Studies have shown that Dems/Libs have pretty much been even on their views for the last decades -- in some cases even moving more conservative. Based on policies, votes, etc, we really haven't moved further left or gone extreme.
On the other hand, the GOP/Cons have gone drastically farther right in that time frame.
So, when Dems are consistently representing their views, we appear as extreme as the right just because the debate itself has become so divided. So, when we say that it's hard to find middle ground, or that both parties yadda yadda, it's not always true. In most cases, the left is stating what they've always stated. The right has moved so far away that they changed where the middle is. In some ways it's created a framing problem that implies the left hasn't been cooperative, either.
But we have been and going anymore toward the middle would be us going off the consistent path we've been on.
I will always admit there are times when Dems (whom I know personally and whom I see on the teevee) do or say things that make me cringe and think tit-for-tat or hypocrisy is as unbecoming of us as it is of the right. I refuse to pretend we never do stupid shit that blows our credibility. To ignore when we do stupid shit makes us lose even more credibility.
But overall, the level of extreme stupidity and hypocrisy and dangerous rhetoric and stunting of progress falls wholly on the right.
So my frustration always rests on the passive or the folks who just don't like all the conflict. They pretend it's as much the left's fault as it is the right's. And it's not about sharing blame or properly placing blame or running to mommy and saying, "but they did it, too". What it's about is acceptance of reality. We can't get anywhere if even the sideliners don't accept that the left isn't being extreme. We are being consistent. The left isn't being difficult. We are being fair. The left isn't being combative. We are defending what we have always defended. The right has changed the rules even on those within their own party. The right has forged a new path that changes where the middle is. Just because Dems aren't moving to the new middle does NOT mean we're extreme. We're right where we've been for a long time. People need to stop pretending we are playing a role in divisiveness simply so they can play a responsible role in society.
I never cease to be amazed at the unadulterated spin from conservative pundits and columnists who look for any opportunity to blame President Obama for pretty much anything. It's almost as if they think they're speaking to or writing for a Fox News audience with no worry about being called to account for the obvious disingenuousness they spew. Markets down? Obama's fault. Greece in financial disarray? ...Damn that Obama. Scrapping the balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year due to high winds? ...OBAMAAAAAA!
The latest example of this comes from Washington Post opinion columnist Michael Gerson. Mr. Gerson has absolutely no problem blaming the failed Supercommittee debacle on the President. Titled "Obama Let the Supercommittee Fail," Gerson blames indifference on the part of the President for a group of twelve grown adults (yes, I'll include the Republicans on the committee as "grown-up") not coming to an agreement with a looming $1.2 trillion in cuts across the board. But amazingly, Gerson believes, or would have his readers believe, that the "supercommittee failed primarily because President Obama gave a shrug."
So what if Republicans wouldn't budge on actual revenue increases in a balanced combination with spending cuts? So what if their ultimate $300 billion tax increase offer was connected to a basic repeal of the Affordable Care Act which took over a year to pass and a privatization of Medicare? The real problem was that "these were the ingredients for a deal. But only a president can mix them and apply the heat." Yep, Obama is the cook that stirs the pot and self-motivation for 12 of an elite 100 members of our political system is of no consequence. ...Damn Obama!
The disconnect is the fact that Gerson knows that Republicans would have never agreed to anything, as witnessed by the moving of the goalposts farther and farther to the right. Ezra Klein analyzes:
If by "at fault" we mean "unwilling to compromise," we can do better than listen to the self-serving remarks of the players. We can look hard at the movement in the actual plans...
The final Boehner [/Obama] plan envisioned tax reform that would generate $800 billion in new revenues and bring the top rate down to 35 percent. In the supercommittee, the highest Republicans ever got on taxes was the Toomey plan's $300 billion, with envisioned a top rate of 28 percent. So on taxes, it's fairly clear: The supercommittee Republicans were far to the right of Boehner.
On the Democratic side, Obama eventually insisted on somewhere near $1.2 trillion in tax reform or, if the revenues were to move lower, on much less in entitlement cuts. In the supercommittee, the Democrats offered a plan with less than a trillion dollars in tax reform -- and more entitlement reforms than Obama was willing to agree to.
Boehner had about $150 billion in Medicare beneficiary cuts in his opening bid in the negotiations with the president, and he went down from there. In the supercommittee, Baucus offered $200 billion in Medicare beneficiary cuts...
