Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Let there be snark.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The words do not have to be perfect.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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President Obama and the Dread Hampton Tape

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Since one of this blog’s missions is to Read Those Idiots So You Don’t Have To, I figured it would be worth putting the the Drudge/Daily Caller OMG WHITEY TAPE here where you could all listen without having to get Carlson-cooties on your hard drives. Turns out it took almost two hours to download the 37-minute speech (I don’t know whether the problem was my desktop or Drudge’s website, but you have been warned) and by the time I finally scored the embed code, Cole had already done a long post about the whole less-than-a-nothingburger scenario. So, here you are, and what he said.

Frankly, the obvious reason so little note was taken back in 2007 is that there is absolutely nothing in the words to distinguish this particular speech from any other Barack Obama pre-November-2008 campaign speech. Any mainstream journalist reviewing it would probably have rated it A for Anodyne. The worst complaint I can imagine is that a dedicated Rationalist might be disappointed that Obama gives, at the very least, a convincing impression of being a proud member of the Black American Christian religious tradition. He might even be accused of considering himself a Person of Faith. As one of those PoFs myself (I’m a proud animist), I don’t consider this disqualifying. As someone who pays attention to modern American politics, I know that an out and proud atheist was not going to be running as a presidential candidate for one of the two major parties in the year 2008, or 2012, or probably 2016 either.

But I do expect at least one bold, thoughtful Libertarian to announce that, given the possibility that President Obama might not be faking his religious beliefs (or at least his belief in the social power of such community-oriented religious beliefs), they will no longer be able in good conscience to vote for him. It won’t be one of the Cornerites, of course, but there’s bound to be someone on the Reason or Cato payrolls already working on what they devoutly hope will be a front-page essay.

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Another Crushing Disappointment In The Annals Of False Advertisement

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What’s all this then?

Oh I can only hope. Exeunt the conveyance here, should you dare.

Anyway, you lie, madam.  You will never shut up about Romney.  Ever.  In what should be her last paragraph about this campaign:

Certainly time and ad money have not been used to maximize Romney’s advantages. But that’s water under the bridge. He now can do it, provided he spends his remaining time on the simple message: We can do better, we’re doing worse under Obama and here’s how we can do better. That should be the formula for every ad, stump speech, major speech and debate answer. If he does that, he most certainly can win the race.

That would involve him giving specifics.  Romney refuses to do that.  He’s been refusing to do that since the start of the campaign.  If he gave specifics, he would lose because the specifics are a massive tax burden on everyone who’s not Mitt Romney.  What about that do you not understand, Jen?

It’s really not that hard.  Sheesh.

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Open Thread: Wile E. Coyote RULZ! (the GOP)

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(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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Again, with the whiteboards? Erick “Voice of the GOP Gated Community” Erickson got fragged by his commentaridiocracy for suggesting (with one eye on his CNN gig) that just maybe possibly perhaps the vile lamestream polling organizations were not all engaged in a conspiracy to suppress Romney’s obviously-must-be-winning stats. So, today, Erick-Fractal-Erick has an awesome suggestion for the next Mitt-mobile tour:

… If Mitt Romney wants to win the election, he needs a five week strategy instead of five weeks of tactics. He needs the visual equivalent of Benjamin Netanyahu’s red sharpie marker. He must force the media to move away from poll driven coverage they are comfortable with to Mitt Romney’s idea of coverage.

Instead of us arguing over polls and having the RedState community rioting over my remarks, let me offer up a solution. Just, for the sake of argument, assume I’m right that this is a close race, but that Romney is behind — just for the sake of argument people. If we can accept we do have a problem, i.e. we are behind, we can then offer up a solution to that problem…

The cheering, adoring crowds at the Romney rallies have been awesome and large. But In the rah-rah of the campaign, we’re missing the compelling visual. We’re missing the simple drawing of the bomb that a red line can be drawn on. We’re missing the candidate in front of the factory showing we can do better….

Because inside the GOP gated community, Netanyahu’s Wile E. Coyote visual rated ‘four slam dunks!!’, I guess. To be fair (well, honest), Mr. Erickson probably doesn’t have a whole lot of personal experience in differentiating between the visual markers for “awesome” and “dumbstruck”…

Meanwhile, Doghouse Riley takes his Pig Bladder of Righteousness to some Politico intern tasked with channelling “GOP Sooper Geenyus” Karl Rove’s helpful suggestions:

“I think he’s going to say a lot of things that aren’t accurate,” Romney said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this month, adding he would have to choose between correcting Obama and delivering his own message.
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“I’d be tempted to go back to that wonderful line by Ronald Reagan, ‘There you go again,’” Romney said.

Oh, please do.

Thought experiment: How many thousands of dollars in donations to OfA do you suppose it would be worth if President Obama were to use that line in the first debate?

Because the Trickster-God knows, he’ll have plenty of opportunities.

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Sitting on the Corner, clutching a joint and a glass of booze

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Why do I do it to myself? The other night, foolish but fortified by several shots of whisky, I set out to read the Corner.

