Getting ready for a bunch of folks to come over for dinner (sort of a Mexican night, salsa, guac, tacos, fajita’s, beans, rice), but I’d like to pose this question for you- Can you think of any other nation where a significant portion of the elite press openly advocates, to the detriment of their nation, engaging in military adventurism for a client state? And who insist that anyone who says “Hey, slow down,” is not a serious person?
Put that on a bumpersticker
“He’s saying: ‘Eat your broccoli. And then maybe you don’t get to eat at all for a few days. You don’t get steak — ever.’ ”
Official Washington likes the idea of the “small people” starving and that, more than Ryan’s baby blues and hard-working staff, is what makes him a Village heart-throb. But I don’t see this playing in Peoria.
Open Thread: Weigel Is Back
David Weigel’s started his new gig at Slate. So far, he seems a little more subdued than he was as an official WaPo blogger:
… On Monday, FreedomWorks displayed the latest version of its target list—the people its PAC would most like to defeat—the latest signs and fliers printed up for its candidates, the reading list handed out to activists (it includes Atlas Shrugged and the new manifesto by FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey and Kibbe, Give Me Liberty), and advice for contacting the media. (“Always try to do personal emails or be sure to use the BCC field. Never advertise which other media outlets you are trying to score a hit with.”)
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This event was scheduled weeks ago. Unfortunately, meet-and-greet coincided with Ken Vogel’s latest Politico write-up of those “growing pains” that Kibbe wanted to downplay. The story points out that FreedomWorks raised only 5 percent more in 2009 than it raised in 2008, peaking at $7.9 million.
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So Brandon changed tack slightly: The article just showed that FreedomWorks is a low-budget, grass-roots, non-Astroturf operation. “We’re one of the smallest PACs in the game,” said Brandon. “We’re going to spend, at most $10 million. We don’t know those Karl Rove donors.” He leaned down and tapped a stack of Rand Paul fliers that were bound for FreedomWorks members in Kentucky. “These cost less than one cent per flier. Fractions of a cent.” —
… but the article is titled “Tea Party Boot Camp: The Tea Party movement teaches itself how to elect Republicans“, so he’s still more honest than one might expect from the venue.
Open Thread: If You Can’t Buy Friendship, How Much Can It Be Worth?
Yeah, a better progressive would just ignore the whole ginned-up nontroversy, but here’s some ammunition to use against MoDo your Drudge-besotted email-forwarding relatives concerning Michelle Obama’s trip to Spain:
Mrs. Obama met two friends in Spain, who flew there on their own. The three women were joined by a total of four daughters. (Some news outlets reported Mrs. Obama was on vacation with 40 friends; that was not true.)
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One of the women is a longtime Obama friend, Anita Blanchard, an obstetrician who delivered Sasha and big sister Malia, 12. Her husband is Marty Nesbitt, a close Obama friend and treasurer of Obama’s presidential campaign fund.
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A White House source told me the Mrs. Obama was not able to attend the funeral for Blanchard’s father at the beginning of July. Blanchard, who was taking her daughter on a promised trip to Spain, asked the first lady and Sasha to come to Spain with her. (Malia is at overnight camp.) “She felt it was important as a dear friend to do this,” I was told.
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Mrs. Obama and her friends paid for their hotel rooms and other personal expenses. All first ladies, however, get 24-hour security and transportation on military aircraft. When Mrs. Obama flies on personal business, she pays what amounts to a first-class fare, but taxpayers pick up most of the overhead costs for the plane and security.
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The story has taken on a life of its own; on Monday morning, news shows and blogs were still debating the merits of the trip and Matt Drudge was featuring stories about it at the top of his page. Politics is about perception. For the record: Mrs. Obama did not attend a charity ball in Marbella hosted by Antonio Banderas and Eva Longoria on Saturday night.
This is good news for Megan McArdle, also, since it proves empirical data showing that having “friends” can improve a rational actor’s chances of scoring a sweet trip to Spain, albeit with the trade-off of having to fake non-rational concepts like “sympathy”, or at least listen to a lot of words that don’t directly involve high-value consumer purchases or even the supreme importance of individual autonomy. But still, Marbella!
Consider this an open thread, okay?
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Open Thread: If You Can’t Buy Friendship, How Much Can It Be Worth?Post + Comments (77)
Where Does Maureen Dowd Vacation
Spent the better part of the morning putting my house together, weeding the garden, and picking tomatoes, so I can’t tell you how delighted I am to turn my computer on and see that once again, the hot topic among our pundit classes is where the President and his wife vacations.
I find all of this exceedingly depressing. It was stupid when we counted the Bush days off, it is stupid when we wonder where Obama is, and it takes things to a new level of stupid when we worry about where the First Lady is spending her free time. It’s just a special degree of pettiness from the village harlots.
The idea that these guys are doing nothing but vacationing is idiotic. They are never truly on vacation, and there is a reason they all come into office looking like McCaulay Culkin and leave office just a few years later looking like Keith Richards. Just make it stop.
A Disgrace to Her Gender
Shorter Maureen Dowd: My status as a childless, never-married woman in the Ladies Sodality DC Media Village makes me the perfect expert to criticize Michelle Obama’s marital and child-raising talents. But I’m using the classic “feminine” passive-aggressive trick of lovingly retailing every nasty rightwing slur ironically, because I am just that hip, so it proves that I am not only up-to-the-minute on all the kewl gossip but also more sophisticated than both those trash-talking luzers and you deluded Obots.
And I would have ignored this as just another “Maureen Dowd, straight from junior-high Mean Girl to dried-up old spinster without ever passing through adulthood” column, but the shallow twit drags Mary McGrory’s good name into it, something she’d never have dared do when McGrory was still around.
Mary McGrory would kick Dowd’s arse, and not just metaphorically, for phoning in this kind of third-rate repackaging of cheap right-wing tropes.
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Fineman Rooks Old Man
Howard Fineman has been promoting his role in the sale of Newsweek for $1 (and $70 million in debt) to 91-year-old Sidney Harman (the Harman in Harman-Kardon):
Fineman said he’s known Harman and his wife, Congressman Jane Harman, for many years. Their children all went to Sidwell Friends, the same elite school the Obama daughters now attend. Fineman said he doesn’t know Harman’s exact plans but described him as a “a deep guy” with varied interests in the arts and philanthropy.
Harman had better have a very deep interest in philanthropy, because he’s going to be pouring money into this sure loser for years to come. I wonder if Harman’s kids will still be friendly with the Fineman kids after they find out that Fineman Senior helped drain millions from their inheritance.