These steps toward compromise by the Democrats, who swallowed hard in a serious effort to get something done, were far more than anything Republicans offered. Does it surprise anyone that Republicans would take a step further to the right in an effort to sink any deal and let the usual Republican "Obama can't get anything done" talking points continue? This has been their strategy from the start. And Gerson knows this. But why point the blame at a deadlocked "supercommittee" when you can just blame the President?
I won't bore you with anymore detail in Gerson's column (you can read it for yourself to get the full frontal asshattery) except for one line. Gerson asserts that the President "is simply in over his head." This was the same accusation hurled at President Obama on the supposed failed stimulus to stop our economy from hurdling over a cliff. Sorry for the bad timing, Mike, but maybe you should read the latest CBO report:
The economy would have been in much worse shape without the 2009 stimulus — which increased employment in the third quarter of this year by as many as 3.3 million full-time jobs, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office...
...The CBO figures released Tuesday estimate that the stimulus package raised the gross domestic product this past quarter by 0.3 percent-1.9 percent.
Yep, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enacted by this "in over his head" President is still stimulating the economy a year after its "end." We now know the recession we found ourselves in was much deeper and dire than anyone had estimated and had the stimulus been even larger, we might be in even better shape today. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a good villain story, right Mr. Gerson?
A most serious problem in the United States, in my view, is that there is a subset of Americans who believe that government is illegitimate if their chosen leaders aren't elected. They simply don't believe in democracy. Voting is a ritual for them, something one does, like going to church. But it's expected that their preferred leaders will always win and their preferred agenda is the only one that will be enacted. (In one of the greatest ironies ever, they are undoubtedly the same people who stuck with George W. Bush to the bitter end --- the most illegitimate president ever.) They get very, very agitated and angry whenever they are not "in charge."
I watched it happen in the 90s in the unrelenting attacks and hearings on both of the Clintons. Obviously, Bush v Gore was successful in unseating the real President-elect. Candidate Reagan possibly negotiated with Iranians to undermine and unseat President Carter. We saw this obsession to unseat an elected president rise up almost immediately after President Obama was elected. The right wingers believe that they are "the people" in “We the People,” and Americans who disagree with them are either unworthy or irrelevant --- or they don't actually exist. And I’m not even discussing the hijacking of SCOTUS in this piece, which is also undermining our democracy.
While I do believe that racism motivates some of these right wingers, that is not the only impetus. The birth certificate issue, the communist grandparents, questioning of academic credentials, etc. are all methods used to delegitimize the President. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between the racism and the typically perverse right wing trickery. And it really doesn’t matter, does it? The goal is always the same—delegitimize a democratically elected President if he is a Democrat.
The latest attempt to undermine Obama’s legitimacy is to disenfranchise and suppress voters who would most likely vote for him. States that have passed new “Jim Crow” voterqualificationlaws are targeting minorities, students, and the poor. One way or another the right wing will bring down this duly elected President.
A companion piece to the voter registration laws is the conservative Christian pledge signed by many conservatives, including Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. The pledge claims that slaves were actually better off than today’s African-Americans are under the leadership of Obama. Clearly, Americans have always been in denial about the atrocities of slavery, which Toni Morrison calls the “American holocaust,” but this pledge is beyond comprehension.
What is so insidious about this latest egregious attempt to divide President Obama from a segment of his base is the assumption African-Americans are so ignorant, illiterate, and apathetic that they would not know their own history. (As an aside, there are those on the Left making the same attempt to turn the African-American vote away from the President.) The idea behind the pledge is so evil in its absurdity, assumptions, and arrogance that it just leaves me breathless.
The Republicans remind me of one of those huge rollers used to level asphalt. They are rolling over us. We cannot and must not let President Obama fight this battle alone. The motto is “Yes We Can,” not “Yes I Can.” We must fight at the local, state, and national levels to stop this insidious assault on our democracy while we still have a shred of it left.
Limbaugh was dumbfounded - he stuttered, he stammered, he froze - and the only thing he could come up with was to question the "silly notion" that Reagan raised taxes, the most obvious and provable of the caller's accusations.
Well, I suppose to keep one's ample ass in comfort, one has to keep pulling the wool over the rubes' eyes.
