland in 1795. After all, Kosciuszko had fought beside him in the American Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitions_of_Poland
Really, these people are amazing for their lack of self-consciousness and guilt.
Belafon
And remember, Obama acted like the crazy man with the gun that managed to get Syria to open up and agree to destroy its chemical weapons, exactly what Russia initially argued should NOT happen, and therefore Putin won that confrontation because Obama.
Cervantes
@Cermet:
But if they’re looking for “soldiers,” they might miss them:
That’s from Natalia Antelava.
gratuitous
Well, one plus out of this wargasm is that we’ve suddenly stopped talking about government spending for some reason. You don’t hear anyone talking about raising taxes to pay for this contemplated invasion to show Putin what’s what.
Strange, that.
Davis X. Machina
Strong and wrong, baby. Strong and wrong.
Chyron HR
Fair enough. From now on, when Obama says something, Congress has to agree within fifteen minutes, or else. Get to it, guys.
Anya
Give Grandpa Walnuts some props, he doesn’t want US troops in Ukraine. I thought he was more war crazy than this.
Suffern ACE
@Chyron HR: yeah. While I’d have to say out loud that I would hate it, I’d kind of like Obama to hire mobsters to beat the crap out of obstinate Senators.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE:
For somebody else tho, right?
Jamey
@Belafon:
Fix’t.
Scott S.
Don’t know why we don’t take all these Putin-humpers and give ’em one-way tickets to Russia.
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE: I’m a “union thug.” I’d do it for free.
boatboy_srq
@moonbat: When the entire might of the DoD and all the energies of the CIA and NSA are focused overseas, there’s not enough left to mobilize on the home front, round up all the Job-Creatin’ Xtian Hetero Caucasian Patriotic Real Ahmurrcans™ and haul them off to the FEMA camps to get gay-married to solar panels. More war abroad means more safety (for them) at home.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
Davis X. Machina
@OzarkHillbilly:
No you wouldn’t. If you were a real union thug, it would take three* of you, even though only one of you is actually necessary, and all of you paid at exorbitant prevailing Davis Bacon wage rates.
I can tell you don’t watch Fox.
*That’s including all the affirmative-action hires…
MomSense
@Suffern ACE:
ACORNBLACKPANTHERSAYERSWRIGHTBENGHAZIIRSFASTANDFURIOUS!!!
BGK
I was once given a small book, “The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman,” as a gift. There’s a whole section of quotes about executive power and its uses. There was one line, as best I can recall: I’m all for inefficiency in government; when you have efficiency, you have a dictatorship.
Didn’t these clowns try to say back at the 2004 RNC Harry Truman was really a Republican? I’m surprised Zombie H.S.T. didn’t pop up out of the ground on that one.
Mike Furlan
Larison? Who thought the attack on Ft. Sumter was a great idea is now going to lecture anyone about anything?
BGK
@boatboy_srq:
Does that make The Ghey more or less of a renewable resource?
Paul in KY
@Sherparick: That Washington! He was a FINO!
Citizen_X
So wait: after Putin becomes Hitler II ( or XXIII or whatever) and Obama should start a war with him to put him in his place, they’re still going with their Dreamy Strong Bare-chested Putin mancrush? (Near-fatal eyeroll.)
JPL
@gratuitous: Wargasm should be a new tag, just sayin!
OzarkHillbilly
@Davis X. Machina: You forgot going on strike for longer breaks. Speaking of which, it’s past 8:30. Whistle bit again!
Gin & Tonic
@Chyron HR: Congress has to agree within fifteen minutes
Has to agree *unanimously*, like the Russian Duma (parliament) did. The vote was unanimous. The Congress can barely get unanimous consent to rename a post office in East Bumfuck.
Davis X. Machina
@OzarkHillbilly: What do I know? I’m just a highly-paid, unaccountable, pension-chasing civil service drone.
boatboy_srq
@BGK: Less. Less, because they a) they’re only doing it because someday they may get free and sue some innocent business for denying their significant energy resource equal treatment (see Steve King’s recent rant), b) solar panels don’t make good parents and produce even worse children (unless you count CFL and LED bulbs), c) there’s no solar fetish community so the International Mister Solar contest won’t be any fun and a##less inverters don’t look good on anybody (though I can see LaBarbera trying on a pair), and d) the Solar Panel Personhood movement isn’t even founded yet and all those poor silicon wafers will be melted down before anyone protests.