For those of you who may not have heard of it, o lucky souls ye, the Corner is the blog attached to National Review Online, which means that it is the piss-filled kiddie pool of the internet. It’s where Kathryn Jean Lopez takes her ovaries out for a dip and some sun; where you can hear multiple Pulitzer Prize nominated author Jonah Goldberg pontificating upon the jobs figures while he floats around in an inflatable ring, like some unspeakable and undercooked donut hole; and where the finest brains of the right hang out behind the changing rooms and smoke doobies and congratulate each other on their bravery in saying what needs to be said in slightly different ways and swap the occasional blowjob.

Essentially, it’s where you go if you want to know what stupid people think about politics. It’s kind of like Balloon Juice, but without the jokes and the animal pictures.

I read the Corner because it’s important to know what the stupid people are thinking. And so I can point and laugh, but that’s in the way of a bonus. I suffer this for the same reason I receive fifty seven emails every day with titles like “Morning Briefing: Enemy Collaborators” or “American Soil Has Been Attacked”, not to mention at least one email every day from either Marcus or Michele (and often both).

I read them, so you don’t have to. And then promptly ignore most of them – these people are incontinent loons, after all.

Anyway, I set out to read the Corner the other night, foolish and fortified etc., and woke up nine hours later with a mouth like a nun’s nasty, the imprint of a portable keyboard on my face and seven messages from various lawyers asking me not to drunk dial the members of the RNC again. Sadly, my notes of the evening seem to consist of the words “A strong smell of excrement prevails throughout” followed by the word “fuck” typed over and over, so that was a bit of a waste. Smashing scotch though.

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Did Ron Fournier return to the AP, because they suck. Again.

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UPDATE: This just in–Rmoney and GOP pull ads from Michigan and Pennsylvania
h/t to commenter JWB

So the AP decided to fact check President Clinton’s speech last night.  You’d swear that Ron Fournier was back at AP and taking his direction from Karl Rove, like the old days.

When Clinton brought up the Rmoney Campaign’s recent statement that they weren’t going to be “dictated by fact checkers”, to which Clinton stated “they finally said something I can agree with”, the AP report on that portion invoked Monica Lewinski.

CLINTON: “Their campaign pollster said, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Now that is true. I couldn’t have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.”

THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were “legally accurate” but also allowed that he “misled people, including even my wife.”

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Whatever They Say, Do The Opposite

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What?  You didn’t think you were going to get through the DNC without unsolicited advice for President Obama from The Centrist Concern Troll Twins in the Wall Street Journal, did you?  Oh, you silly dears.  Roll the tape, Claude!

What voters are looking for—and particularly what swing voters, independents, and disillusioned Obama voters are looking for—is a new direction for America based on fiscal discipline, a balanced budget, and economic growth and leadership.

More than anyone else in this race, Paul Ryan has spoken of the need for fiscal discipline and economic growth—two themes that have been largely absent from the Obama-Biden campaign—which explains a large part of the Ryan-inspired Romney bump.

That bump is like 0.75 points, but who cares.  Dorka Schoen and Give ‘Em Caddell need not your facts.  Centrist Daleks will Tri-ang-u-laaaaate!  And hey, Paul Ryan is a Centrist too!  You should listen to his Very Serious Centrist Positions on tesseract marathon running and the joys of children conceived through coercion and force.

For his part, President Obama needs to change direction—immediately and decisively. His campaign strategy has been to divide the country on the basis of class, demonize the wealthy, call for higher taxes and unceasingly attack Mr. Romney. Yet poll after poll has shown that while voters embrace the idea of higher taxes on the rich, it does not translate into votes.

In 2008, Mr. Obama promised to help unite America in a “post-partisan” Washington. But the 2012 campaign has been one of the most negative in memory. What he needs to do is acknowledge that he’s made mistakes and that he wants to pursue a substantive approach to governance. Put another way, he needs to bring back “hope and change” and abandon his divide-and-conquer strategy.

Should he do this before or after he announces he’s not running in November because it’s really tragically unfair of him to have broken such a historic streak of white men running the place, you know.  It’s the right thing to do.

It has been said before, but only because it’s so true: Mr. Obama should follow the lead of President Bill Clinton, who emphasized in both his terms in office the need for unity and consensus to achieve fiscal restraint. Inviting Mr. Clinton to speak at the convention Wednesday night is a sure sign that the Obama campaign understands the need to move to the center, if not in substance then in style.

Yet nothing would appeal to independents and swing voters more than if the president were to embrace the findings of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction commission and make it clear that he too has a plan to revitalize the U.S. economy, reduce the deficit, reform entitlements and spur economic growth through a fairer and leaner tax system.

So President Obama has the unique opportunity to be the adult in the room by handing control of the country over to the nice folks who aren’t all that sure about evolution because the open-minded scientist must question the theory, but they believe tax cuts magically create additional tax revenues because rich people will spring forth from the nothingness like Orks from Warhammer 40K (and reach a collective critical mass of entrepreneurs, a WAAAAGH! of small business owners who will run around franchising at everything, paint their businesses red because they’ll create jobs faster, and leave nothing but career opportunities in their wake of mass construction.  Sure).

Yeah, I’ll buy that.  President Obama should totally listen to these guys.  (Also, Centrist Daleks versus Small Business Orks.  Somebody make that happen.)

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