... include no mention of the DADT repeal, START Treaty ratification or the 9/11 responders bill approval. But as Will Bunch notes, Matt Drudge rules our world, yet none of these items are newsworthy enough to warrant a link on the Drudge Report?
A friend of mine wrote a letter to the editor of New Mexico's Carlsbad Current-Argus about the hijacking of the Republican Party by the extreme right and asked if I would include it on the blog. I don't know if or when it may be published, so here it is.
Does Anyone Know How to Write, “God Bless You” in Chinese?
The President of the US Chamber of Commerce,Tom Donohue, recently extolled the virtues of outsourcing American jobs, while accepting donations from foreign corporations, including ones from state controlled companies in Russia, India, and Abu Dhabi. The Chamber blames Democrats for job loss while promoting outsourcing those same jobs. It should be clear that these foreign corporations donate to the Chamber because they want more American jobs. The US Chamber of Commerce recently pledged $75 million to attack Democratic candidates across the country.
Alas, the Republican Party is no longer the GOP. Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley must be rolling over in their graves. The party has been hijacked by their ignorant conservative wing and moderate Republicans have been largely silent. Even the Arizona Maverick seems to now be one of them. The Tea Baggers seem to be calling the shots. This wing constantly carries on a smear campaign against the Democrats in general and the President in particular that is ill mannered, full of lies and downright unpatriotic. This wing slanders our elected President, promotes armedrebellion and invents nonissues to energize their base. It is now so crazy in the Republican Party that Karl Rove, a frequent Republican spokesperson on FOX News and often called “Bush’s Brain,” has endorsed a candidate that believes scientists have developed human brains in mice.
It is amazing that anyone would trust this hijacked party with resolving this recession. Republicans/Tea Baggers don’t know anymore about the economy than they do about manners or patriotism. Republicans tell us that we must eliminate the deficit. They then tell us that we must pass all of the Bush Tax Cuts, which they know and admit, would add trillions to the deficit. Republicans tell us that regulations are killing recovery when lack of regulation and oversight caused this recession. They rail against stimulus spending then beg for that money to be spent in their district. I am reminded of a Will Rogers quote:” If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
So Americans, continue to buy those Toyotas and vote Republican and all of our jobs will soon be gone. We can all stand on the corner and beg. Does anyone know how to write, “God Bless You” in Chinese?
I'm constantly hearing the talking heads on the cable shows (except Fox News, my cable box is allergic to that channel) repeating the meme that there's White House messaging problem. "Why do a significant portion of the population think President Obama raised taxes instead of the fact that he gave 95% of Americans a tax cut?" they ask. "What is the messaging problem with the White House?"
Well, when you are on the fence or don't really pay attention until a month before elections, you're going to get a thirty second blurb on your local news and now know the details on the issues. And the loudest noise makers get the coverage. Even if there are 3 million self-described Tea Partiers out there, that's one percent of the population. One percent.
But ultimately, when you are just flat out anti-Obama and decide to listen only to those who you agree with instead of looking for objective sources of information, why would you think any differently? When all you watch is Fox News Channel, when all you listen to is Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, when all you read is William Kristol and David Brooks and Jonah Goldberg, why would you assume they were lying to you, especially when they're saying what you subconsciously want to hear?
The problem isn't with the message, it's with the messengers.
Rush Limbaugh said Monday that President Obama has "switched from Messiah to demon."
The radio host said the president looked "demonic" in photos that were taken over the weekend and that appeared on the Drudge Report Monday.
"These pictures, they look demonic," Limbaugh said of the Obama photos. "And I don't say this lightly. There are a couple pictures, and the eyes, I'm not saying anything here, but just look. It is strange that these pictures would be released....It's very, very, very strange. An American president has never had facial expressions like this. At least we've never seen photos of an American president with facial expressions like this."
"I mean, I feel like I'm watching The Omen: 666 and all that," he would say later. "This is weird, weird, weird stuff."
Is it any wonder that polls show some people think Obama is the Antichrist? But it's a White House message problem, right? I'll be looking for Robert Gibbs to release a statement claiming President Obama is not Beelzebub, the Antichrist or Satan, you know, just to clear up the White House messaging.
"In light of the feedback we've received on the Katy Perry music video which was released on You Tube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers. Katy Perry fans will still be able to view the video on You Tube."