C.V. Danes
Actually, Mr Giuliani, that would be the difference between an authoritarian dictator and an elected leader. The 20th century was defined in no small part by the antics of autocratic leaders. Many of us would prefer to steer clear of world wars for the remainder of this century.
Matt
The GOP has gotten good at holding mutually-incompatible ideas in their collective heads – for instance, they can simultaneously think that Mexicans are lazy *and* that Mexicans are walking hundreds of miles across the desert to “steal our jobs”.
C.V. Danes
@moonbat:
Of course, because they want a dictator that promotes their values, and their values only.
C.V. Danes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Remember, though, that Bush looked him dead in the eye and thought he was a straight shooter.
MomSense
@C.V. Danes:
Fixt.
RaflW
@Gin & Tonic:
Well, that’s no surprise. The GOP wants a FedEx/UPS duopoly, so all the post offices should be shuttered.
Amir Khalid
@Matt:
George Orwell had a fitting name for that ability.
Comrade Dread
Good to know the GOP supports autocratic government.
I’m sure they’d be right behind the President declaring single payer health care the law of the land, setting the tax rate for millionaires at 70%, implementing a new jobs program, and raising the minimum wage with an executive order.
Napoleon
@Matt:
That is not a GOP trait so much as a conservative, particularly hard right, trait. The first time I recall noticing it was with Jewish people. Somehow they managed to be both Communist who were hell-bent at destroying America and the worst purveyors of capitalist tendencies at the same time. Pretty tricky, if you ask me.
Ash Can
I like to think that there’s an afterlife, and that Ronald Reagan is there, and that his punishment for the harm his policies did to the nation and beyond is that he’s forced to watch his Republican party fawn all over an ex-KGB agent who pines for the glory days of the Soviet Union.
Cervantes
@BGK:
In that same lecture at Columbia, HST also said that when a leader is in the Democratic Party, he’s called a “boss,” whereas when he’s a Republican, he’s a “leader.”
Plus ça change plus c’est le même chose.
Yes, Bush tried to compare himself (Iraq in 2004) to Truman (Germany in 1946).
He was always a stupid, stupid waste of space.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: Except that with the Republican version, thinking at all is rarely in evidence.
Still, there’s poetic license, I suppose.
Gin & Tonic
I think the best part of Putin’s manly decision-making, from the GOP point of view, is that the decision he made in such a manly fashion is broadly unpopular. According to polling conducted between 8-18 February (yes, before the shit hit the fan) both Russians and Ukrainians are in favor of their being separate, independent countries. Even in Crimea, only 41% of the population support uniting with Russia.
For the curious, 2032 respondents, random polling from 8 Feb to 18 Feb in all regions of Ukraine including Crimea, and 1603 respondents polled in 45 regions of Russia from 21-25 Feb. Details here http://www.dif.org.ua/ua/polls/2014_polls/-ukrainci-opituvannja.htm
fuzz
it’s exactly what Larison says in his post about this. The right thinks that everything our government and the Russians do is connected. We went after Libya and tried to with Syria, so they attack Crimea. We went after Iraq and Serbia so they did Georgia. It isn’t that simple. I remember reading that the Iraq war did spur a rush to modernize the Russian military (they were shocked at how quickly Baghdad fell and even the insurgency was much less costly to us than either of their fights in Chechnya or Afghanistan were to them), but the idea that everything we do is part of a ‘tit for tat’ issue seems wrong. Especially with Georgia, the Abkhazia/Ossetia issue dated back to the early 90s. Russia acts as what they see are their own strategic interests, and they’re often completely different from ours. It’s not a game of risk.
raven
@fuzz: You are nuts, it’s ALL about us!
GregB
Saddam and Ghadaffi were great decisive leaders too!
Booo to Obama the weakest and most feckless tyrant ever!
Grung_e_Gene
Conservatives and Republicans love a strong-man dictator. They get all hot and bothered when a powerful man makes decisions. Oh, do their knees get weak when a Decider decides.
Gin & Tonic
Only slightly OT, but awfully funny, as it’s circulating to show how good Russia is at the PR game (but it may be backfiring, as this is quickly becoming a joke.)
https://twitter.com/demalliance/status/440866648447152129/photo/1
In the top left, it says “role-playing (acting) of one whore” (yeah, I know, pretty rude). Then screen grabs from various videos, where top-left, she’s identified as a soldier’s mom, bottom left, as “anti-Maidan”, top right identified as a resident of Kiev, center-right identified as a resident of Kharkiv, bottom right as a resident of Odessa. Pretty clearly the same woman.
