According to the Media Village, it is supposed to be very poignant about Dick Lugar, the “Longest-serving Senate Republican in fight of his life“. In a report from home ground, Doghouse Riley explains for David “Possum” Brooks, why the withers of at least one of Lugar’s constituents remain unwrung:
… Fifty-some years in politics and Lugar absolutely freaked to be opposed by some nobody Teabagger. This tells you all you need to know. It certainly tells you more than Brooks’ column, excepting the unintentional revelations.
So that we in Indiana are now entering our third? seventeenth? month of Dick Lugar campaign ads which run something like this: I’m Dick Lugar, and I hate that black guy in the White House as much as you do! And I’ve been as dilatory and obstructionist about it as anyone! Pipeline!
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This is Dick Lugar, The Oldest Surviving Scam in the US Senate. And what’s more, it’s the real Dick Lugar, Dave. The “respected and thoughtful” Lugar is a canard, and the “independent” Lugar is a Fucking Lie. He moved to the Senate from being Nixon’s Favorite Mayor. That only qualifies one as a “moderate” by today’s whacked-out standards. He’s voted the party line for forty years. Absolutely reliably. One of his Obama-bashing ads–which is, come to think of it, the only kind he has, other than the one that bashes his Teabagger opponent for daring to question him–says he “Sponsored a Balanced Budget Amendment Seventeen Times.” Yeah, and voted for deficit spending thirty-five times.
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Dave, if it gives you a sad to see Dick Lugar, Octogenarian Wingnut Fellator, you either haven’t been paying attention, or you’ve lost whatever ability to tell reality from fantasy you began with…
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Really, all this time as a “principled” “conservative” who winked at the rabid racists of the base at election time, secure in the knowledge that you weren’t actually one of them, all those Burke weekends dreaming up snappier slogans to get the rabble to Vote Aristo, and now you’re beginning to realize that actions have consequences? And now you wanna know why your brand of well-born party official didn’t take on Rush Limbaugh earlier? The way you did: the measured snark that none of his listeners would ever hear, or get if they did? They at least have jobs to lose; you’ve got a sinecure. When did you speak honestly and openly about the culture wars (oh, you’re sort of for gay marriage and reproductive rights, provided the wind blows your cloudy pronouncements just right), let alone speak sense about global climate change, energy policy, banking reform, campaign reform, or any of the other crackpot schemes you “reasonable Republicans” need to keep the spigot turned on? Fer chrissakes, you don’t like the Rabid Right, now that it may cost you an election? You gotta set the Wayback Machine for a lot earlier than five years ago to kill it in its cradle.
Speaking of unintentional self-disclosure, I’m thinking about using “David ‘Possum’ Brooks” on a regular basis, because if there’s anyone who fits the description “tremble for a few seconds then slip into an involuntary coma every time they’re challenged aggressively from the right”, it would be DougJ’s least-favorite NYTimes columnist.