Always ready to escalate

The DNC asked people to call the RNC about health care. The RNC for its part redirected calls to the DNC to prove that planned disruption of forums is not their only weapon - they also have planned disruption of the DNC.

Given the Republicans' past illegal phone bombing of Democratic GOTV operations in New Hampshire, for which a couple of operatives were convicted, the RNC might want to rethink this. It's probably illegal.

But the Republicans don't do rethinking. They just go another notch.

Bottom line: Republicans have no interest in loyal opposition. Opposition is all they care about.

Politicizing the undeniable

President Obama says it was stupid to arrest Henry Gates in his own home after he proved it was his. Can anyone in full possession of the facts and faculties deny this?

Well, the Republicans can, but they may not be in full possession. After all, they politicize the issue and yet:

While [National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesshill Brian] Walsh said the NRSC is not seeking to politicize the issue, it does ask people to donate to the NRSC. And it is an opportunity for the NRSC to collect email addresses for future political undertakings such as fundraising.

Update: By the way, I certainly don't mean to imply that stupidity is the exclusive province of the Cambridge Police. Gates has his own escalation to answer for. He could have kept himself out of jail. But arresting someone in his own home on the bullshit charge of disorderly conduct because he yelled at a policeman? Yelled at! Too much...

Bloodthirsty

We Americans like to think of ourselves as a peace-loving nation. We aren't.

Sure, some of us are, possibly many, maybe even a majority. Maybe not. But there's a strong current of blood lust not even a step up from savagery that runs through many Americans' violent and ugly view of the world.

Iran's nuclear ambitions? Don't ask questions. Don't talk. Don't bother with economic coercion. Attack.

To your lastpoint: eliminate their capability now, so they cannot use it later. Do not make the mistake of thinking they won't. and, talking will not get us there. --ronreganfan [sic] (4/9/2009 12:18 PM EDT)

Pirates from lawless Somalia? Don't negotiate the release of their hostages, backed by the threat of force. Attack everyone everywhere.

Yesterday, April 8th, 2009, Somali pirates attacked an American merchant ship. To the government of Somalia, I say the following: You must get contol of your population and end their piracy right now. If you don’t, we will. If ending their piracy means destroying what little there is of your sorry nation, we will destroy your sorry nation. If any Somali pirate ever again attacks an American ship, we will act accordingly. Do not appeal for mercy. Do not mistake our resolve. --camper9574 (4/9/2009 5:22 AM EDT)

Negotiation is not an option. Get Captain Phillips back safely, then take quick and severe action.
If some innocents get in the way then they should not have been in the area. --icepack (4/9/2009 7:30 AM EDT)

These idiots have no idea how vast the Indian Ocean is. (Note: I have no qualms whatsoever about defending shipping. I'm just not willing to kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out.)

North Korean missile? Never mind that Kim Jong Il is probably sick. Never mind that this society will collapse under its own weight quite soon. Attack.

Newt Gingrich says he would have disabled the long-range missile before it ever left the launch pad. --from the CNN story

Yes, the US should have bombed the launch pad as soon as the threat became known. Now the North Koreans will think they can get away with it every time. --Cameron (April 6th, 2009 4:00 pm ET)

Fortunately, many commenters on the Jack Cafferty story of Jingo Newt recognize the Republican war drumbeat for what it is.

This is what the bully faction of the conservative movement has to offer: perpetual war. Fer chrissake, in 2003, they wanted to invade France for merely verbal disagreements with the Bushists.

We're already in theater in two wars, maxed out on both our soldiers and our credit cards. If we fought all the wars the wingnuts want us to fight, we would be on a permanent war footing. And our deficits? We'd never see a balanced budget again.

The stupidest attitude of all that the bully faction of the Republican Party sweats out through every pore is that if you don't agree with their every carpet-bombing knee-jerk reflex, you must want to befriend every enemy and show America's throat to their knives.

So, of course, it's all Obama's fault that these conflicts heated up. It's all Obama's fault that he hasn't yet killed anyone. Never mind that all three of these problems have been going on for years. Nope, the wingnuts' selective amnesia prevents them from ever seeing problems in context, where those problems are more complicated.

New wingnut commandment

Thou shalt not ridicule anyone but especially not Rush Limbaugh!