Chris
@Cervantes:
I wonder if they were doing the same thing with Roosevelt < Hitler.
Pretty sure they were doing it with Truman < Stalin.
Chris
@BGK:
McCullough (think that’s how it’s spelled)’s biography is one of my favorite history/politics books that I’ve read in the last few years, and it’s full of good stuff like that. Another one I liked was when he said something like “they don’t understand how economics works… they really do think rich people create money and it just trickles down from the top.” (Yes, he used the T. D. term. The more things change…)
Truman is about as likely to turn right wing as Martin Luther King… oh wait, they think he’s one of them too.
CarolDuhart2
@C.V. Danes: Amen, C.V. Authoritarian leaders act-and don’t think, and get it wrong, really wrong. I’d rather have a President who thinks about it, takes his time and gets it right the first time.
In any event, what’s the rush?
C.V. Danes
@MomSense: Thanks :-)
Chris
@Napoleon:
There’s an old “based on a true story” movie about those three civil rights workers who were murdered in Mississippi where the KKK leader is interviewed by journalists, and among other absurdities, goes “we are against Jews, because their control of international banking is the power behind communism…” Had to pause to laugh.
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks, I hadn’t yet seen the poll. I notice the 41% (Feb. 8-18) is an increase from last year’s 36%. (I also see similar, small increases in the reported numbers almost everywhere in Ukraine.)
I also notice that even among Russian speakers in Ukraine (Feb. 8-18), support for “uniting in one state” is only 32%. And even among old-line Communists in Ukraine, it’s only 36%.
And to reiterate: the polling in Russia is from Feb. 21-25.
Thanks again.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dear Liberal Media:
Stop playing John McCain’s tantrum about feckless leadership. The sound of his spoon banging on the tray of his high chair gives me a headache.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s funny that the word “feckless” has become the go-to euphemism for “dickless.”
Cervantes
@Chris:
Yes, I remember that. During the ’48 election, HST spoke about his notion that Republicans and Democrats had two different “theories of government.” Democrats, he said, were for an equal distribution of wealth (no one told Bush this in 2004, apparently), with every class getting a fair share. Whereas Republicans, he said, held that “special interests” should get virtually all the profits and what little “trickles down” the rest of us can get by chance, if we are there to get it.
Linnaeus
Conservatives were never really all that comfortable with democracy.
Villago Delenda Est
This is how you deal with authoritarian assholes like Rudi 911
Paul in KY
@Cervantes: I love the comments Pres. Truman would make. Straightforward & can’t be misconstrued.
Alot of Democrats, from Pres. Carter on could/should have used more of his talking points (IMO).
flukebucket
These guys just can’t make up their minds. Should we be more like Russia or China? Should we be more like China or Russia? Flip a coin I guess.
Chris
@flukebucket:
My guess: If it was up to them, they’d want us to look like China, but are incompetent enough that they’d miss the mark and end up making us look like Russia instead.
Cervantes
@Paul in KY: Did you see his letter to Paul Hume, the critic who gave Margaret’s concert a lousy review? That one he wrote while he was still president …
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
No it isn’t. That post was unworthy of you.
Mike in NC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: One of these days I’m hoping to see McPOW suffer a stroke on live TV when he has one of his dumb temper tantrums.
Chris
@Mike in NC:
You don’t dread the hagiography, the month of MSM enforced mourning and the overdose of “did you know John McCain was a POW?” that would come next?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Via Sullivan, some tweets that describe a pretty remarkable confrontation in Crimea last night, one that gets almost no mention in the Guardian’s write up on Balbek, and sounds a lot less dramatic in the WaPo
Simon Shuster is Time’s correspondent. Here’s his feed.
maya
Obama shall be at the podium in front of a combined congress with a steady finger hovering over the RED button and he shall ask,” Yay or nay?” and when all of congress stands and triumphantly shouts in unison “Yay!”, he should then slowly bring the finger up in front of his face. And it shall be the middle finger.
Patrick
Remember how the Dixie Chicks were called traitors and received death threats for having the audacity to criticize Bush during the Iraq war. It’s about time people like Giuliani, McCain, Graham, Krauthammer are also referred to as traitors. They are criticizing our President at a time of war.
