Bobo on Paul Ryan’s hurt fee-fees (CEPR via PBS):
“It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s Washington they have never had a serious private conversation. The president has never invited Ryan over even for lunch.”
I’ve been trying to avoid saying things like that I hope huge meteors hit Bethesda and Georgetown but you’d have a hard time convincing me that it wouldn’t be the for the best.
Update. I see John already wrote about this! Sorry.
dmsilev
John beat you to this terribly tragic story. Look a few posts down.
dms
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Uh oh, Sully just got the vapors.
patrick II
Call Nancy, Dennis and Al before they hit, alright?
joes527
Lunch? What about an afternoon of beer-pong?
Does the White house have a tire swing?
shortstop
Similarly, the president has never invited Sarah Palin, Alan Keyes, Louie Gohmert or Orly Taitz over to lunch. It all speaks to his fundamental meanness of spirit and fear of engaging in vibrant and innovative civic debate.
Comrade DougJ
@patrick II:
I doubt they spend much time in either place.
geg6
Up next, from Paul Ryan:
Obama made me sit in the back of Air Force One!
They never fucking learn. Never.
LGRooney
Regardless, the meteor would have a hard time finding Bobo… the dude is shorter than I am!
harokin
This tidbit was contributed by the execrable Katty Kay on the Diane Rehm show this morning. She was going on and on about how terribly confusing this budget mess was, with Chris Cilizza moaning about how it was all just so political. If Obama and Ryan could just have lunch, all would be fine!
A chunk of my soul died at that point.
cleek
not so fast, there’s some damn good food and bars in Georgetown!
we need smart meteors that can be directed with lasers to specific locations.
cyntax
Back during the run-up to the Iraq War and it’s early stages (jeebus we need to end that thing), I used to loathe Bill Kristol with the fire of a thousand suns.
But as we’re faced with more and more domestic issues, it’s Bobo I really can’t stand, because he ise one of the primary enablers of this shite (just as Kristol was for the war).
Omnes Omnibus
@LGRooney: Come on! I mean, no one is that short.
Culture of Truth
[ sobs ]
Meanwhile, the House passed the Ryan plan 235-193.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
lunch, because dinner would make it seem like you actually cared.
will bobo be personally tossing the salads for this affair?
seriously, bobo knows the only thing that helps repubs is if they say no to having lunch at the white house.
if they really wanna do something interesting…make the congress and the president eat at a soup kitchen, and take the normal crowd that goes to the soup kitchen up to the congressional dining hall.
Nathaniel
Hey, I resemble that remark.
Seriously, not everyone who lives in Bethesda is like Bobo or George “The truth is my bitch” Will. Bethesda is a pretty consistently liberal part of the country, thank you very much.
Roger Moore
Maybe we could just have an unfortunate replacement of all the booze at one of their cocktail parties with methanol. Or maybe we could just have botulism tainted food.
JGabriel
Bobo:
I’m shocked! Isn’t it the president’s RESPONSIBILITY to to privately have lunch with each and every one of the 435 members of the House, especially those in the opposition party? By the end of their two year terms, the president should be able to meet with all of them at the completely non-onerous rate of 5 per week, leaving time for national holidays and 3 weeks vacation.
.
Litlebridifrnt
Did you see Anthony Wiener on CSPAN this morning?
http://rockdots.tumblr.com/post/4634995063/rep-anthony-weiner-responds-to-the-hissy-fit-over
paraphrasing “If you don’t want to get called out on dumb proposals don’t make dumb proposals”
“I would have said this idea is awful and I will chew of my right arm before I would ever sign it”
I love that guy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That line deserves multiple mockery. Every front pager of every blog should do a post mocking Bobo and the mentality that he sadly represents. I have high expectations for the photo-shopping snark bloggers on this on
Amanda in the South Bay
Moore Awards for all!
David in NY
Well, I don’t know. Maybe Bobo has a point. I mean, we have many deep disagreements with him, and has he ever invited any of us to lunch? Anyone? I thought not. So I invite Bobo to practice what he preaches. I’m sure we can straighten him out in no time, and that after a few beers, he won’t slip or anything while boarding his bus home.
jeffreyw
Thread needs more cats and dogs.
shortstop
@JGabriel: No, no, no one is arguing that. We all know the president’s a busy man. But if he can’t make time to break bread even once with the wildly influential, brilliant, bold, courageous, plain-spoken, trailblazing, Galtian, mavericky emerging master of the GOP — well, who the hell is this guy to snub Paul Ryan that way?
RP
I live in Bethesda! And Chris van Hollen is a terrific Rep.
kdaug
Man, I can just picture Bobo with a napkin draped over his pinky, dabbing both corners of his mouth, and saying “Excellent meal, Mr. President. Now, when shall we have Mr. Ryan over to discuss the evisceration, ahem, restructuring of Medicade? The country demands it, you do know.”
Ecks
Also from Bobo:
Excellent point. What kind of irresponsible jackass goes and gets cancer anyway? I’m sorry, but if you’re going to let malignant cells start multiplying in your pancreas, (YOUR pancreas for heavens sake, YOURS, take ownership of the thing) then I don’t see why the rest of us should have to bail you out. Just grab ahold of your boot straps, and (stop) live(ing) with it like a MAN for gods sake.