Seriously? Are parents projecting their sexual angst on this video? This costume is tame in comparison to what Katy Perry usually wears, and shame on the parents who can't get over their own sexual misgivings that they would complain with comments like, "You can practically see her t*ts. That's some wonderful children's programming" and "my kid wants milk now." Ridiculous.
When I was three or four years old, I don't think I was preoccupied with hot chicks and their boobs. That didn't happen until I was at least eight.
to put to death, esp. by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
It would seem that The American Spectator's Jeffrey Lord should invest in a dictionary. In a stupendously moronic editorial, Lord accuses Shirley Sherrod of lying about a relative, Bobby Hall, being lynched in the 40's because he wasn't specifically hanged. He was arrested, taken to the courthouse and as he was taken out of the car still in handcuffs...
"...three petitioners began beating him with their fists and with a solid-bar blackjack about eight inches long and weighing two pounds...
...after Hall, still handcuffed, had been knocked to the ground, they continued to beat him from fifteen to thirty minutes until he was unconscious. Hall was then dragged feet first through the courthouse yard into the jail and thrown upon the floor, dying. An ambulance was called, and Hall was removed to a hospital, where he died within the hour and without regaining consciousness."
Since there was no noose, no tree and no hanging, according to Jeffrey Lord, this was not a lynching.
Is this what passes for intelligent editorials at The American Spectator? For Mr. Lord to believe the word "lynching" is not limited specifically to "hanging from a tree" without even looking it up, and therefore accuse Shirley Sherrod of lying because of it, is the very reason conservatives are painted in broad brush strokes as unfeeling, uncaring, racist boobs.
Really, Mr. Lord? Arguing semantics on the definition of "lynching"? I'm expecting a retraction or better yet, another article formally apologizing for your idiocy, but I won't hold my breath.
Asked what her advice would be to conservatives as the November elections approach, Palin first lavished praise on the Tea Party movement, calling it "a grand movement" and adding, "I love it because it’s all about the people."
But she quickly pivoted to the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement might successfully field its own candidates in national elections, and on that point she sounded far from convinced.
"Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party," Palin said. "Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you? And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D’."
Shorter Palin: Thanks for the hundred grand, suckers. Now vote Republican because you aren't a real party. And even though every time the so called "smaller government, fiscal conservative" Republican Party has NEVER, EVER come through with smaller government and fiscal conservatism whenever we were in power, we think you're so fucking stupid, you'll fall for the bullshit again, you betcha!
This isn't your average teenage pin-up calendar -- not when the women photographed carry titles like congresswoman and columnist.
On Friday, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute plans to release its fifth annual Great American Conservative Woman calendar. Demand is already so high for the 2010 run that the institute expects it to sell out, and may order a second printing, according to de facto calendar spokeswoman Alyssa Cordova, the lecture director for the institute.
To hell with you Brooklyn Decker, why do I need you when I can have Michelle Malkin's mug on my wall? So long, Bar Refaeli, I'm making ample room for Ann Coulter's Adam's Apple. Oh, Bay Buchanan... how my loins ache for you. And Carrie Prejean, don't speak. Just look pretty. No, really. DON'T SPEAK.
... have no idea as to what they are protesting against.
Here is a two minute interview with a middle aged woman, the same woman who screamed "Heil Hitler!" at an Israeli man while he was extolling the virtues of Israel's national health care system. Irony of ironies, she's wearing an "Israel Defense League" t-shirt and yelled "Heil Hitler" at an Israeli Jew.
In two minutes she personified what is wrong with these town hall windbags that haven't a clue why they're against health care reform.
1 - She doesn't want to identify herself with any group except to say that she's a lifelong Republican conservative who "believes in Biblical vows." Good job not trying to box yourself in, lady.
2 - She knows reform is needed because of escalating costs but doesn't want a government take over, as if that were the case. Will she refuse Medicare when she or her husband reaches that age?
3 - She thinks reform will "support illegal aliens." It does not.
4 - Her husband works "two and a half" jobs and HAS NO INSURANCE.
5 - She hopes Obama is voted out of office because he has the audacity to try and provide health care for Americans who can't afford it.
Barney Frank is right. There is no reasoning with these people.
I've never experienced shell shock, but besides the pain, I can only imagine it's something like what Steven Spielberg depicted in Saving Private Ryan*. If I remember correctly, this happens twice to Tom Hanks during the movie; once towards the beginning of the movie during the beach invasion and once towards the end. An explosion takes place nearby, the shock wave causing temporary deafness, disorientation and confusion.
Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski felt that shell shock today when Chuck Todd tossed a fact grenade into the MSNBC Morning Joe set. Bringing up the Supreme Court reversal on the Ricci case and how it would play with the Sotomayor nomination, Todd stated the obvious which had been pretty much ignored by the mainstream media: the fact that the conservative judges on the bench overturned the decision which had been based on legal precedent and created a new rule to overturn the decision. Some would call that "judicial activism" or "legislating from the bench." The very thing conservatives were accusing Sotomayor of doing when she ruled on legal precedent. Funny, that.
Watch the carnage as Joe's & Mika's heads explode with the realization that the "activist" judges we actually face are the conservative ones on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Boom! goes the dynamite! The stunned silence from Joe and Mika after Todd makes his point is priceless. Mika even calls Todd "adorable" - who the fuck knows what that's supposed to mean. And Joe Scarborough, caught with his pants down, proclaims that he'll just let it go because he didn't know if it would take him half hour or an hour to debate Todd's analysis. Hint: If it takes you 30 to 60 minutes to rebut someone's statement, you're probably wrong and just making shit up. Nice try, Joe.
The post traumatic stress disorder from Todd's fact grenade is probably going to reveal itself in a disjointed rant or two in tomorrow's telecast from the gang at Morning Joke™.
This validates what I've been saying for ages. The way much of our national media report on Rush Limbaugh, you'd think he speaks for a significant proportion of Americans. Then you see a poll like this one from CBS News, and it turns out that the number who have really drunk the Limbaugh kool-aid --the true dead-enders--is not so huge.
We can take our country back from these people. I really believe that. There just are not as many of them as you might think.
"We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. Liberty, Freedom. And the pursuit of happiness." —Rush Limbaugh in his address to CPAC
Psst... Rush, that's the Declaration of Independence... which you also got wrong.
There's been plenty of talk for the last few days about President Obama and Rush Limbaugh. First it was Limbaugh's idiotic diatribe hoping that Obama fails and rejecting the notion that other less extreme Republicans are defending Obama and hoping for his success because he's a black man and it's the politically correct/affirmative action thing to do. I suppose it had nothing to do with the fact that the nation is currently in the toilet.
Then it was President Obama meeting with Congressional Republicans and suggesting that they shouldn't listen to Limbaugh if they want to get anything done. Rush Limbaugh enjoyed the attention and the talking head pundits were wondering why Obama would give Limbaugh such credence.
But it would seem that there is yet another possible scenario in play. Obama is baiting Rush, not the other way around. And so far it looks like GOP mouthpieces are heeding Obama's advice and possibly marginalizing Limbaugh in the process.
I never thought I'd agree with Phil Gingrey (YEAH, I KNOW!) but here's his comment:
"I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach," Gingrey said. "I mean, it's easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don't have to try to do what's best for your people and your party. You know you're just on these talk shows and you're living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn't be or wouldn't be good leaders, they're not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."
Media critic Michael Wolff thinks Obama got under Limbaugh's skin by having a dinner with conservative journalists and pundits and conspicuouslyexcluding poor, misunderstood Rush.
So is Obama playing Limbaugh like a big, fat fiddle? I don't know if there's any validity to the theory, but Obama is a shrewd character, and every time he was doubted during the campaign, he kept proving the doubters wrong. I'm wondering what the next step will be in the Rush Wars. It's silly, but kind of exciting instead of listening to the continual zombie drone of "more tax cuts."
William Kristol issued his final column for the New York Times today and the collective sigh of relief could be heard across progressive America wherever you stood. However, Kristol, who was most known for being wrong pretty much every time he opened his mouth or put pen to paper, did his best to outdo himself. I suppose he figured since he was going down in flames, he may as well just vomit out any outrageous thing that came to mind.
This one paragraph alone had me in stitches:
Since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.
Tell me you don't have tears rolling down your cheeks after reading that! He does admit that there have been "some regrets." Really, Bill? Do tell! He doesn't, but qualifies conservative ascendancy was due to the timing of liberalism's weakness in the 60s and 70s.
The main point of his column is the question of whether Obama "can save liberalism." The only reason I know that is because that's the title of his column. There's really nothing in the column to suggest the trouble with liberalism and how it needs saving, despite the fact that the GOP has been trounced in the last two elections. But judging by his track record, the last thing I'd want is any advice from Kristol about anything, especially how to save liberalism.