Suffern ACE
@Linnaeus: Well, yeah, kind of. Since the whole point of conservatism was to protect church and crown from democratizing forces, I can see how there is an uncomfortable fit.
We are a Republic not a Democracy don’t ya know.
OGLiberal
Palin has chimed in with her Putin-love, saying that Putin is a stud who wrestles bears and drills for oil while Obama wears “mom jeans” and “bloviates”.
Palin also said she could see Putin in her – er, from her – bedroom window.
Botsplainer
@C.V. Danes:
Sounds like the plot to a slash porno.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@OGLiberal: When did Maureen Dowd start writing Palin’s stuff? Or do I have that backwards?
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So Russia sent in fake Ukranian Russians to stage an uprising in the Crimea and didn’t give them other orders in the event that actual Ukranians started to reject them? This does not seem to be a very well thought out plan.
But it was so swift, decisive and leaderly.
Suffern ACE
@Gin & Tonic: I believe she is the wife of famed Springfield actor Troy McClure.
SRW1
The Republican idea of leadership is inching ever closer to “Fuehrerprinzip”. Except for the problem that for blah people there’s kind of a problem because of some other principles.
Cervantes
@Gin & Tonic: Or quintuplets.
MaryRC
@OGLiberal: @OGLiberal: Every time Palin opens her mouth, I think “That could have been Vice-President”.
Paul in KY
@Cervantes: I have read it. Haven’t in a while, though. I think he might have punched him if the guy had magically appeared in office when he was writing it.
I’m just wild about Harry!
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE:
Thinking is for wusses, you know.
NorthLeft12
I eagerly look forward to the day when Rudy and McCain will no longer be heard from regarding any US national security issue.
Although I also dread that same day, as their places will be taken by some equally worthless and potentially more obnoxious right wingers.
Thank you to the MSM for ensuring that the never changing position of the authoritarian interventionists will always get the lion’s share of the “reasoned debate”.
Botsplainer
@MaryRC:
The goobers were really excited about her, too. I remember reading gleeful expressions over in Freeperville about how forward they were looking to seeing Todd and Sarah over the next 16 years (presuming a two term McCain presidency and a two term Palin presidency).
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
It would be nearly as dreadful as the Reagasm was.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
At least the Thatchergasm was offset by the spike in “Ding dong the witch is dead” songs.
Villago Delenda Est
@flukebucket:
Both are crony driven kleptocracies, so I’m sure they’d be happy with either one.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I do have to say, Wow, though. The Ukranian military adopting tactics from the civil disobediance handbook. Russians unwilling to shoot unarmed troops. The fact that they weren’t armed because they didn’t want to escalate. Wow.
Patrick
@NorthLeft12:
I wish at the very least that whenever the media has these two clowns on for their opinions, that the media would at least advise their viewers to take their opinions with a grain of salt. After all, both Rudy and McCain were in favor of the disastrous Iraq war. If they were so incredibly wrong then, why should we trust them now? Is that too much too ask???
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer:
As it turns out, they didn’t need to be in the White House for us to be subjected to their ongoing public presence.
scav
That Palin thing (Grizzly Mom disses Mom Pants! And thus swoons over the Ultimate Threat! she’s been wailing Casandra-like about from her front porch since forever) amuses me. They — many of them especially in visible place of authority — really do seem to lack the ability to consistently distinguish between poseur-ing PR and real abilities and think gross BS posturing is all that is needed (Look! We’ve wrapped up the women [etc] vote by the charisma of the unknown Miss SP! How ’bout this plumber! Or this person of clearly ethnic descent!) Potemkin Candidates. What an odd mess many of them are.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patrick:
Yes.
SATSQ
Tommy
Yeah if I hear them say we need “Reagan” again I will throw up. The Daily Show took that apart in a matter of 2-3 minutes. You know that whole sell arms to Iran to fund a revolt in South America. How did that work out? Oh and lets give billions in aid to some folks in Afghanistan to fight against Russia, only for them later to become the Taliban. Again, how did that work out?
Yup, Reagan is just what we need right now.
I shouldn’t be stunned, but I am that when somebody brings up Reagan nobody pushes back on these kind of key historical events.
Cervantes
@Paul in KY:
Great song. You probably know HST chose it for his campaign theme in 1948.
