Apparently, I provide tag lines to the White House.
Apparently, Hillary Clinton believes in magic, at least for electoral purposes.
This is what Clinton said about Obama’s slogan: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”No, it's not an organizing principle. It's a minimum standard. One we've been regularly fucking up for the better part of three and a half decades.
President Barack Obama (D-tepid centrism except in support of the imperial Presidency) has inspired incredibly frenzied outpourings of anger and hate. Bill Clinton (D-tepid centrism except about sex) inspired what for its time was similarly frenzied.
The frenzy of delegitimizing the 1992 election worked so well for Republicans that there was no way they'd abjure it this time around. Sure enough, given the sharp limits on the intelligence, memory, and discernment of bullshit from reality of the American electorate, it worked again in 2010 for the GOP. Now it will take many Republican electoral failures of much greater depth than 2006 and 2008 to convince them not to be petulant 2-year-olds again every time they lose.
Any Democrat who won the Presidency in 2008 would have faced the refusal of Republicans to accept the legitimacy of the election - no matter how comfortable the margin, and remember that Obama completely kicked John McCain's butt from sea to shining sea.
Hillary Clinton, whom many would now retrospectively elect, would have been trashed again. Doesn't anyone remember what the wingnuts said about conspiracies to murder, distribute drugs, and corruptly enrich herself? Wingnuts right in the middle of the GOP. How could anyone forget their politics of personal destruction?
In the alternate universe where she did get elected, people are wishing that fresh young Illinois Senator had gotten the nod instead. He has such a sweet personality and such a message of non-partisan comity that surely no one, not even a Republican Party built from the ground up on the model of Lee Atwater's scorched earth politics (with a secret handshake in honor of the failed potential of Joe McCarthy), not even that Republican Party could have put him through the vicious attacks they've put Hillary through. Yeah, don't call me Shirley.
There's one difference between the way Barack has been calumnied and the way Hillary would have been. That difference is the birther movement.
Sure, Republicans would have found sex-related ways to attack her, as they did when she was the wrong kind of wife to Bill - no cookie-baking, no juicy divorce suit from the woman scorned, no willing smiling silent deference to men. They would have attacked her for menses and hot flashes at the same time. It would have been ugly.
But the birther movement is about Obama being the wrong color. He's brown, and he has foreign heritage that's not European and not Christian. How could he possibly be American? He's not from the right tribe.
No, it's not only race that matters in the Republican platform of bigotry. They assert religious correctness too. Catholics (finally!) are o.k. now. All Irish may apply. But no Muslims. They might bring their religious values to the public square, and that means they'll try to enact scary-a, I mean, sharia.
The framers of the Constitution had this to say in Article VI of the Constitution:
[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.Republicans, even rabbit front-runner Mitt Romney, are happy to promise a religious test as long as it appeals to their bigoted party (as proven by its birtherism):
Republicans don't love religious liberty; they love religious liberty for people who think as they do.Again, one party in American politics is tepid, easily bullied, and often won't stand up for its own views. The other is actively evil and opposed to the founding ideas of our nation. So of course the Republicans project their own opposition to liberal democracy, as framed 225 years ago, onto the Democrats, and the Democrats fail to call them the scurrilous, opportunistic, authoritarian liars they are.
The only way you'll get the tears of John Boehner (R-lacrimose) off his face is to pry them from his cold, dead hanky. (Note to morons: I'm snarking an NRA bumpersticker.)
Boehner says he's just emotional about the problems facing America. I wonder whether he's a depressive in need of help, if he's taking something that makes him emotional, if he can't take the strain.
This is yet another way you know that there is no liberal counterbalance to the right-wing media: If a Democrat ever wept in public as frequently or as copiously as Boehner - or even once and just a little (paging Edmund Muskie) - his career would be over.
And if a woman cried - or just choked up a tiny little bit (Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi) - the wingnut bullshit distribution network (WBDN) would circulate it forever as a sign of weakness and a reason to mock her.
Hillary Clinton makes a few mildly derisive comments about North Korea:
"small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention."The PRK, which could teach even Rush Limbaugh a thing or two about incendiary bullshit, responds with ironclad proof that Hillary is spot on:
There are lots of possible rejoinders appropriate for middle school. How's that sticks and grass diet working out? Gooood haircut - you still using the Flowbee? Pointing and giggling would also be fun.At a meeting of southeast Asian nations in Phuket, Thailand, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman blasted Clinton for what he called a "spate of vulgar remarks unbecoming for her position everywhere she went since she was sworn in," according to the state-run KCNA news agency.
