Say whuh?

posted by Armadillo Joe

More hopey, changey-ness --

Obama Appoints Loyal Bushie Dana Perino To Broadcasting Board Of Governors

...and so it goes...

Douche Quote of the Day, Part 4

posted by Armadillo Joe

"I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor"
- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary

(sigh)

Why concede any ground at all when the wingnuts were well and truly about to implode into a fine red mist of degenerate racism and reprobate misogyny?

Why?

Washington D.C. is hard-wired for Republican Rule. As Atrios pointed out today, no matter how bad things may be for Republicans at any given moment (and they look pretty bad right now), the GOP will always enjoy a home field advantage in Washington. That's why we bloggers invented the term "Villagers" to describe all those Kewl Kidz who golf-clap their approval whenever some politician displays strength by punching a dirty fucking hippie in the face. Their incomes and class and economic upbringing and social status all make them part of a non-partisan ruling elite who nevertheless distrust an "Other" which usually resides in the Democratic Party. This reflexive distrust of the less monied, the less plugged-in, the less connected, the less powerful, the less glamorous -- frankly, hatred for the riff-raff -- gives them a natural affinity for the policies, procedures, arguments and methods of the Rethugli-goons, whose raison d'tre is to advocate for The Villagers -- not as "Villagers" per se, but simply as the rich, entitled, powerful people who expect special treatment that they are.

I mean, hell, Cheney's speech last week was presented by our MSM opposite Obama's like anything a potentially-indicted private citizen has to say about anything even remotely merits 1/10th the attention as an important speech by the sitting president. And Cheney reinforced that whole misguided notion by growling his way through a pro-torture "answer" to Obama national security speech, strutting and preening like the titular head of a government in exile, which to much of The Village he is.

So, now, the official stance of the White House is that some of the things Sotomayor said casually in a public forum almost ten years ago are out-of-bounds and, like that poorly-trained friend's dog we all know who will take the slightest breath of a hint of attention from a house-guest to jump and slobber and bark, a perpetually-in-search-of-conflict media pounces on the hairline fracture to split it wide-open. Shuster and Fineman nattered away on Hardball today like two old biddies in a sewing circle about the young hussy who just moved in down the street.

As digby said about it today:

Republicans were acting like crazed freaks, alienating Hispanics by the thousands and making women hate them even more, and the whole country was aghast. Why they gave them validation on this, I don't really understand.

[...]

this controversy will make it necessary for Sotomayor to bow and scrape before Jeff Sessions and Orrin Hatch. The wingnuts have been hoping for a chance for some payback for Thomas and maybe they'll get a pound of female flesh this time.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

...what he said...

posted by Armadillo Joe

As per usual, Atrios finds a way to say something far more succinctly than I ever could.

Regarding this whole "What-did-Nancy-know-and-when-did-she-know-it" non-scandal scandal, Atrios, in a post titled "Monsters," sez:

We should always remember the morality of Elite Villagers, those who supported the pointless war in Iraq and who mostly are now decidedly not horrified at the fact that the administration tortured the shit out of people in order to justify the atrocity that was the Iraq war. The Villagers loved their little war. It made them feel heroic. They wanted justification for it, too.

Amen, brother.

I don't remember which famous blogger said it first, but Washington D.C. is truly hard-wired for Republican rule. Which makes a certain amount of sense, actually. Money and power accruing in the capital city of the richest, most powerful nation the planet has ever known and perverting its policies and corrupting its priorities with regards to the well-being of that nation's entire population -- not just the wealthy ones -- is intuitively correct.

And, naturally, that money and power will trump whichever regional or religious or ethnic or socio-economic affinities may have driven the voters of any given district to elevate whichever huckster to national office. And it stands to reason that those elected hucksters will attract a great many hangers-on -- whether lobbyists or journalists or assorted wannabe "insiders" and unprincipled deal-makers -- who will all desire reflected glory or power or status and the money and priviledge those things can bestow. Whether pre-Revolutionary Russia or Imperial Rome or Versailles circa 1789, the whole thing eventually devolves into an insulated, closed loop of self-referential circle-jerking on route to unquestioned IMPORTANCE, because running the world is hard work and the rest of us should be more appreciative.

Those people are too IMPORTANT to really care about the little people who, you know, have to live with the policies they enact and lobby for and report about because, to them, being in Washington D.C. is not just a job but a lifestyle and everyone else around them is in that clique, too.

Whether making widgets in a factory or enabling and endorsing a torture-regime, a job's a job and we've all got to eat and pay rent, right?

Drudge rules their world.