My other favorite line in this article from the man who was wrong on Iraq every step of the way, goes on to say how Obama's inaugural speech was "unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative." Did you expect it to be anti-American? And implicitly conservative? It all depends on how Kristol is defining "conservative," doesn't it? If he's going by the last eight years, then phrases like "we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord" and "We'll restore science to its rightful place"* and "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" are a direct repudiation of Kristol's previous "implicitly conservative" administration.
Kristol also seems to have trouble with Obama's only quote not being attributed to Thomas Paine, as if Paine is some kind of pariah and Obama didn't want people to know that it was a quote from "The Crisis."
For some reason, Obama didn’t identify the author of “these timeless words” — the only words quoted in the entire speech. He’s Thomas Paine, and the passage comes from the first in his series of Revolutionary War tracts, “The Crisis.” Obama chose to cloak his quotation from the sometimes intemperate Paine in the authority of the respectable George Washington.
Please, Bill, continue. Are you on to something? Why does Obama do this, Bill? What is your analysis? Of course, Kristol doesn't say. He just let's it hang out there. But that's always been Kristol'smodusoperandi. Throw something out there that sounds unbecoming, almost insulting, but for no apparent reason except to cast doubt on the subject and perhaps for plausible deniability when he's called on it. Ooh! Paine was "intemperate," calling for revolution against the evil British, and since Obama chose Paine's words, we'll have to keep a keen eye on how he governs. Sometimes I think Kristol literally takes a crap on a sheet of 8½" x 11" paper and turns it in as his op-ed piece.
Today I have a spring in my step, a song in my heart and a smile on my face because this is what I read at the end of Kristol's New York Times op-ed page: "This is William Kristol’s last column." And there was much rejoicing... Hooray!
* On a side note, who thought that they'd ever hear the words, "we'll restore science to its rightful place" coming from the mouth of a US President in 21st century America?
LIMBAUGH: I got a request here from a major American print publication. "Dear Rush: For the Obama [Immaculate] Inauguration we are asking a handful of very prominent politicians, statesmen, scholars, businessmen, commentators, and economists to write 400 words on their hope for the Obama presidency. We would love to include you. If you could send us 400 words on your hope for the Obama presidency, we need it by Monday night, that would be ideal." Now, we're caught in this trap again. The premise is, what is your "hope." My hope, and please understand me when I say this. I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, "Well, I hope he succeeds. We've got to give him a chance." Why? They didn't give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I'm not talking about search-and-destroy, but I've been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don't want them to succeed.
... So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."
Thanks to the last eight years of the Bush Deregulation Machine, the United States is on the brink of economic catastrophe, we're in the midst record home foreclosures, we are teetering on double digit unemployment, our banking and auto industries are falling apart and even before Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office from an incompetent, Bush appointed Chief Justice who lacked the intelligence to understand the gravity of an historical Inauguration and thought he could wing it, the biggest gasbag of all conservative talk show wingnuts hopes that Obama will fail. In essence, he is hoping for the country to fail just so he can say "I told you so."
He proved as much when he called for riots in the streets during the Democratic National Convention in Denver that he dubbed Operation Chaos. He wanted riots in the streets akin to the Chicago riots of 1968 just to cause havoc in the Democratic choice for nominee in hopes that it would give McCain momentum to win the White House and further erode our Constitutional liberties and complete the destruction of the country that George W. Bush began.
It shows Limbaugh's complete disregard for public safety not to mention the safety of law enforcement officials. He really couldn't care less. As long as he's tucked away in the safety of his studio, squeezed into his desk chair, smoking a cigar and downing a few Oxycontin, making fun of the ill and spewing garbage to the misinformed simpletons who listen to his absurdity, life is good in Limbaugh World. Nero can fiddle and down some pain killers while Rome burns.
So I think I'll pull a page out of the Ann Coulter playbook* and call Rush Limbaugh a traitor. From now on, he'll be known on this blog as "Traitor Rush Limbaugh."
