"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
Monday, January 21, 2008
Glenn Greenwald recently had a sterling post examining Joe Klein's attempts to distance himself from his anti-Clinton commentary during Impeachment Year 1998. In his Time blog, Klein claimed that I thought Bill Clinton was a very good President and ex-President" and went on describe the events of 1998 this way: "the Republican berserkers, with a strong assist from the press, tried to derail democracy during his Administration, perhaps the most disgraceful performances by a political party--and by my colleagues--that I've ever witnessed. (For those who were not born yet, I defended Clinton through Whitewater and Lewinsky, although I was occasionally critical--as were more than a few members of the White House staff--of the First Lady's reluctance to be more forthcoming on Whitewater and of the Big Guy's prevarication on Lewinsky. Still, I didn't think these, or the other scandalettes, were very serious.)" As Greenwald points out, Klein's 1994 Newsweek article, "The Politics of Promiscuity", was one of the first attempts by a mainstream reporter to officially declare Clinton's private life fair game for journalists and bloviators, on the grounds that this "character flaw" may have been "a defining characteristic of his public life as well." He proceeded to make the self-serving, strained argument that Clinton's skirt-chasing was "not irrelevant when his behavior toward Haitians, Bosnians-and Americans -- is considered, and therefore should be a fit subject for greater scrutiny."
Greenwald also dug up some of Klein's 1998 TV chats with Tim Russert, where he defended this "very good president" in his time of trouble by repeating the usual mantras of the time about what his inability to resist a pretty face said about him ("You gotta figure that there's something desperately wrong with this guy.") and how it would affect his legacy. ("He will be remembered in the most embarrassing tawdry sort of way.") The fact that Klein would suggest that he experienced the bump in career recognition that he enjoyed in the second half of the 1990s by defending the Clintons is misrepresentative not just of his actual behavior but of the political-celebrity culture of that time. As Greenwald points out, "In the 1990s, there simply were virtually no media stars insisting that the Lewinsky and Whitewater matters were being blown out of proportion. The ones who thought that and said that didn't get invited on television and didn't become media stars. They became media stars only by going on with Chris Matthews and Tim Russert and endlessly dissecting every last sex leak about cigars, grand juries, Ken Starr manuevers and Clinton's penile spots." And the people who, in 1998, booked Klein onto those shows knew what to expect from him: two years earlier, he had redefined himself through the publication of the anti-Clinton novel Primary Colors. The revelation, months after that book had been hailed as a brilliant work of satire, that Klein was its anonymous author did wonders for his profile, though it remains an open secret if the book would have been so gratefully received and excessively garlanded if it had appeared on bookstore shelves with the bland declaration "by Joe Klein" on its cover. Soon after, he was taken on by The New Yorker as its Washington correspondent, filling a vacancy that had been held in the early years of the Clinton presidency by Sidney Blumenthal. Nobody disputes the fact that Blumenthal lost that job because his editor felt that he was too easy on Clinton and wasn't spending enough time on the phony scandals that Klein now thinks his colleagues were "disgraceful" for having wallowed in. Oddly enough, The New Yorker seemed to find Klein's coverage of Clinton and the "scandalettes" entirely to its satisfaction.
Klein's account of what he was really doing in the nineties is interesting for the way it ties in with the American media's apparent lack of interest in observing the tenth anniversary of Impeachment Year 1998, in contrast to the enthusiasm with which they've always jumped on every opportunity to remember Watergate. Of course, in the media's telling, that was the story of how a free, inquisitive press brought down a bad man. (Those who know the real nuts and bolts of the Watergate story are aware that it's also the story of how the national media, as a whole, ignored that story and scorned the one newspaper that fought to keep it alive, in the process abetting the landslide election of a certifiable enemy of the people as leader of the free world.) The Clinton impeachment circus will not enjoy the same kind of annual resurrection in the media anymore than the Iran-Contra hearings will, because it's the story of how the media let itself get used by slimy partisan operators and sleaze merchants. That's how most of the country saw it at the time, too, but it's sure not how the journalist celebrities such as Russert and Klein saw it, or themselves.
It's also sort of interesting to speculate on why Klein would risk making himself look ridiculous by rewriting his role in the whole mess when none of his colleagues would object to everyone just forgetting it ever happened, and here, I think, may be the key to the mindset of the contemporary media corps that nobody ever talks about, probably because some things are just too pathetic to want to deal with. We all talk about how the media plays favorites and palms off stuff they've been told by self-interested parties as scoops, as if they were the product of actual journalistic labor and how cravenly they maintain their pack mentality. But how do they decide which stupid position they're going to take on something? I think that, as often as they seem to be trying to influence their audience, they actually think that they're reflecting their audience's views as well. People like Russert and Klein make a big show of having distaste for the Beltway that's the only place they can function, and of idealizing "the common American" with his dirty fingernails and vast arid stretches of plain good sense. I think that, in some terrible marriage of self-hatred and condescension, they try to convince themselves that the peculiar fantasies they come up with and turn into common wisdom--George W. Bush is the kinda fella you could have a beer with, Al Gore is a hoity-toity serial lying ol' smarty-pants, the nation at the end of the nineties suffered from "Clinton fatigue", John McCain is Charles Lindbergh without the anti-Semitism--they're projecting their own prejudices and knee-jerk reactions onto their audiences, telling themselves that this isn't the feeling among their fellow millionaires but what the people believe, and this fuels their fervor when they take to the airwaves to speak for those without a soapbox. That's why they seem so self-righteous so much of the time; they think they're channeling Tom Joad.