According to a CNN commenter who calls herself barbara (March 4th, 2009 10:24 am ET):

I find it appauling that american citizens joke and make fun of people at any time but for the dems to TWIST Rush's words and then make a website to poke fun at hime and others is enough to make me sick.

Joking and making fun! "Appauling." What's next? Happiness? Sex? Damn, I'm going to break yet another goddamn commandment to say this: Those social outcasts in middle school who do not learn the lessons of ridicule are condemned to be ridiculed repeatedly.

But there's more:

I heard what Rush said with both of my ears clear of gook. He said, and I totally agree, that he wants obama to fail IF IT MEANS THAT OBAMAS SOCIALIST POLICIES WILL TAKE HOLD.

Is that a slur? How did the VC get into your ears? What have they been whispering to you?

Babs, baby, I think you're a dumbshit if the VC have been in your ears. See how this excuse works: Rush says some obvious nonsense in a conditional and you use it as an excuse for what he actually meant, which was this: He'd rather have a depression than for measures to succeed that he opposes ideologically. Of course, you uneducated numbskulls think anything that the government has to spend tax revenue to do is socialism.

I know for a fact that all you liberal dems heard the same thing but you twist it and then put it out to the illiterate knwoing that they will believe anything you say because they are too stupid to question you. This was very obvious during the primaries. the way that you go about even implementing this plan is straight out of the socialist handbook.

If our target were the illiterate, we'd put out something you could understand. And, damn, where did I put my socialist handbook? No, it's not next to my dad's Boy Scout Handbook. No, not next to The Joy of Sex. Where could it be!

you make fun of people. does that fix out economic problems? does it allow you to put on your table?gas in your car? pay for medicines? etc? to do something like this is to get the lemmings away form even thinking about the very real problems that we face.

Personally, I refuse to put on my table, regardless of the dress code. (Duhbya, you sure you didn't steal your mom's identity to make this comment?) Rush's solution to the economic decline: Let the corporations do ... anything they want. How's that working out so far?

you liberal dems make me sick and guess what? next year when your followers do their taxes and see that they have actually LOST money,…they wont be mad at bush they will be mad at obama and rightfully so. people will get poorer and these poor folks will vote republican in 2010 and 2012. just watch.

You, like, totally missed the chance to insert one of Rush's favorite talking points ("oh, i fergott, you lie-berals dont have jobs, so your dont have to pay taxs" illiteracy added for authenticity). It cracks me up that he makes this point to a daytime audience that doesn't appear to work.

Barbara, since you missed this obvious talking point, you need to go back to dittohead kindergarten (the highest level, but still tough to pass for most of the class).

Poor folks voting Republican, there's an irony whose time has passed.

Help for Republicans

If you're a Republican and you've blundered into this hostile territory, I want you to feel welcome, so as a public service to you, I'm providing an important link through which you, too, can apologize to Rush Limbaugh:


Every Republican who's anyone is doing it. Here's your opportunity to express your love for Big Fat Brother before you offend him. (You haven't offended him, have you?) Just click the image above and do your duty.

Dittoheads are of course exempt. It's not Rush they owe an apology. And why aren't all you Republicans dittoheads? Why would you try to think for yourselves even accidentally? You haven't been talking to liberals lately? Or reading liberal blogs! Like this one or CNN (which all loyal dittoes believe is flaming left only because they are sooo far right).

Final vote still to come

Harry Reid's canvassing for more Republican votes for the stimulus. Great, though it's not great that it's in the news. It's clearly not a deal that the Republicans have stopped fighting, and it's good the Democrats are still engaged in defending it against betrayal.

The real story is what the Republicans are doing. Just because Tom Delay is gone doesn't mean they're not twisting arms and hammering their three turncoats (believe me, that's how they see them).

The GOP got to Judd Gregg, after all. What he said two days ago about continuing to serve in the Senate makes no sense set next to what he said yesterday - his probable retirement in 2010. What he's saying now makes no sense in light of his pursuit of the job of Commerce Secretary.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell welcomed Gregg's withdrawal.

"Sen. Gregg made a principled decision to return and we're glad to have him," McConnell, R-Kentucky, announced. "He is among the smartest, most effective legislators to serve in the Senate -- Democrat or Republican -- and a key adviser to me and to the Republican conference. It's great to have him back."

What did the Republican enforcers tell him to make him end his political career?