What some may not know today is that the song came from a 1920s Broadway show, the first successful African-American one.
Then if we keep in mind that 1948 is also the year HST, well before the election, pushed on civil rights in Congress and desegregated the military by executive order, then we see what “efficiency” and “leadership” in government really mean.
Tommy
@Patrick: After the first WTC bombing Rudy put NYCs command center in the freaking WTC. IMHO that alone, not to mention never getting the communications systems between police and firefighters upgraded, means he shouldn’t be asked a single question about national defense or terrorism.
That he runs a company that makes money off government contracts related to terrorism, just another reason.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tommy:
The vermin of the Village loved them some Reagan. When he was in office, and to this day. They love someone like them, who sticks to a narrative no matter what reality happens to be. They just love the “ah, shucks” persona, which was why the deserting coward tried so hard to replicate it. Contrast with Cheney, who has no use at all for that persona, and how he’s treated by the Village, which basically does the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named meme with him. Best not to be mentioned. We’ll just talk about the PR friendly guy.
There is such an appalling overlap between “journalism” and PR types. It’s like ethics are just not done in “Journalism” departments, just like ethics have nothing at all to do with MBA training programs.
Chris
@Cervantes:
Truman is pretty much when the Democratic Party became the party I identify with now, and this is most of the reason why. No president is perfect, but I really like that one.
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE:
On the off chance that you do not know who Gene Sharp is: you might want to look him up. His work on civil disobedience and non-violent revolution has been influential in Eastern Europe, including in Ukraine.
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: I don’t know if Sarah! would look forward to seeing Todd over a 16 year span.
mellowjohn
@Gin & Tonic:
congress wouldn’t unanimously agree to a bathroom break.
Paul in KY
@scav: They just swoon for any loudmouth idiot who sounds authorative on the evils of teh Obummer.
That’s all it takes.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: That’s because of the people on the show (who range from deeply, realistically authoritarian-Conservative to batshit crypto-Monarchist) all adore St. Ronnie.
All that stuff was done out of a great love for Murca, dontchaknow.
Paul in KY
@Cervantes: Did not know song was from a 1920s black musical. Thank you for info.
I think Pres. Truman was 2nd greatest pres of 20th century (maybe 3rd if you put TR above him).
Tommy
@Paul in KY: Exactly. I mean how easy is that to do. If Obama is for something you are against it. Takes no critical thinking to take this approach. They try to “think” and put out an immigration plan that doesn’t even stay on the table for a week. Put out a budget that nobody thinks has numbers that even compute. Their health care plan, if you can call it that, was laughed at.
Some folks might be pissed at me for saying this, but I think we need at least two political parties that have actual ideas. I don’t think Obama nor myself is always right. Somebody with part of a functioning mind needs to argue against Obama’s policies BUT also offer their own.
That we don’t have this, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon, concerns me.
Botsplainer
All of your bitcoins are belong to us.
http://flexcoin.com/
Is the exploit in the bitcoin routine itself?
scav
@Paul in KY: Nasty case of decades-long beer goggles they’re sporting indeed. Poor dears, the Prince Charmings they drag home . . .
Pat Stewart and Colbert last night? I’m slow to catch up with much, but this might be better in the morning (is) to help get me past the rest of the day.
SatanicPanic
@Tommy: Split the Democratic party in half and we’d have two good parties- the liberals and the technocrats.
Chris
@Tommy:
Funny thing, but the Republicans actually used to fulfill that “the other party” purpose in a lot of places, back when each party had liberal and conservative wings. Especially in the Northeast, Republicans were the party you could vote for in local elections as a check on Democratic corruption and/or complacency and still trust that they weren’t going to tear up the safety net, declare war on unions, etc.
Ah well, that was then.
low-tech cyclist
Meanwhile, Putin gave a press conference that apparently sounded a lot like Bogart as Captain Queeg talking about strawberries in The Caine Mutiny.
I bet a bunch of conservative and MSM idiots will be in need of a new mancrush quite soon.
ranchandsyrup
Who needs erectile dysfunction drugs? Putin gives people of the right a Fournierection.
Botsplainer
@low-tech cyclist:
Awesome scene.
My biggest complaint about the movie is that Van Johnson’s character would fight to a draw if he had a duel of wits with a bag of hammers.
