Open Threads

Charles Erwin Wilson, a GM exec who eventually became Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, once told Congress “I thought what was good for the country good for General Motors and vice versa” (this is the source of the famous “What’s good for General Motors is good for the USA” expression). I’m no corporatist, but I’ve always thought there was some wisdom in the old-school conservative belief that the well-being of America’s largest employers is inextricably linked to the well-being of the nation.

The days of pro-business conservatism are over now. The US Chamber of Commerce begged Republican Congressmen to support the stimulus package to no avail. Conservatives are actively rooting for the liquidation of automakers and banks, with “Let them fail” replacing “drill baby drill” as a rallying cry. And that’s when they’re not urging us to boycott Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts for supporting the United Pastry Jihad.

A striking example of this was provided by some commentary on a right-wing blog here in Western New York, which mocked a local company for its financial woes. My friend Rottenchester summarized:

Paetec is a local company that employs close to a thousand people. They took advantage of some tax breaks and other incentives, and they plan to move their headquarters downtown. They are having a tough time because of the recession, so they’ve been downsizing their plans.

I didn’t realize that pointing and laughing was the “conservative” response to a company that’s having a hard time, but I guess we’re living in a new era.

Republicans once called themselves the party of Lincoln. Then they began to use opposition to Civil Rights as a staple of their “southern strategy”. They once described themselves as defenders of freedom. Then they started supporting wiretapping and the suspension of habeas corpus rights. They once called themselves pro-business. Now they laugh at American companies that face bankruptcy.

What’s left, other than hatefulness and the occasional reference to Edmund Burke?

HatefulPost + Comments (48)

Suck on this, libtards.

C-list wingnut yakker Bob Lonsberry has unleashed an avant-garde gamechanger on the struggling Obama administration:

a word came to me. A newly coined word. Four letters. Pronounced “foo-bow.” Like in “food” and “bow and arrow” – “foo-bow.”

[….]

Then the phones lit up. Dozens and dozens of people called. They wanted a bumper sticker just like mine.

On the next commercial break, I checked my e-mail and there was a note from a man at a T-shirt company. He said he’d like to try to make some T-shirts with my new word on them. Several other people wrote offering to make bumper stickers. One gentleman said he would embroider a hat with FUBO on it.

[….]

And if I make any money off it, I’m going to buy a gun before the ruling regime outlaws them.

It’s not clear if this stands for Fuck You, Barack Obama or Fucked Up By Obama or For Us, By Obama. Frankly, I think its ambiguity is part of its genius.

FUBOPost + Comments (125)

I’m not sure why, but this song captures my political mood perfectly. Consider this an open thread.

Late night music threadPost + Comments (62)

I’m eating dinner, and I just heard Wolf Blitzer state that a group is under investigation for their role in assisting up to 200 suicides by “extreme methods.” As opposed to the milder methods of suicide, which only leave you dead.

At any rate, here is a shiny new Friday night thread. Is BSG still running?

*** Update ***

By request, I am upping the fur quotient of this post:

Claim your pets.

Friday Open ThreadPost + Comments (92)

This (via Oliver Willis who also describes a Twitter exchange with Joe Scarborough) really cracks me up:

For much of the past decade, young conservatives enjoyed an array of job opportunities in the Republican-controlled Congress and at insulated, well-funded nonprofit organizations. But since Democrats gained control in 2006, many prized slots on Senate and House committees started going to the new majority. And now, there’s no Republican administration in power to offer jobs to its own.

Young conservatives could apply for regular jobs, they acknowledge…

[…]

At the Union Pub, Dustin Siggins, 24, says he sometimes uses humor to deflect the awkwardness of being on the margins of his generation. “I met a girl today at the gym from Boston College. She was getting a law degree from George Washington. She was cute,” he says. “But she wants to work for the ACLU, and I said, ‘Oh, you’re one of those.’ “

Later, in a phone interview, Siggins says he struggles with some of his party’s more culturally orthodox ideals. “Because I am in this generation and was raised in a pro-gay-marriage era, I am only a little bit against gay marriage, but only a little, like 53 percent to 47,” he says. “I have about a dozen gay friends, 30 or 20, and they would all back me up. In college, I used to have lunch with them. . . . We went ice skating once.”

I bear these kids no ill will, but they probably should look for “regular jobs” at some point.

David Brooks thinks the future may be bright for these Burkean boys and girls, anyway:

In a New York Times column last June, David Brooks wrote that a new commentariat of young conservative writers — such as Julian Sanchez, Megan McArdle and Will Wilkinson — has come of age “as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude . . . put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter.”

Update: Burke makes a big appearance in Brooks’ column, natch:

As a consequence, they are heterodox and hard to label. These writers grew up reading conservative classics — Burke, Hayek, Smith, C.S. Lewis — but have now splayed off in all sorts of quirky ideological directions.

Something tells me young Dustin and his friends have splayed off a lot too.

Brooks does also mention some more conservative writers (than McMeghan and friends), like the 1994 Heisman trophy winner who wrote the Sam’s Club book with Ross Douthat.

To be young, gifted, and conservativePost + Comments (99)

I have nothing to say.

*** Update ***

30 Rock: “Tracy, a lot of people are calling you a fearmonger today, and, I am quoting, an ‘idiot.'”

I’m dying.

Open ThreadPost + Comments (132)

Burkean bells are going off everywhere! Sully….Ross what’s his name…Joe Klein.

They all talk about him like we’re supposed to know who he is, so I’m guessing this isn’t new. But just to be sure, I’d like to know: has it always been like this or is this like when the New Yorker suddenly decided it was time to start talking about Rem Koolhaas and the guy who wrote A Man Without Qualities?

Who was Edmund Burke anyway? I don’t have time to read his wiki entry let alone his books. Why do conservatives love him so much? Did he courageously oppose something important? Did Luna or Rush ever do any songs about his philosophy? How is he connected with Oakeshott and Hayek (I don’t know who they are either) and Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss?

Update: Kristol gets his Burke on:

In the short term, Republicans need to show a tactical agility and political toughness far greater than their predecessors did in the 1960s and the 1930s. “Else they will fall,” to quote the great conservative Edmund Burke, “an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle,” reduced to the unpleasant role of bystanders or the unattractive status of complainers, as Barack Obama makes history.

In this same post, Kristol claims:

Conservatism is more sophisticated than it was back then (in the 30s and 60s).

Could that possibly be true? Was there some 30s and 60s equivalent of an even dumber Joe the Plumber?

There were bells on the hill, but I never heard them ringingPost + Comments (177)