Covering the wingnuts

Nope, that's not Eddie Bauer that Mark Preston is talking with. Remember Gary Bauer? Yep, he's a "prominent social conservative." Preston also talks to Phyllis Schlafly, the ridiculous self-hating mom of a gay son and the woman who manages somehow to make Lady Thatcher look both moderate and stylish. And he rounds out the wingnut trifecta with William Murray. No, not that Bill Murray.

Preston is a regular Groundhog Day of blithering right-wing politics.

Oops, I missed Tony Perkins. Not the self-help infomercial guru overplayed by Ben Stiller or the Deadipal heir of Bates Motel - another Republican guy who wants to police your genitals and mine as if that's what Jesus cared about.

I also missed Mike Farris, another lunatic Republican-Jesus-freak best known for indoctrination through home-schooling.

What's the story now, a quinfecta? Does that make us all quinfected? And Preston is delivering criticism of John McCain from the right. Yeah, buddy!

Way too late

Sorry, Joe, my love's not for sale. Thanks for the dough, though.

Now, at least we know that Mark Preston will talk to a, uh, non-Republican. Jury's still out on whether he'll talk to a Democrat.

Proof of lifelessness

Here again is Obama's paragraph that McCain objects to:

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face," Obama said Wednesday in Springfield, Missouri. "So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky."

What McCain really objects to is the definitive truth in the first sentence. He knows he has to scare the voters because he knows that they know he can't fix anything that Duhbya did wrong. Going negative is what he has to do, and he's trying to attack Obama's defense against fear.

Look for the nation's mood to go even lower under McCain's slimy barrage.

Will that help, asks Jack Cafferty? Win, I doubt. But it has already helped McCain blunt the positive impact of Obama's excellent adventure.

It will also further damage America, but McCain couldn't give a crap when faced with the consuming parasite of his own ambition.

Update (3/12/09): Cleaning up drafts, I found this from 7/31/08 about the same quote:

McCain has made his race card objection to this comment from Obama:

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face," Obama said Wednesday in Springfield, Missouri. "So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky." (emphasis added)

I see, McCain and his friends think that Obama can't even mention his race without playing the race card (whatever the hell that formula means). Chris Matthews is constantly casting Obama outside "normal Americans" and talk radio is doing worse. The McCain campaign is no doubt casting Obama as risky. But it's Obama who's trying to play on race.

McCain is racing to the bottom, the foul slime that is Republican politics, by himself.

Interview someone sane

Does Mark Preston ever talk to a Democrat? Or even a sane Republican?

Ben Stein thinks:

• Karl Rove is the answer.
• Phil Gramm had the psychological recession right.
• Obama's ability to draw a crowd is anti-democratic.
• Evolution is wrong, even though he doesn't understand anything else about it.
  

Preston thinks Stein is well informed, on the basis of speech-writing for Nixon and Ford thirty-five years ago. In fairness, Stein does notice that McCain is running a "pathetic" campaign, but you'd have to be stone dead or Tucker Bounds not to notice that.

Update: For snark, please try "Seeing blue". For something much more serious, try "Killing liberals".

PUMA in name only

McCNN magnifies the anti-Obama wing of the Democratic Party by including conspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley as if he had ever been a Democrat. Here's the description of his latest book, Obama: The Postmodern Coup:

Barack Obama is a deeply troubled personality, the megalomaniac front man for a postmodern coup by the intelligence agencies, using fake polls, mobs of swarming adolescents, super-rich contributors, and orchestrated media hysteria to short-circuit normal politics and seize power.

Obama comes from the orbit of the Ford Foundation, and has never won public office in a contested election. His guru and controller is Zbigniew Brzezinski, the deranged revanchist and Russia-hater who dominated the catastrophic Carter presidency 30 years ago. All indications are that Brzezinski recruited Obama at Columbia University a quarter century ago. Trilateral Commission co-founder Brzezinski wants a global showdown with Russia and China far more dangerous for the United States than the Bush-Cheney Iraq adventure.

Obama's economics are pure Skull & Bones/Chicago school austerity and sacrifice for American working families, all designed to bail out the bankrupt Wall Street elitist financiers who own Obama. Obama's lemming legions and Kool-Aid cult candidacy hearken back to Italy in 1919-1922, and raise the question of postmodern fascism in the United States today.