Using their way of thinking, I know it's a braincramper but stay with me for a moment, disagreeing with Bush or his policies or anything the neocons would vomit out for the last eight years was tantamount to treason in Coulter's little pea brain. It wasn't dissent. It wasn't protest. It wasn't civil disobedience. It was treason. So using that as a gauge, when Limbaugh hopes President Obama (and get used to saying "President Obama," Rush) fails in his attempt to advert the brick wall that the Bush administration has driven this country towards, that equates treason. By Coulter's own, ridiculous standard that she chooses to apply, Rush Limbaugh is a traitorous, dangerous, shall we say "enemy combatant"?
Douchebag of the Week: Traitor Rush Limbaugh
* - No, not the playbook where she tells us the secret of fellating five GOP politicians at once.
This week saw the debut of a 9½ minute video tease of wingnut John Ziegler's "documentary" on Sarah Palin called Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected. Normally, I wouldn't spend much time on something like this because as hisinterviewsdisplay, Ziegler is a fucking nutjob who can't answer questions without sneering, guffawing and having an accusatory paranoid tone, answering questions with questions and comparisons of who he considers adversaries, while calling his interviewers "jokes" and telling them to go fuck themselves.
Although his documentary has yet to be released, I'm venturing to guess that this is Ziegler's attempt to be Sarah Palin'sLeni Riefenstahl. In all fairness I am including the full YouTube video released by Ziegler and even though it may be hard to sit through, you really should watch to get the whole gist.
According to Ziegler, he interviewed Palin for approximately 50 minutes, which means about 20% of it is in his YouTube release. It's no surprise that Ziegler is trying to show Palin in the best possible light, and inferring that all of her faux pas were a misinterpretation by the evil liberal media and that she is always taken out of context. He even calls it "character assassination." And yet what I find so fascinating is that even though this was probably the best person to interview Palin, the statement from the Palin camp after the YouTube release was the following:
Governor Palin Says to Media, "There You Go Again" January 8, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today expressed dismay at continuing efforts in the media to take her comments out of context to create adversarial situations. Ironically, the latest media eruption concerning the governor came out of an interview she gave to a filmmaker who is creating a documentary on distortions by the national press. Gov. Palin gave the interview Monday as one of many voices contributing to the film "Media Malpractice...How Obama Got Elected," concerning the performance of the media last fall. The filmmaker posted excerpts from the interview on YouTube.com, which then led to misleading reports in the press. Particularly troubling was a post on Politico.com titled, "Palin: Media Goes Easy on Kennedy." The headline inflames the governor's quote in the transcript, in which she answered a question about media treatment of the prospect that Caroline Kennedy would be appointed to the U.S. Senate: "It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be." “I was not commenting at all on Caroline Kennedy as a prospective U.S. senator, but rather on the seemingly arbitrary ways in which news organizations determine the level and kind of scrutiny given to those who aspire to public office,” Gov. Palin said today. “In fact, I consider Ms. Kennedy qualified and experienced, and she could serve New York well.” ...
The Governor claims media bias in her Caroline Kennedy answer (5:50 mark) but if she wants to accuse someone of spinning, it was her own documentarian that put her answer into context with the question, "Did media 'class bias' cause a Sarah Palin/Caroline Kennedy double standard?" No one put these words in her mouth: "I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also..." which infers that the evil liberal media will go/has gone easy on Kennedy as opposed to how they treated Palin.
She doesn't mention the fact that being next in line for the Presidency as the running mate of a 72 year old cancer survivor is perhaps a little different and maybe deserves more scrutiny than being appointed one of one hundred Senators, or that perhaps there was more interest in finding out who Sarah Palin was than Caroline Kennedy since it is Kennedy who's been in the public eye her entire life. But I guess that's that "context" thing. Maybe the context we're all missing will be in Ziegler's unreleased footage which he rabidly uses as a defense against critics of his own edited YouTube video.
But ultimately, this new interview and insight into Sarah Palin makes it look like she just can't bring herself to accept any responsibility for her campaign performance. Charlie Gibson played "gotcha journalism" when Palin didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was. Her initially botched Couric interview is Couric's fault because Palin couldn't answer a simple question about what she reads to keep updated on news. Her subsequent Couric interviews that proved she was much better orating a snarky speech off a teleprompter than she was thinking on her feet were the fault of the McCain campaign for insisting she continue to do one of the few interviews she was allowed to do when not sequestered from the media. She attacks the media for using "bloggers" as a source for news items, but uses said bloggers herself when claiming that Barack Obama makes it a habit of "palling around with terrorists", that he started his political career in the living room of William Ayers and casting doubts about Obama's American citizenship and religion. According to Palin, the obvious media bias against her is because she was on the Republican Party ticket (except for Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham... ad infinitum) and it would have been the exact opposite had she run as the Democratic VP choice. Although, how you choose to run in complete opposition to your own ideology is another story.