The spokesman called Clinton "by no means intelligent" and a "funny lady."
"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," the statement said.
What Hillary is really saying: We owe you so much money and, please, please, please, lend us more. What's a little human rights between a credit junkie and his candy man!
In the situation we're in now, I can't fault her, but it's not good that we have to sweep the Chinese record under the rug.
As long as I can remember, North Korea's response to any controversy or criticism has been to take its hysterical rhetoric straight to DEFCON 2-year-old:
But Pyongyang said Thursday that it was ready for an "all-out confrontation" with South Korea, calling President Lee Myung-bak a traitor and accusing him of "frantically inciting hostility" toward North Korea and "kicking up ... war hysteria," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said.Their tantrums would be funny if they didn't have such a large and relatively well-fed army and an insane leader.
"North Korea is not going to get a different relationship with the U.S. while insulting and refusing dialogue with the Republic of Korea," she said.
A large number of the people who voted not to change a thing about the disastrous way the Republicans have run America into the ground now go onto comments sections and whine that Obama is not changing anything.
Drop a smile passing in the hall, but there's no laughs left.
Well, maybe a smirk at the fact that Democrats actually wanted him to cut Hillary's future pay...
Like a rabid dog to raw meat, Judicial Watch announced this week that Hillary Clinton is forbidden by the Constitution from serving as Secretary of State:
Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution says the following: "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time."Executive order? The Constitution was written under the assumption that Congress held the purse strings. Article I, section 6 was an anti-corruption measure. Of course, Duhbya was probably granted the power to give Cabinet raises as part of a deal to piggyback Congressional raises without actually having to vote on them, since they're always unpopular with everyone who makes less - most of us. Or maybe Duhbya just arrogated it, and no one stopped him.
...
In January, President Bush signed an executive order increasing the salary for the secretary of state and other Cabinet positions by $4,700.
The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.In the absence of a majority of electoral votes for Vice President, the Senate should have had to choose between Darth and Joe Lieberman, no matter how much a Hobson's choice the intervening eight years have revealed that to be.
[N]o Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.Oops! The VP is prohibited from being a member of Congress. Next theory!
Some people just need an age-appropriate incentive!
Click image for full Beth Cravens cartoon. You won't be sorry!
David Frum's stock in trade is the division of Democrats. What he says is more instructive about him and his fellow Bushist Republicans than it is about us Democrats.
In short, he's describing the Obama administration as if it were run by a bunch of Republicans. But it isn't.
Duhbya used to say that elections have consequences. Now the phrase is all over the left blogosphere.
I'm ready to apply it to Joe Lieberman. If Harry Reid is not, time for a new Senate Majority Leader. (Hillary?)
Holy Joe made his choice. He repeatedly reaffirmed his choice. He made it visibly and publicly and very loudly. We all heard it. It's not as though he didn't know.
Here's what I would offer: Back-bencher with last choice of committee assignments and no committee chairs or subcommittee chairs. No capacity for mischief. You want to be a member of the majority caucus? That's the deal, revocable any time we get tired of your bullshit. Take it or leave it.
Believe me, that deal is way too magnanimous.
Hillary gives a good interview to CNN. Here's my favorite part, especially the part I've italicized:
[John McCain] has to decide what is best for him to do. Certainly one thing that I hope is that at the debate Wednesday night and in next three weeks is that we have a clash of ideas here -- differing policies. Defend your proposal to privatize Social Security. Defend your health care plan, which would undermine employer-based health care. If you think these are good ideas for America, then go out there and present them and see whether you can convince people.Like Hillary, I also look forward to a woman President, but actual policy positions are much more important than race or gender.That's what campaigns should be about, in my opinion, and I hope that's what the next three weeks is about, and I'm confident that when the American people compare the Obama-Biden ticket with the McCain-Palin ticket and what each stands for, they are going to support Sen. Obama.
Even by McCNN's standards, this report from Dana Bash is gag-and-vomit-level fetid runny sulfurous bullshit. Every major point in it is bullshit, including the headline.