Tommy
@SatanicPanic: That is very true IMHO. When I run into somebody that thinks Obama is this super far left liberal I have to point out no, not so much. I am a far left liberal and way to the left of him. And there are a lot of other folks like me out there. I’ve been voting since the late 80s and not ONCE have I voted for somebody in the presidential primary where they got the nomination. I kind of wonder how much longer this will stay a fact. Maybe it won’t change will all the money in politics, even in our party, but I have some hope.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer:
Dunno, but since the “inventor” of bitcoin is unknown, can’t be discounted. Looks to me more and more like grift from the outset, aimed at the most naive twits on this planet. Glibertarian goldbug types who don’t understand the essential fact of currencies: they’re all by nature fiat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@ranchandsyrup: Where is the dimwit natural son of David Broder spewing his stupid? Lemme guess: President Obama should be listening to John McCain?
Normal people: Why would we do that?
Beltway Media: Ooh, SNAP!
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How would the people of Ukraine know what is or isn’t the biggest national security threat to America?
Tommy
@Chris: And in the midwest. My parents are sane, moderate Republicans. Well my mom voted for Obama twice, the first time in her 68 years she didn’t vote for a Republican. My father is lost and really doesn’t know what to do. He will be over at my house and I’ll turn on MSNBC (he is a CNN guy, couldn’t pay him to watch Fox Noise) and some Republican will come on and he is openly embarrassed.
Heck I VOTE REPUBLICAN in my little town. They are nothing close to the tea party. They run my city so well when I talk about what we have done, we raised our taxes a few years ago to build parks and commission art work around town, people think I must live in the most liberal town in America. I do not :).
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ukranians “Yeah, Russia is OUR biggest strategic threat. But yours is probably listening to John McCain.”
Chris
@Tommy:
That last part’s really interesting. I thought movement conservatives had purged pretty much all the non-cultists from the party in 1994, with the last few remnants getting swept up in 2010. Apparently a few islands of sanity survived – good for you!
ranchandsyrup
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Leadery leadership would fix things. But don’t lead domestically, that is tyranny.
Patrick
@Chris:
Amen. I feel sorry for Ukraine. But what the hell does McCain wants us to do? Go to full scale war even if Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with the security of America?
And believe me; I couldn’t possibly care less what McCain thinks about foreign policy.
BTW: these are the same idiots that claim that they are oh so concerned about our deficit.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: There is something about the concept of Bitcoin that I like or at least find interesting. But alas it always seemed kind of “fishy” to me from the get go. I just work for myself and process large sums of money through PayPal and I am stunned (again I shouldn’t be) the percentage they take just for somebody sending me some money and then letting me move it to my bank account.
I know I could use other services, but a lot of my clients are the most tech smart in the world, and PayPal is a known element, somebody they trust and will use. Clearly they’d NEVER use something like Bitcoin, but again I find at least the concept interesting.
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, that’s my growing sense as well. Guy invents bitcoin which effectively creates value out of nothing but artificial scarcity. The system pays people that process transactions, so the inventor can pay himself just for participating, then exploits a vulnerability in the system to steal back all of the value in the system (generating additional bitcoin by continuing to process the transactions that steal the money).
Seems like a very clever way to convert rubes into dollars.
Tommy
@Chris: Here are just a few things my town has done. We voted to raise our taxes to buy back some buildings, tear them down, and build parks. We voted to raise our taxes, with 63% of the vote in an election where we voted 57% for McCain (oh, I live in Illinois), to build a $60M high school (we have about the best schools in the state). We got a Federal grant, through the Recovery Act, to wire the town and all public buildings with fiber. When our Mayor fired the City Manager when it came out he was a raging liberal (he isn’t elected) we voted to have the ability to recall elected officials. He was rehired. Heck I have both rail and bus service in a rural town of 5,700.
We get our power and water through a co-op. Our rates are some of the lowest in the state.
I’ve talked about this a lot with folks online and they tend to think, since my town is 98.7 percent white, that these things are easier to do, cause we are not doing these things for “colored” people. I am not sure if this is true, but something I do ponder.
Gin & Tonic
@Tommy: the percentage they take just for somebody sending me some money and then letting me move it to my bank account.
I hope you’re aware that this is because of the third-world banking system in the US, because banks needs their precioussss profits. Just like their failure to adopt chip-and-PIN cards, which would make things like the Target data breach essentially impossible (but the card in your wallet would cost slightly more.) In Europe, if you want to transfer some money to someone, you get their bank’s SWIFT info and their account number, and you transfer money. It costs nothing and it’s almost instant. It’s so customary that when they encounter someone who banks in the US and says “but a wire transfer takes three days and my bank charges $35” their only possible response is “WTF?”