In some ways, Impeachment Year 1998 was the logical culmination of this attitude, and the inevitable train wreck. Given the media's history of sweeping sexual indiscretions under the rug, I don't think that the media would have jumped on it so hard if they hadn't convinced themselves that this was what "the people" really wanted to hear. Sure, polls kept showing that most Americans didn't think it was any of their business, but the media must have reasoned that this was like the woman whose mouth says no, no, but there's yes, yes in her eyes. The possibility that one might actually want to be overpowered by Rudolph Valentino, but that Chris Matthews was another story, was not considered. Nobody remembers this now, but there were a few hilarious weeks at the start of the coverage when the media, trying to serve the public the way it was imagined the public wanted to be served, yet also wanting to maintain some of its own dignity, adopted a faintly sorrowful tone in discussing the matter. People like Cokie Roberts and George Stephanopoulos would get together on Sunday morning and say something like, alas, if we were a more sophisticated country like they have in old Europe say, we could all laugh this off, but, for good or bad, the simple truth is that the God-fearing average American will not rest until our groper-in-chief is driven, trailing tar and feathers, back to Tobacco Road from whence he came. Surprisingly, when it turned out that the average God-fearing American was a lot more sophisticated and adaptable than Cokie had picked up during her last speaking tour, the pundits did not rejoice at the news but took to gnashing their teeth and wringing their hands over the news that we weren't setting the upright moral example (think of R. G. Armstrong in a Sam Peckinpah movie) they thought they could count on us to deliver. It was a terrible blow to all of them, and a disillusioning moment to be sure. I remember tuning in to some of those shows and thinking that it wouldn't be a surprise if Cokie or George were to start reciting dialogue from The Importance of Being Earnest: "Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?"
A couple of years later, you could see them looking almost as shocked when Bush failed to get the lower orders to provide him with a proper landslide victory. One reason that both the media and the Republicans seemed so well versed in the importance of winning the electoral vote, as opposed to the popular vote, was that there was concern in both parties that sneaky Al Gore might somehow win the electoral vote, though there was of course no chance that he might ever win something that had the word "popular" in it. If he had won the electoral and not the popular vote that night, those pundits and lawyers would of course have been prepared to make arguments precisely the opposite of the ones they wound up making--all in defense of what they knew in their bones to be the true will of "the people", never mine what these unpredictable troublemakers called the voters might try to pull. More recently, I suspect that the pundits who danced on Hillary Clinton's grave after Barack Obama's early primary victory were merely trying to delight the folks at home by speaking what they knew we all believe in our hearts. Subsequent reports that all that mean-spirited cackling may have had something to do with drumming up support for Clinton must have their heads spinning. In the meantime, Joe Klein's fantasy that he was swimming against the currents in 1998 may, on one level, just show that the little bedbug wants to be seen as having always been where the action was, but it's also heartening for showing that he now knows that having kissed Ken Starr's ring in 1998 is not now seen as an example of having spoken truth to power. It's a small thing, to be sure, but any instance of one of these characters actually figuring out, even ten years too late, what the whole elephant looked like is a miracle on the level of a coma victim rising from his bed and going out to win big on American Gladiators.
[x-posted at The Phil Nugent Experience]
Back on the War Wagon
After a period of respite, when the violence across Iraq couldn't be ignored, our liberal media is at it again:
*JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You (McCain) were speaking yesterday on the one-year anniversary of the president calling for the troop surge about how, A, you think it was the right policy, and, B, you think, frankly, you a little deserve credit, because you stood up and pushed for it when it was unpopular.
It was interesting yesterday. I kept looking at my BlackBerry e-mails all day long. I didn't hear the Democratic candidates talking much about that date. What does that tell you about the evolution of the politics of Iraq, if you will?
--------
Greenwald: No matter what else is true, our sprawling imperialism -- as has been true for every Empire in history -- is simply unsustainable. The very idea of staying in Iraq for the next several decades with tens of thousands of American troops, while we lavishly fund the grotesquely corrupt and un-American Private Republican Army of Blackwater, is both infeasible and self-destructive.
(snip)
A country that is defined by endless war and world military hegemony is inevitably, unavoidably, the Nation of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and Torture and Renditions and Limitless Presidential Power and Secret Black Sites and Blackwater. You can't have one without the other. But the Michael Gordons and Michael O'Hanlons care about none of that, if they even think about it at all.
(snip)
Gordon's viewpoint -- that staying is not only right but the only Serious Option -- is, more or less, conventional Beltway wisdom. Yet missing entirely from this analysis is the fact that the vast bulk of Americans -- even in the face of endless claims of Surge Progress -- are more against this war than ever before (.pdf), and -- regardless of claims of Progress -- do not want to continue to support it.
One might think that in an article attacking presidential candidates for advocating withdrawal as they run to represent the public, that fact might be important, but -- especially when it comes to war and occupation -- nothing is less important to our Seriousness Guardians than what the lowly, ignorant American people want. Far more important is what Mike O'Hanlon and Gordon's anonymous military sources think we should do.