FormerSwingVoter
I really shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore, but I’m amazed that Paul Ryan was so deeply offended.
Dear Mr. Ryan,
We’re sorry that you are so deeply, deeply wounded by someone reading aloud the bill that you wrote.
Welcome to the big leagues, son. Let us know when your balls drop.
Violet
Paul Ryan just looks like he’s perpetually wounded by things other people say. His eyes are sad.
kdaug
@Violet: Let him come post over here. We’ll show him sad eyes.
LGRooney
@Omnes Omnibus: I know… I’m so short you’ve never even seen me but I tower over him.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I heard that the Obamas picked up a D.C. phone book when they arrived and choose people at random to have lunch with. If you haven’t been invited yet, then its an intentional snub.
Glen Tomkins
@geg6: They’re like the Bourbons. Hell, whenever I hear Haley Barbour speak, I wonder whether they are the Bourbons.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
People are in real trouble in this country, and all Brooks cares about is that the president hasn’t had some Republican asshole in for lunch. People are out of work. People are getting evicted from their houses. People are going bankrupt because somebody in the family thoughtlessly and brainlessly chose to get cancer. And all Brooks cares about is that this turd Ryan feels slighted because Obama won’t suck his dick. I don’t think of myself as a violent guy, but I feel like I’d love to beat Brooks with a baseball bat. Not enough to kill him, but maybe enough that he’s in unending pain for the rest of his life.
This is so vile it makes me feel kind of sick. It really does. And Brooks is one of those “nice” conservatives, too, the kind who don’t think–even secretly–that people should shoot abortion doctors, or that we should let meatpackers sell tainted meat without consequence. They’re much to reasonable for that, they’re much too, well, nice to believe that. But they really aren’t. Not at all. Brooks would happily write off millions of decent, hardworking Americans, many of whom even vote Republican, for fuck’s sake, because he doesn’t know any of these losers, he hardly even ever sees or speaks to any of these losers, so the losers aren’t really even real to him. And all so the assholes he hangs out with in Bethesda and Georgetown don’t have to worry about the unfathomable burden of paying 40% on their upper income. Those people are real. He knows these people. He understands those people. He knows their struggles. That’s why he thinks that minimum wage earners are living free and easy, while his cronies who make $250,000 or $500,000 a year are barely scraping by.
I don’t know how assholes like him can make it through life, as soulless as they are. It just seems like it would be such an empty, depressing, wretched way to live, however much they earn, and however tasty the canapés may be at the parties they go to. But, I guess, that’s sociopathy for you.
mclaren
In Brooks’ case, it’s probably not sociopathy. I’ve known guys like this. They have just simply never met anyone who actually had to work for a living. These guys skate through elite colleges paid for by daddy’s money or by some scholarship they scammed by winning an essay contest to explain why Ayn Rand was the greatest genius in history, and then they slither out of college into some chummy high-end sinecure on the strength of who their roommate was at Yale.
And to these clowns, the minimum-wage workers deserve to live in brutal poverty because minimum wage is what you get when you’re just not smart enough and you just don’t work hard enough. Guys like David Brooks have never to work at a real job for a living. Ever.
None of these guys has ever had to work a 10-hour shift at Taco Bell and then come back in 4 hours later to do a double shift because Arturo the illegal immigrant on the day shift got picked up the INS.
None of these guys has ever had to sit in a bio lab in grad school on a Friday night taking measurements for 15 hours straight while all the other students are out partying…and then throw out the whole series because the chromatography gel was contaminated.
None of these guys has ever had to work three jobs as a single mom because the dad skipped town and stopped paying alimony and the pharmacist wouldn’t give her the RU486 prescription due to “moral qualms” and as a result she had to quit high school in her senior year to take care of her kid.
People like Brooks don’t have a goddamn clue what life is really like. It’s not sociopathy, it’s complete and total cluelesseness.
Frank
Violet #28 ~ I know what you mean… I think it doesn’t really push forth the debate to linger over personal appearance (over which we have limited control), but I am a little weary of his melancholy expression. Of course, I am far more weary of Scott Walker’s self-important, arrogant mug, Michelle B.’s 5150 eyes, Mitch McConnell’s amazing vanishing chin, Eric Cantor’s empty-head expression… Dang it! Now, I’ve gone off on a whole bunch of people’s personal appearance… Thanks for letting me vent.
Jastrebljanski
It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s Times the two men have never gotten together. Krugman has never invited Brooks out to Princeton, not even to attend a lecture.
It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s New Jersey the great singer and his biggest fan–in more ways than one–have not become friends. Springsteen has never performed for Christie, not even at his inauguration.
It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s blogosphere talented writers are so alienated from one another. Gsvin has never once asked Pam out, not even for such a chaste activity as looking at his Islamosocialist art collection.
It is sad, although not strange, that in today’s scientific community people interact so little. Mr. McKibben has never given Senator Inhofe a call, not even to share with him the latest polar bear death rate.
It is sad, although not strange, that in the contemporary church people have so little time to show each other some indulgence. Reverend Luther has never even sent the Pope a friendly note–it’s just nail those theses on the door and run, without a kind word.