Gin & Tonic
@? Martin: If this was baked in from the start, my hat is off to that guy.
flukebucket
@Villago Delenda Est:
It does my heart so much good just to see somebody else put that into writing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: Tweety just now: “Last night we were talking about the white male, a kind of forgotten demographic.”
gwangung
@Tommy:
When I hear people talk about him being a Communist or Marxist, I like to remind people that I had relatives who lived through the Cultural Revolution. And I had friends who survived Pol Pot.
And I say that they are being EXTREMELY disrepspectful to their experiences and meory.
Suffern ACE
@Patrick: He wants us to escalate the situation before it can get settled. It’s what he always wants to do. Making tense situations worse, escalating every tiff and quibble into a shouting match.
Chris
@Tommy:
I’d be curious to compare the politics in your place with the politics in similarly all-white towns south of the Mason-Dixon line. Race is a factor pretty much everywhere, but the Midwest has a much stronger tradition of good governance (and, possibly, communitarian ethics) than the South.
Botsplainer
@Gin & Tonic:
It is incredibly painful to walk Europeans through the wiring process if they’re not from the larger cities. The local bankers have a real difficult time conceptualizing working without the SWIFT code. Their computers will do it, but they have to hunt for the commands.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suffern ACE: He wants the nation to turn its frightened eyes to him, and say in one voice, “Forgive us, Senator! You told us and we wouldn’t listen! Please forgive us and scare Vladimir Putin back in to the Kremlin with a set-jawed, steely-eyed delivery of some windy semi-coherent rhetoric you imagine is Churchillian!”
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah. Thank god I’m gay, or no one would ever try to put anything on TV that interests me at all.
raven
@Patrick: What he fucking wants is to PROVE he was right all along. He had some bullshit list on Joe this morning, NATO exercises on the Russian border, missile defense. . .you know, a bunch of stuff that is stupid at best. When Scarborough asked him if Georgia, 2008 was the real start of this he grumbled on “yea and I bitched and moaned then too”!
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And that swollen jaw he got from Charlie.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
This may start changing sooner than you think, not because of consumer demand, but because of corporate credit cards. The Giant Evil Corporation I work for is already switching to chip-and-PIN cards because so many employees have to do overseas travel. If enough corporate customers start doing that, US banks will dip their toe in the water and start offering it as an option to consumers.
slag
I don’t know…sounds a bit more like a rageaholic father to me.
Tommy
@Chris: That would be interesting. I’ve lived in the deep south, but much larger towns (Baton Rouge and Lubbock). I have to admit it wasn’t something I had even pondered until a few individuals brought it up. Race is an issue in my town. There is at least one bar you could through around the “N” word and not so sure anybody would care.
But I tend to think it has more to do with hiring a professional city manager. Not elected with almost unlimited power. All of the things I listed we’ve done, he was in place. He harps on something that seems so logical to me. That with good schools and good infrastructure more people will want to move here. More people means more taxes and more consumers at local businesses, which means more taxes. He keeps it that simple and at City Council meetings everybody is just nodding their heads in agreement.
We literally can’t build houses fast enough. Heck we created 250 jobs in the last year alone (Boeing and Monstanto opened up factories). At least 4-5 new small businesses, including a health club a block from my house.
I misspoke when I said my town was 5,700. In 2000 it was 5,5000. In 2010 it was 8,700. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the last 4 years we have not surpassed 10,0000.
Tommy
@Gin & Tonic: I had a client send me a wire transfer. I kid you not his bank charged him $35 and then MY bank charged me $30. I was like WTF. Even made me madder cause I had to call my bank and TELL them to check the system to see if it had processed, two days after it was sent.
Our systems sucks. They nickel and dime you for every penny they can. I heard somebody here say yesterday that if there was a bank that didn’t treat you like shit, had some money to advertise and expand, it could take over the industry.
I don’t know if that is the case, but sure nice to think it might work out that way.
BTW: The bank in my parents little rural town, did away will all the tellers. You have to use an ATM or drive 30 miles to the next town to find a human.
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shoot me now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dimwitted squirrel trips over a nut
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Tweety might have been discussing yesterday’s NYTimes story about whether Dems should reach out to the (forsaken) white male.