Fortunately, Andrew Bacevich says what the surge has really been successful for:
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, "part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative," thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate.
After a period of respite, when the violence across Iraq couldn't be ignored, our liberal media is at it again:
*JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You (McCain) were speaking yesterday on the one-year anniversary of the president calling for the troop surge about how, A, you think it was the right policy, and, B, you think, frankly, you a little deserve credit, because you stood up and pushed for it when it was unpopular.
It was interesting yesterday. I kept looking at my BlackBerry e-mails all day long. I didn't hear the Democratic candidates talking much about that date. What does that tell you about the evolution of the politics of Iraq, if you will?
--------
Greenwald: No matter what else is true, our sprawling imperialism -- as has been true for every Empire in history -- is simply unsustainable. The very idea of staying in Iraq for the next several decades with tens of thousands of American troops, while we lavishly fund the grotesquely corrupt and un-American Private Republican Army of Blackwater, is both infeasible and self-destructive.
(snip)
A country that is defined by endless war and world military hegemony is inevitably, unavoidably, the Nation of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and Torture and Renditions and Limitless Presidential Power and Secret Black Sites and Blackwater. You can't have one without the other. But the Michael Gordons and Michael O'Hanlons care about none of that, if they even think about it at all.
(snip)
Gordon's viewpoint -- that staying is not only right but the only Serious Option -- is, more or less, conventional Beltway wisdom. Yet missing entirely from this analysis is the fact that the vast bulk of Americans -- even in the face of endless claims of Surge Progress -- are more against this war than ever before (.pdf), and -- regardless of claims of Progress -- do not want to continue to support it.
One might think that in an article attacking presidential candidates for advocating withdrawal as they run to represent the public, that fact might be important, but -- especially when it comes to war and occupation -- nothing is less important to our Seriousness Guardians than what the lowly, ignorant American people want. Far more important is what Mike O'Hanlon and Gordon's anonymous military sources think we should do.
Fortunately, Andrew Bacevich says what the surge has really been successful for:
In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, "part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative," thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate.
BONUSES FOR THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU THE SUBPRIME CREDIT CRISIS
I wish I could get almost a quarter million dollars for failing this spectacularly: "According to an estimate from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the average Wall Street bonus was $180,420 in 2007." (InvestmentNews)
And: "Mr. DiNapoli’s office estimates that the bonus pool paid by the securities industry to its employees in New York City totaled $33.2 billion, slightly less than the record $33.9 billion in 2006."
(Crossposted at my place.)
I wish I could get almost a quarter million dollars for failing this spectacularly: "According to an estimate from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the average Wall Street bonus was $180,420 in 2007." (InvestmentNews)
And: "Mr. DiNapoli’s office estimates that the bonus pool paid by the securities industry to its employees in New York City totaled $33.2 billion, slightly less than the record $33.9 billion in 2006."
(Crossposted at my place.)
10,000
I was sitting in a motel room late Saturday afternoon disappointingly watching the returns from Nevada and eventually as CNN called the caucus for Hillary. What the hell happened? Didn't Obama have the advantage of the Culinary Unions endorsement and the recent court ruling upholding the right of the Democratic Party to hold caucuses on the Vegas strip?
Then I noticed the actual vote totals and thought something must be wrong. I'm still trying to track down the popular vote counts (apparently Democrats only report the delegates), but by Saturday night, with nearly all precincts reporting, it appeared that only about 10,000 Democrats voted in the caucuses, while about 40, 000 Republicans came out for the GOP primary.
Compared to the several hundred thousand that came out in Iowa, the relatively few that came out in Nevada reduced my anxiety over seeing Hillary win another one. And in addition, it also now appears that Obama won the delegate count 13-12, despite losing the popular vote.
What a campaign.
I was sitting in a motel room late Saturday afternoon disappointingly watching the returns from Nevada and eventually as CNN called the caucus for Hillary. What the hell happened? Didn't Obama have the advantage of the Culinary Unions endorsement and the recent court ruling upholding the right of the Democratic Party to hold caucuses on the Vegas strip?
Then I noticed the actual vote totals and thought something must be wrong. I'm still trying to track down the popular vote counts (apparently Democrats only report the delegates), but by Saturday night, with nearly all precincts reporting, it appeared that only about 10,000 Democrats voted in the caucuses, while about 40, 000 Republicans came out for the GOP primary.
Compared to the several hundred thousand that came out in Iowa, the relatively few that came out in Nevada reduced my anxiety over seeing Hillary win another one. And in addition, it also now appears that Obama won the delegate count 13-12, despite losing the popular vote.
What a campaign.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Mittmentum Redux
AP is reporting that Mitt Romney has won the Nevada Republican caucus. Who knew it would be over already? No word yet on the Democrats.
Good to know this is the guy the Republicans want as their candidate.
AP is reporting that Mitt Romney has won the Nevada Republican caucus. Who knew it would be over already? No word yet on the Democrats.
Good to know this is the guy the Republicans want as their candidate.