Obama is a recipe for a world tragedy. No American voter can afford to ignore the lessons contained in this book.

Strong stuff! Is that meth I smell? Maybe he'll give Cynthia McKinney a try this year. I'd bet he's been voting for Ralph Nader in years past. After all, he's quick to deliver the Nader rationale:

Tarpley said a McCain victory might be the best result if Obama is the Democratic nominee. It would allow the party an opportunity to reflect and perhaps "radicalize it in a New Deal direction."

How has that worked out so far?

The irritating thing for a consumer of media is that Tarpley honestly flags himself as a "controversial book author," which ought to have cued Mark Preston to try Google. But, no, Preston doesn't bother or at least he doesn't tell his readers. Hey, that might get in the way of the received narrative.

Update (7/27): If you liked this item, why not try "Whiplash"?

Analyze this

McCain mouthpiece and long-time Duhbya aide Nicolle (sic) Wallace says "Barack Obama falsely accuses John McCain of running for George Bush's third term," and wants the media to do something about it. Yeah, blood 'n' guts McCain is such a maverick that he's larding his team with more and more Bushist political operatives. We all know how urgently they want radical change.

What does Nicolle come up with to differentiate her new product from her old product? Packaging!

While she emphasized that both are "hardworking men," she also added that "they are totally different people." One such difference is McCain's insistence on being in the middle of the media scrum, a setting that Bush did not often enter.

It's good to know that their personalities and taste in conversation set them apart. After all, Duhbya does have a shitty personality, and that's the only reason he ran the country into the crapper.

For all this bullshit, McCNN breathlessly provides a conduit for nothing but McCain campaign spin, and they have the gall to label it "analysis". It's progress of a sort, I guess, that the media are labelling their abject transcriptions as analysis to distinguish them from actual news, but a more honest label would be "press release".

(For some reason, I hope the Mark Preston who wrote this is not the kid I knew from Kenesaw Dr. forty years ago, but I've always been willing to bust the chops of my friends, anyway.)

Bob Barr gets something right

... and that's news, though less so lately.

"It probably wasn't any one thing," he said during our conversation last week outside the White House.

"But perhaps listening to the attorney general of the United States, in a purportedly conservative Republican administration of George W. Bush, justify to the American people that the writ of habeas corpus, the great writ, the foundation of civilized society as we know it, is no longer important. Watching a president and his attorney general try and torture the language of the law and the language of the Fourth Amendment to justify warrantless spying on American citizens in their own country in the name of being a commander in chief.

"Those are so dramatically inconsistent with any notions of legitimate, constitutional, conservative government, that I certainly could not be party to, or remain in a party that advocated those procedures."

Aside from the misplaced esteem for conservatism, he gets everything right.

Serious about winning

The thing I like about Obama's decision to forgo public financing of his general election campaign is that it shows he's serious about actually winning the White House. I am sick and tired of fighting the good fight and losing. I want a President who'll call up Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and say, "Don't send me any more of this barely budged Bushist bullshit like FISA. I'll send it back to you in a Chicago second."

Based on the headline, I thought I was going to have to agree with David Gergen. Since he's one of the most self-fluffing Beltway blowhards, I was happy to find that his piece is full of little slaps and digs, not to mention inaccuracies and missing context (of course no credit to Washington outsider Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, which laid the groundwork for Obama's). So, after all, I don't have to say nice things about him and his sweet chum Cindy McCain.

Of course, it's not good that Obama had to reverse his previous pledge, and there has always been a little sniping at Republicans who diss public financing. Now the shoe is on the other foot, though, and Obama needs every advantage he can get. It's going to be a long and bitter campaign.

Yes, Obama's can rightly argue that his private campaign finance model of many, many small contributions is better reform than public financing. It's true. It's also a rationalization. In the impure business of politics, I can live with that. I can rationalize it.

Obama is going to need every cent he can lay his hands on. CNN characterizes his coming media campaign as "shock and awe", but he'll be facing guerrilla warfare from the Scaifes, the Pickenses, and all the other scurrilous wingnut manipulators of public opinion. They don't care what lies they have to tell to keep their boys in power. It'll take a lot of slapping to slap those bastards down.

Question for the Ron Paul devolution

Libertarianism is founded on the marketplace, but it's the province of one of America's several lunatic fringes. Why hasn't it done better in the marketplace of ideas?