Or something like that. I have not yet read it.
SiubhanDuinne
Uh-oh, guys. We have a new crisis now. (Well, maybe not a true crisis, but a very unfortunate situation.)
Paul in KY
@Tommy: They used to be that way at one time. Felt they wouldn’t win elections (and didn’t like the country’s governing trends) if they had to fight on Democratic turf (debating about how to govern best, provide for people, etc.).
So, they decided to just appeal to people’s basest instincts. They knew it would work from all the marketing studies. Democrats didn’t realize what was happening until it had happened.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Here’s the link, should you be interested.
NY Times, Jackie Calmes: Democrats Try Wooing Ones who Got Away: White Men
NYTimes did not allow reader comments. I wonder why not? (Tee hee. This is Drudge-bait.)
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne:
The dreaded Mom jeans.
What will Obama do next?
Jay C
@slag:
And as if we need any more conformation that most conservatives/Republicans are probably-terminally irony-impaired: I’m sure there is a significant overlap between the set of Repubs swooning over Putin’s Steely Decidery Leaderness, and those frothing and ready to impeach Barack Obama for even suggesting that using executive authority to get around an obstructionist Congress might be a proper use of power.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle: Lactate?
Paul in KY
@Tommy: Have been to Lubbock (technically). Flew in and out of Reese AFB one day in 1980.
Elie
The right in the US is unmoored to its own means for success in the future. They have devolved to a bunch of babies having tantrums and doing saying and doing mean, essentially self destructive things because they have nothing else. They have no ideas, no focus and nothing that can build them past being a reactive set of primates, swinging leg bones and mounting false charges at the perceived enemy, Obama. They got nothing — nothing and deep down they know it. OMG how bad they look to the rest of the world! How much contempt the administration must secretly and carefully manage to just keep things moving within our government institutions and processes… these are scum….How perfectly valid that the image they adore in the mirror is a aging dictator with sagging man breasts — longing for the days of the now defunct soviet empire.. how fitting…
Elizabelle
@Cervantes:
You mean he’s NOT doing that yet?
Slacker.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I know, it’s really awful. And those rolled-up sleeves! Sheesh!!
Tommy
@Paul in KY: My father was a professor at Texas Tech. I was 4-8 years old while there. Long, long story but it was the one place I didn’t like living, and I’ve lived in a lot of places. The day our station wagon pulled out of the town and we went to Leavenworth, KS (dad to teach at the Army War College) I might have stood up and did a little happy dance.
Elie
@Tommy:
Government is not the only social institution without balanced leadership. If anything, the corporate sector is as bad or worse… its corruption is pervasive and international. Where do you think all this stupid authoritarian, command and control comes from? It both influences and is influenced by that mindset — much to its and our detriment.
Sooner or later there is a big adjustment. Usually very very painful.
As they say, you can have your own illusions but not your own facts. The laws of gravity and electromagnetic force have their way, no matter how big you think your britches are.
g
So Rudy 9/11 thinks it’s admirable to invade a sovereign nation after only fifteen minutes’ consideration.
cckids
There is a T-shirt out there that says “Leadership is a lot of people doing what I say”.
I’d be that McCain wears it under his suit every day.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: I only saw the base & then a birds eye view of the surrounding monotonous area, but it didn’t look that inviting.
catclub
@Tommy: Wire transfers still seems to be different from online banking, which is usually no charge. If BOTH ways still take three days, why bother with wire.
I can certainly send money directly from my bank to vanguard – no check necessary, and no wire fees.
Chase Online has a system. The tricky part of course, is getting the bank info and account number for the counter party. AND making sure all the parties have given proper permission. Although, now that I think of it, those permissions might not be as crucial to the bank being able to take money from your account. ;)
Bill
Others have pointed this out, but it bears repeating: Obama cannot be both an imperial facist dictator, and a milquetoast compromising capitulator.
I found Grandpa’s rant about “feckless” leadership interesting, as he clearly implied that Obama’s weak foreign policy encouraged Putin. I want examples of this alleged weakness. Was it droning the shit out of terrorists? Was it killing Bin Laden? Was it providing support in Lybia? Was it getting Syria to due whatever we wanted without firing a bullet? Where exactly were we “weak?”
Also, will someone on the right please tell us what they think should be done about Putin? If given Putin’s power here at home, how would the modern American conservative react?