You'd have to file it under small justices, I suppose, but I absolutely adore the suggestion here that George Bush, Jr., who has never known a second of sorrow or regret in his life, who has never doubted the correctness of every decision he's ever made, and who shares his mother's opinion those who've suffered or died because of him are losers and punks who have no business taking up space in his "beautiful mind", may yet know some small unhappiness in this life by being denied his dream job. In a Vanity Fair article back in 2000, one of Bush's lifelong pals told Gail Sheehy that for Bush, " Running for president is a résumé-enhancer for being the commissioner of baseball." It wasn't too long ago that even people who hated Bush were advised that it was naive to act as if he wasn't a serious person and not an overgrown pampered child, but now, is there anyone who sees any point in pretending that what the guy said is in some way implausible? For an, if you'll excuse the clinical terminology, underachieving macho dickhead like Bush, who wants to be seen as one of the boys but also has to be top dog, it's the perfect job; he can spend his golden days in the best seat in the bleachers, watching real athletes doing their jobs and telling himself that they love him. It would be a lot like what he's been doing the past several years--avoiding dissension and debate while sending strangers off to kill and die and telling himself that he's Sgt. Rock--but he'd get to do it in the sunshine, without any mouthy mothers of dead soldiers trying to fuck with his vacation.
I certainly have no trouble thinking that was Bush's mindset back in 2000 and the first half of 2001, when his conception of his presidency was to play golf and clear brush between tax cuts. Then, of course, destiny called, presumably after taking a hasty glance at its address book and accidentally transposing two numbers, but I'll bet that right now, he's more than ready to get back to where he thinks he once belonged. Unfortunately, current Commissioner Bud Selig has just had his contract extended until 2012. According to Bruce Reed, "In a 2002 book, former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent revealed that he and Bush had discussed the job a decade earlier. According to Vincent, Bush thought he was being groomed for the post by Selig (who had replaced Vincent as acting commissioner in 1992). Bush asked Vincent, 'What do you think about me becoming commissioner?' and 'Do you think I'd be a good commissioner?' He added, 'I've been thinking about it. Selig tells me that he would love to have me be commissioner and he tells me that he can deliver it. Vincent told Bush that Selig wanted the job for himself. Showing the naive, unfounded optimism that has since become his trademark, Bush replied, 'He told me that I'm still his man but that it will take some time to work out.' " Reed dryly adds, "Fifteen years later, Commissioner Selig must still be working on it."
I certainly have no trouble thinking that was Bush's mindset back in 2000 and the first half of 2001, when his conception of his presidency was to play golf and clear brush between tax cuts. Then, of course, destiny called, presumably after taking a hasty glance at its address book and accidentally transposing two numbers, but I'll bet that right now, he's more than ready to get back to where he thinks he once belonged. Unfortunately, current Commissioner Bud Selig has just had his contract extended until 2012. According to Bruce Reed, "In a 2002 book, former MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent revealed that he and Bush had discussed the job a decade earlier. According to Vincent, Bush thought he was being groomed for the post by Selig (who had replaced Vincent as acting commissioner in 1992). Bush asked Vincent, 'What do you think about me becoming commissioner?' and 'Do you think I'd be a good commissioner?' He added, 'I've been thinking about it. Selig tells me that he would love to have me be commissioner and he tells me that he can deliver it. Vincent told Bush that Selig wanted the job for himself. Showing the naive, unfounded optimism that has since become his trademark, Bush replied, 'He told me that I'm still his man but that it will take some time to work out.' " Reed dryly adds, "Fifteen years later, Commissioner Selig must still be working on it."
A few days ago, everybody was abuzz with secular terror over Mike Huckabee's saying, "I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view." Now, Fred Thompson has gone on the attack and busted Huckabee on his theocratic views--on the grounds that they prove that Huckabee is actually a liberal. Thompson writes that when he first heard this unattributed loose talk (Fred, being a fiscal conservative, saves money by subscribing to a special newspaper that tells him what all the important quotes of the day were but doesn't mention who said them), "I assumed this came from Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. It is identical to what Al Gore said when he was running for President in 2000... [Huckabee] does not appear to understand that reliance on the notion that the Constitution is a living, breathing document is precisely the kind of wrong-headed thinking about the Constitution that gave us Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion across our nation, and Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized sodomy." The way Fred sees it, Huckabee's willingness to change the Constitution according to the specifications of right-wing religious nuts is a sign that he may not appoint judges who'll do enough to criminalize abortion and throw preverts in the clink. Go down swinging, Fred!
FOXMAN AND OBAMA, PART II
By dnA
Yesterday I pointed out the hypocrisy of ADL Chairman Abraham Foxman demanding that Barack Obama denounce his pastor and leave his church, given Foxman's unwillingness to refer to the Armenian genocide as such, forcing the Armenian community to, in the words of one ADL worker, "use all the strategies we invented to deal with Holocaust denial."
But the fact is Abraham Foxman, in keeping with the pattern of high profile Jewish political figures who routinely misrepresent the political views of most American Jews, has a record of attacking progressives with charges of anti-Semitism while letting Right wingers off the hook.
Glenn Greenwald pointed this out months ago, when Abraham Foxman denounced MoveOn.org because an ad contest produced a single entry that compared Bush to Hitler.