First, Bash says McCain's plan is to buy toxic mortgages from homeowners. Neat trick, that. Homeowners don't own mortgages; the lenders do. This small sleight of hand is hard to explain without imputing the malign intent to hide the fact that McCain is proposing a gift of $300 billion to the exact people who made the stupid, bad, dangerous loans - or at least to the fools who bought them. This is nothing short of paying off the profiteers who, of all the people who contributed to this clusterfuck, are the ones who should have the most knowledge of risk and for whom market punishment is most appropriate.
Then, Bash attributes this plan to liberals! She shows a clip of Hillary Clinton that purports to show Clinton proposing the same thing. But it doesn't. Not even close. Hillary advocates instead that bankruptcy judges be empowered to rewrite loan terms, not to bail out lenders. In fact, Hillary's proposal, which is a mainstream Democratic proposal, leaves some of the right people holding the bag they very much deserve to hold.
Last, Bash brings on Penelope Patsuris for no apparent reason, and Patsuris makes some vapid point about how many mortgages $300 billion would buy if we Americans were stupid enough to elect the economically clueless John McCain. She can't even come up with an estimate, but she can ask rhetorically whether Henry Paulson is going to inspect every one of them. Uh, Penelope, how does $300 billion make that a harder problem than $700 billion?
Seriously, these people think we all have the IQ of a century-old chestnut stump - combined.
Bash has a nice voice, but I'd fire her ass and let her look for a graveyard shift AM DJ job. I'd fire her with no notice and no severance and no bullshit politesse, as in clean your fucking desk out in the next 10 minutes under supervision of security and don't ever darken my door or ask for a reference. I don't care whether she's dishonest or just stupidly incompetent (though I'd bet on dishonest). I'd fire her producer's ass, too.
There is no excuse for this disgraceful tissue of lies.
Obama gave a speech on race from the heart. It was honest and frank. It was fair-minded and clear-eyed and filled with exactly the reason, understanding, and sympathy that America needs in its leaders. Above all, it was authentic.
There is no Republican in public life who could deliver such a speech, much less write it himself, as Obama did. There are precious few other Democrats, if any. Even Bill Clinton couldn't do it.
Yet, instead of judging the speech on its own considerable merit, Katharine Seelye of course judges it on the basis of how others are spinning it. This is par for the course for Seelye, who always spins to the detriment of Democrats. Here she's spinning for Hillary, but, come the general, that won't last.
Seelye poses as wanting to know whether the speech was effective in the white working class, or whether, in a formula she adopts straight from Rush Limbaugh, 'whether the speech cements Mr. Obama as the “black candidate” in the minds of blue-collar whites'. What she appears to want, really, is simply to put out the narrative that these voters won't accept Obama, that it wasn't "effective".
Seelye quotes a bunch of Democrats who supposedly have working class cred (even though several are academics), and only one of them has a concrete criticism - and that's that the speech didn't contain enough policy. Shit, not enough policy! What will we do? We'll have to listen to everyone else's dry policy dissertations to see how it really ought to be done.
Growing up in East Tennessee, I often heard my father complain about mugwump Democrats who would vote for the stupidest, most venal, most hide-bound and conservative candidate in the primary. These mugwumps would then vote for the Republican in the general, though they'd maintain that they were still part of the Democrat (sic) Party.
"I vote for the man," they'd say, "not the party." Sure, that way they could be sure of getting the dumbest bag of hammers to represent them. Probably accurately, at that.
Now, we have mugwumps on a national scale, though they've finally admitted that they really do belong in the Republican Party. They're still trying to screw the real Democrats, of course.
For those with their heads in the sand, here's a demonstration of the power of Rush Limbaugh. (Tell me, if Eliot Spitzer is going to be prosecuted, why Rush is still unindicted?)
Hillary did have a good rejoinder:
"Be careful what you wish for, Rush," she said with a grin.
Glenn Greenwald nails the coming shit-storm that Obama (or Hillary) will have to endure at the hands of the right-wing smear merchants and their captive media:
What our political establishment relies on more than anything else is keeping Americans distracted away from what they are really doing and focused instead on how Mike Dukakis looks in a helmet and whether he'd want to murder his wife's rapist; on blue dresses and penile spots; on the inspiration for Love Story and who invented the Internet; on how John Kerry looks in windsurfing tights, on how manly George Bush's brush-clearing is, and whether Nancy Pelosi's scarf-wearing means she loves the Terrorists. That's how our Beltway culture remains indescribably broken and corrupt without much protest or backlash.Update: Yes, I was trying to recall an Everclear line with my title. Only later did the line echo true in my head, "They cannot hurt you unless you let them."