SARAH PALIN 2012
There is a tone in Democratic circles that Sarah Palin would be dangerous for her opposition if she were to run in 2012. Unhingedpundits see her and think she's the cat's meow and had it not been for Palin, McCain wouldn't have gotten the bump he did after the Republican convention, but they refuse to admit that had it not been for Palin's divisive hate speech, McCain wouldn't have nose dived* the way he did after the convention bump.
But I say Sarah Palin in 2012? Bring it on. The conventional wisdom with the few remaining rational members of the Republican Party are that they have to rebrand and re-evaluate their message. They have to become a party of inclusion as the times have changed and their base becomes smaller because let's face it, whitey ain't gonna be the majority for much longer. But if the hard right wing conservatives prop up Palin for a 2012 run, and for some strange reason the Palin 2012 talk won't go away, it will only serve to further fracture a hobbled Republican party and render them irrelevant.
No matter who the face of the 2012 GOP candidate is, the fact is that 45% of the population will vote for them. They could have put up a pet rock against Barack Obama in November and they still would have gotten 40% of the vote. But there are a few voters out there who actually care about the issues, and reaching them is the pivotal point in any election cycle. Politicians like Tim Pawlenty understand this. Politicians like Sarah Palin do not.
Judging by Palin's answers in this little video snippet provided by a conservative ally, I have to say that it doesn't strike me as if she learned anything from her '08 run and is in denial about her shortcomings. If this continues, she'll think that she doesn't need to learn anything or try new tactics - why try to learn something if you think you're always right and think you've always been wronged? She may have pulled something over on small town Wasillans with her rambling, incoherent sentences as long as there's a wink attached to the end of them, but if it didn't work for the nation in '08, I seriously doubt it'll be a hit in 2012.
* McCain's "fundamentals of the economy are still strong" gaffe didn't help, but Palin wasn't 100% free of culpability either.
While much has been made of the Kennedy and Couric comments, there was a troubling remark, largely overlooked, that Palin made about Barack Obama that was a flat-out, blatant lie--a typically Palinesque twisting of the truth intending, once again, to turn her into a victim and to make Obama & Co., along with the media, appear to be hypocrites.
Here is Palin's latest Big Lie:
"When I heard Barack Obama state in one of his interviews on national television that his wife was off limits, meaning, family's off limits-- you know, 'Attack me, I'm the public official, come after me, I can handle it and we'll duke it out if need be, but family's off limits'-- I naively believed, OK, they respected that in him and his demand for that to be adhered, naively believing that must apply to all of us, right? But it didn't apply."
While Obama did say that he found attacks on his wife "unacceptable," he also very boldly and emphatically stated that Palin's family was also off limits when asked a question about Bristol Palin's pregnancy:
"I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off limits, and people's children are especially off limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as governor, or her potential performance as a VP. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories."
He wasn't protecting simply his own family with that assertion, he was also protecting Palin's. And Palin lacks the basic grace, integrity and human decency to acknowledge Obama's gesture. And then she twists the truth to make Obama seem selfish and the media unfair.
And what about her claim that Obama's wishes were "respected" about his own family? The right-wing press went after Michelle Obama relentlessly and so, too, did the McCain campaign. None other than Cindy McCain went after Michelle for comments she made about finally being proud of her country:
"I don't know why she said what she said. Everyone has their own experience. I don't know why she said what she said, all I know is that I have always been proud of my country."
That seemed a little off-base coming from someone born with a silver-spoon in her mouth and who not only served as her husband's connection to the Keating Five Scandal, but then later stole drugs from her own nonprofit organization to sustain her drug habit. But make that charge she did.
And the right continued to attack her through the campaign--from Michelle Malkin to Ann Coulter. Anyone who claims otherwise is wallowing in duplicity.
So here again, Palin utterly distorts reality, fails to acknowledge Obama's gesture, doesn't acknowledge what her running mate's wife said about Michelle Obama, and turns herself, yet again, into a political victim. Where is Ann Coulter calling Palin on her self-victimization? The silence is deafening.
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