I agree that the comparison of Bush to Hitler is entirely overblown...as are similar comparisons made using Louis Farrakhan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but don't expect Foxman to care if someone outside the Republican Party faces similar charges.
There was a pile-on of Jewish organizations who condemned the ad, who then remained completely silent as voices on the Right compared liberal political figures to Nazis at every opportunity.
Despite his earlier statements decrying the MoveOn ad, Foxman has remained entirely silent while Right wingers repeatedly invoked the Nazis in political attacks on liberals.
Foxman eventually responded to Greenwald and claimed to be "profoundly disturbed by your continuing efforts to smear ADL as being "extremely reluctant" to condemn Nazi/Hitler attacks emanating from the political right." He was concerned by "the efforts to smear" the ADL but not their tendency to exclusively criticize political uses of the Holocaust and the Nazis on the left.
Given Foxman's record of giving those on the Right a pass, it is no surprise that Foxman casually decided that he was entitled to issue a political threat to Barack Obama based on his association with the "racist" Trinity United Church, despite reporting that has shown Trinity is nothing of the sort.
By dnA
Yesterday I pointed out the hypocrisy of ADL Chairman Abraham Foxman demanding that Barack Obama denounce his pastor and leave his church, given Foxman's unwillingness to refer to the Armenian genocide as such, forcing the Armenian community to, in the words of one ADL worker, "use all the strategies we invented to deal with Holocaust denial."
But the fact is Abraham Foxman, in keeping with the pattern of high profile Jewish political figures who routinely misrepresent the political views of most American Jews, has a record of attacking progressives with charges of anti-Semitism while letting Right wingers off the hook.
Glenn Greenwald pointed this out months ago, when Abraham Foxman denounced MoveOn.org because an ad contest produced a single entry that compared Bush to Hitler.
"It is shocking that a mainstream political group like MoveOn.org not only allowed this vile and outrageous comparison of the American President to Adolf Hitler to be entered into its ... contest in the first place, but that they even went so far as to make it available to the public on the Internet," said Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.
I agree that the comparison of Bush to Hitler is entirely overblown...as are similar comparisons made using Louis Farrakhan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but don't expect Foxman to care if someone outside the Republican Party faces similar charges.
There was a pile-on of Jewish organizations who condemned the ad, who then remained completely silent as voices on the Right compared liberal political figures to Nazis at every opportunity.
During his failed crusade to convince Democratic candidates to boycott Yearly Kos, Bill O'Reilly spent weeks, on a virtually nightly basis, labelling Daily Kos as Nazis. On Fox News, O'Reilly repeatedly said things like this: "There's no difference between the KKK and the Nazis, who have websites, than the Daily Kos." And: "The [Daily Kos] website sells hate, as does the KKK and the Nazis. The comparison is valid."
On his talk radio show last night, Mark Levin labelled MoveOn and Media Matters as "brownshirts." Michelle Malkin this morning excitedly touted Levin's attack, cheering the "no-holds-barred Mark Levin" for labelling both groups as the "brownshirts of the Clinton crime family."
On September 17, Bill O'Reilly had Tammy Bruce and Kirsten Powers on to wallow in outrage over a blog post written by Jane Hamsher in which she criticized Elizabeth Edwards for reciting right-wing talking points against MoveOn.org. Hamsher's picture was displayed while she and FDL were branded by O'Reilly as "fascists" and "Nazis." The largest right-wing blogs cheered on this smear.
On September 26, Tammy Bruce went on Fox and, discussing Media Matters and MoveOn, said that "a Gestapo has emerged in America," and "you have a media Gestapo in Media Matters and a political Gestapo in MoveOn.org." She used the word "Gestapo" continuously to refer to these groups.
Despite his earlier statements decrying the MoveOn ad, Foxman has remained entirely silent while Right wingers repeatedly invoked the Nazis in political attacks on liberals.
Foxman eventually responded to Greenwald and claimed to be "profoundly disturbed by your continuing efforts to smear ADL as being "extremely reluctant" to condemn Nazi/Hitler attacks emanating from the political right." He was concerned by "the efforts to smear" the ADL but not their tendency to exclusively criticize political uses of the Holocaust and the Nazis on the left.
Given Foxman's record of giving those on the Right a pass, it is no surprise that Foxman casually decided that he was entitled to issue a political threat to Barack Obama based on his association with the "racist" Trinity United Church, despite reporting that has shown Trinity is nothing of the sort.
Friday, January 18, 2008
TAKEN TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION
David Brooks in today's New York Times:
It is no accident that the major candidates in the Republican field are a pastor, a businessman and a war hero. These are the three most evocative Republican leadership models. Nor is it an accident that the Democratic race is a clash between a daughter of the feminist movement, a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and a self-styled proletarian. These are powerful Democratic categories.
Hmmm, let's see: the preferred Republican candidate in the last two presidential elections was a spoiled-brat trust-fund alcoholic war avoider who has an overinflated sense of his own self-worth, despite the fact that he has no positive achievements whatsoever to show for decades on this earth. What about that? Is that also an "evocative Republican leadership model"? Is that a "powerful Republican category"?
David Brooks in today's New York Times:
It is no accident that the major candidates in the Republican field are a pastor, a businessman and a war hero. These are the three most evocative Republican leadership models. Nor is it an accident that the Democratic race is a clash between a daughter of the feminist movement, a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and a self-styled proletarian. These are powerful Democratic categories.
Hmmm, let's see: the preferred Republican candidate in the last two presidential elections was a spoiled-brat trust-fund alcoholic war avoider who has an overinflated sense of his own self-worth, despite the fact that he has no positive achievements whatsoever to show for decades on this earth. What about that? Is that also an "evocative Republican leadership model"? Is that a "powerful Republican category"?
MEMORIES OF MOB RULE
From today's New York Times:
... Mike Huckabee us[ed] colorful language [in South Carolina] to declare the Confederate flag a states' rights issue....
"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.
"In fact," he said, "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do." ...
You mean, sort of like this, from my Boston youth?
Story:
Taken in April of 1976, the photograph is of Theodore Landsmark, an African American lawyer heading to Boston's city hall for a case. Here he encountered over one hundred and fifty anti-busing youths from South Boston and Charlesto[w]n protesting the decision to bus in students from Roxbury, an African American [neighborhood]. Entering into this, Landsmark was attacked, ironically, with an American flag, in Boston, home of the Revolution, on the 200th anniversary of the United States. The photo won freelance photographer Stanley J. Forman of the Boston Herald American a Pulitzer Prize.
Yeah, that was a proud moment, Huck. That's just what Jesus would do.
From today's New York Times:
... Mike Huckabee us[ed] colorful language [in South Carolina] to declare the Confederate flag a states' rights issue....
"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.
"In fact," he said, "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do." ...
You mean, sort of like this, from my Boston youth?
Story:
Taken in April of 1976, the photograph is of Theodore Landsmark, an African American lawyer heading to Boston's city hall for a case. Here he encountered over one hundred and fifty anti-busing youths from South Boston and Charlesto[w]n protesting the decision to bus in students from Roxbury, an African American [neighborhood]. Entering into this, Landsmark was attacked, ironically, with an American flag, in Boston, home of the Revolution, on the 200th anniversary of the United States. The photo won freelance photographer Stanley J. Forman of the Boston Herald American a Pulitzer Prize.
Yeah, that was a proud moment, Huck. That's just what Jesus would do.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
BOGUS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM ABOUT McCAIN
There's a lot to criticize in the mash note Roger Cohen wrote to John McCain in today's New York Times; Steve Benen and Bob Somerby have noted some of the problems with the piece. I'd just like to point out one persistent bit of conventional wisdom regurgitated by Cohen that's just plain wrong -- and is dangerous:
McCain was politically dead six months ago, his campaign undone by his backing of President Bush's Iraq policy. His remarkable resurgence, which has put him in the lead among Republican candidates, according to recent polls, is one measure of the Iraq shift.
In response to that, I'll defer to what Glenn Greenwald wrote exactly six months and one day ago:
It is not support for the Iraq war which dooms a GOP presidential candidacy, but the opposite: any real questioning of the wisdom of the war or any agitating for withdrawal or opposition to Bush's commitment would immediately and single-handedly destroy the viability of a GOP candidacy. Ask Ron Paul, or Chuck Hagel, or even Sam Brownback, whose flagging campaign has triggered the wrath of the base despite his radical social conservatism as a result of his ongoing questioning of Bush's Iraq policy.
The war in Iraq remains popular with the GOP base. They want to stay and keep waging war. They would immediately turn against anyone who advocated withdrawal or even questioned the wisdom of staying. The Republican Party continues to be the Party of the Iraq War, and -- directly contrary to the conventional wisdom that is arising -- loyal support for the Iraq War is an absolute pre-requisite for winning the nomination.
In fact, the only praise McCain has received over the last several months from the GOP's base is due to his unwavering support for the war. McCain's candidacy is failing not because of excessive support for the Right's war in Iraq; that was the only thing keeping it afloat. Instead, it is due to his excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views -- on torture, on McCain-Feingold, and especially on immigration.
Exactly right -- McCain floundered even as Rudy Giuliani and other Republicans who were just as gung ho about the war as McCain seemed to thrive. "Excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views" is what brought McCain low -- especially, last spring and summer, his association with what the right calls "amnesty." It was, in fact, six months and three weeks ago that the immigration bill suffered its final defeat. McCain began to pick himself up off the mat only after that fight began to fade from memory -- and after GOP voters realized they were dissatisfied with all their other choices, and began to see him as the best of a bad lot.
What's dangerous about this bit of conventional wisdom is that it reinforces the new narrative: McCain as martyr. McCain was dealt a horrible hand when he was a POW, and he got shafted in the 2000 campaign -- but this year he's exaggerating the extent to which he's a target of negative campaigning, and people like Cohen are distorting reality by portraying him as a misunderstood prophet who suffered for being right about the surge. The surge still done what it was intended to do politically in Iraq, and McCain didn't suffer for supporting it -- but portraying him as a victim is one more way the press is setting him up as the admirable guy we all should elect in November.
****
UPDATE: And, as noted in the previous post, voters in the GOP primaries who've soured on the war are voting for McCain anyway.
There's a lot to criticize in the mash note Roger Cohen wrote to John McCain in today's New York Times; Steve Benen and Bob Somerby have noted some of the problems with the piece. I'd just like to point out one persistent bit of conventional wisdom regurgitated by Cohen that's just plain wrong -- and is dangerous:
McCain was politically dead six months ago, his campaign undone by his backing of President Bush's Iraq policy. His remarkable resurgence, which has put him in the lead among Republican candidates, according to recent polls, is one measure of the Iraq shift.
In response to that, I'll defer to what Glenn Greenwald wrote exactly six months and one day ago:
It is not support for the Iraq war which dooms a GOP presidential candidacy, but the opposite: any real questioning of the wisdom of the war or any agitating for withdrawal or opposition to Bush's commitment would immediately and single-handedly destroy the viability of a GOP candidacy. Ask Ron Paul, or Chuck Hagel, or even Sam Brownback, whose flagging campaign has triggered the wrath of the base despite his radical social conservatism as a result of his ongoing questioning of Bush's Iraq policy.
The war in Iraq remains popular with the GOP base. They want to stay and keep waging war. They would immediately turn against anyone who advocated withdrawal or even questioned the wisdom of staying. The Republican Party continues to be the Party of the Iraq War, and -- directly contrary to the conventional wisdom that is arising -- loyal support for the Iraq War is an absolute pre-requisite for winning the nomination.
In fact, the only praise McCain has received over the last several months from the GOP's base is due to his unwavering support for the war. McCain's candidacy is failing not because of excessive support for the Right's war in Iraq; that was the only thing keeping it afloat. Instead, it is due to his excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views -- on torture, on McCain-Feingold, and especially on immigration.
Exactly right -- McCain floundered even as Rudy Giuliani and other Republicans who were just as gung ho about the war as McCain seemed to thrive. "Excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views" is what brought McCain low -- especially, last spring and summer, his association with what the right calls "amnesty." It was, in fact, six months and three weeks ago that the immigration bill suffered its final defeat. McCain began to pick himself up off the mat only after that fight began to fade from memory -- and after GOP voters realized they were dissatisfied with all their other choices, and began to see him as the best of a bad lot.
What's dangerous about this bit of conventional wisdom is that it reinforces the new narrative: McCain as martyr. McCain was dealt a horrible hand when he was a POW, and he got shafted in the 2000 campaign -- but this year he's exaggerating the extent to which he's a target of negative campaigning, and people like Cohen are distorting reality by portraying him as a misunderstood prophet who suffered for being right about the surge. The surge still done what it was intended to do politically in Iraq, and McCain didn't suffer for supporting it -- but portraying him as a victim is one more way the press is setting him up as the admirable guy we all should elect in November.
****
UPDATE: And, as noted in the previous post, voters in the GOP primaries who've soured on the war are voting for McCain anyway.
JOHN McCAIN -- THE WAR OPPONENTS' CHOICE?
The New York Observer's Steve Kornacki runs down John McCain's long history of fervent support for our misadventure in Iraq -- then tells us something that seems bizarre:
...But here's the punchline: McCain's resurgent campaign for the Republican nomination is, for now at least, being fueled by support from voters who say they are against the war....
In New Hampshire, 21 percent of voters in the Republican primary told exit pollsters that they "somewhat disapprove" of the war. But 49 percent of those voters cast ballots for McCain -- more than twice the total of any other candidate. Another 14 percent of the New Hampshire G.O.P. electorate said they "strongly disapprove" of the war. But McCain was their first choice as well, with 38 percent. (Ron Paul got 26.).
...The same pattern was evident in this week's Michigan primary, where McCain's nine-point loss to Mitt Romney would have been much worse had war opponents not rallied behind the Arizona Senator.
Kornacki draws just the right conclusion from this -- that you need to set aside cold logic if you want to understand it, and that the Democrats damn well need to understand it. I'm going to quote what he's written at some length because (apart from his praise of McCain) I think what he's saying is absolutely correct:
...Some voters who are against the war are certainly well aware of where McCain stands but are siding with him anyway because they think that other considerations -- whether McCain's stances on other issues or his general leadership character -- outweigh the war. The fact that ever[y] other Republican candidate also professes support for the war -- except for Paul -- makes this decision a little easier for anti-war voters.
But that alone can't account for why so many self-identified war foes are with him.... A clearer explanation can be found when you consider the degree to which mass opinion is shaped by personality and personal reputation -- and the thin to nonexistent grounding in the details of policy that most voters have.
This accounts for the pass war opponents are giving McCain. Many of them, undoubtedly, are one-time McCainiacs, independent-minded moderates and outsiders who fell in love with McCain's maverick streak (and his quick wit) in 2000 and who have rediscovered it again in 2008. They aren't aware of the significance of his decade-plus support for forced democratization, or the policy implications of the "surrender" taunts he hurls at war critics. They know him as a war hero and maverick and -- without knowing or caring much about his actual record -- intuitively trust him and his leadership.
Whatever the explanation, one thing is clear: the reasonable-sounding assumption that McCain's pro-war stance puts him off-limits to anti-war voters isn't holding up. Which means that if he ends up being the nominee, the Democrats had better have a Plan B.
Exactly. Exactly.
The New York Observer's Steve Kornacki runs down John McCain's long history of fervent support for our misadventure in Iraq -- then tells us something that seems bizarre:
...But here's the punchline: McCain's resurgent campaign for the Republican nomination is, for now at least, being fueled by support from voters who say they are against the war....
In New Hampshire, 21 percent of voters in the Republican primary told exit pollsters that they "somewhat disapprove" of the war. But 49 percent of those voters cast ballots for McCain -- more than twice the total of any other candidate. Another 14 percent of the New Hampshire G.O.P. electorate said they "strongly disapprove" of the war. But McCain was their first choice as well, with 38 percent. (Ron Paul got 26.).
...The same pattern was evident in this week's Michigan primary, where McCain's nine-point loss to Mitt Romney would have been much worse had war opponents not rallied behind the Arizona Senator.
Kornacki draws just the right conclusion from this -- that you need to set aside cold logic if you want to understand it, and that the Democrats damn well need to understand it. I'm going to quote what he's written at some length because (apart from his praise of McCain) I think what he's saying is absolutely correct:
...Some voters who are against the war are certainly well aware of where McCain stands but are siding with him anyway because they think that other considerations -- whether McCain's stances on other issues or his general leadership character -- outweigh the war. The fact that ever[y] other Republican candidate also professes support for the war -- except for Paul -- makes this decision a little easier for anti-war voters.
But that alone can't account for why so many self-identified war foes are with him.... A clearer explanation can be found when you consider the degree to which mass opinion is shaped by personality and personal reputation -- and the thin to nonexistent grounding in the details of policy that most voters have.
This accounts for the pass war opponents are giving McCain. Many of them, undoubtedly, are one-time McCainiacs, independent-minded moderates and outsiders who fell in love with McCain's maverick streak (and his quick wit) in 2000 and who have rediscovered it again in 2008. They aren't aware of the significance of his decade-plus support for forced democratization, or the policy implications of the "surrender" taunts he hurls at war critics. They know him as a war hero and maverick and -- without knowing or caring much about his actual record -- intuitively trust him and his leadership.
Whatever the explanation, one thing is clear: the reasonable-sounding assumption that McCain's pro-war stance puts him off-limits to anti-war voters isn't holding up. Which means that if he ends up being the nominee, the Democrats had better have a Plan B.
Exactly. Exactly.
BRODER STRAINS TO MAKE A POINT
David Broder is welcome to say, as he does in today's Washington Post, that American voters prefer candidates for president with "executive experience," but this is really a stretch (emphasis mine):
... By contrast [to the Democratic field], the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.
In the past, voters have preferred to entrust the White House to those with executive credentials....
Show of hands: How many of you knew McCain was a squadron commander? You knew he was in 'Nam, you knew he was a POW, but I bet you didn't know this. Possibly it was widely known in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters get a lot of face time with the candidates -- I wouldn't even bet on that -- but McCain is the leading Republican candidate nationally, and I'd wager that most of the GOP electorate across the country doesn't know this specific fact.
As far as they know, McCain is a senator -- and as Broder reminds us, no sitting senator has become president since JFK. Too bad for Broder that we're almost certain to elect a sitting senator (McCain, Clinton, or Obama) this year.
And show of hands: How many of you think a relatively short period of commanding a squadron as a young man forty years ago means that you are now, in your seventies, "accustomed to being in charge of large organizations"?
Well, Broder really likes this executive-experience idea. He brought it up last May to suggest that we just might have a general election pitting ex-governor Mike Huckabee versus ... er, sitting governor Bill Richardson. How's that scenario working out for you, David?
David Broder is welcome to say, as he does in today's Washington Post, that American voters prefer candidates for president with "executive experience," but this is really a stretch (emphasis mine):
... By contrast [to the Democratic field], the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.
In the past, voters have preferred to entrust the White House to those with executive credentials....
Show of hands: How many of you knew McCain was a squadron commander? You knew he was in 'Nam, you knew he was a POW, but I bet you didn't know this. Possibly it was widely known in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters get a lot of face time with the candidates -- I wouldn't even bet on that -- but McCain is the leading Republican candidate nationally, and I'd wager that most of the GOP electorate across the country doesn't know this specific fact.
As far as they know, McCain is a senator -- and as Broder reminds us, no sitting senator has become president since JFK. Too bad for Broder that we're almost certain to elect a sitting senator (McCain, Clinton, or Obama) this year.
And show of hands: How many of you think a relatively short period of commanding a squadron as a young man forty years ago means that you are now, in your seventies, "accustomed to being in charge of large organizations"?
Well, Broder really likes this executive-experience idea. He brought it up last May to suggest that we just might have a general election pitting ex-governor Mike Huckabee versus ... er, sitting governor Bill Richardson. How's that scenario working out for you, David?
CLOWNTIME IS OVER, UNFORTUNATELY
It's fun to think that the GOP is in chaos and that Republicans aren't going to be able to settle on a nominee anytime soon, but The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog reports on a new Pew poll that suggests (though Pew doesn't draw this conclusion) that the race might be over much sooner than expected:
...Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain, who has risen to the top of the pack nationally, is now viewed by 42% as the most electable, compared with a mere 16% in November.
McCain is rated favorably by all of the key blocs of Republican voters: white evangelicals give him 66%, other conservatives, 72%, and moderates, 74%. He gets similar ratings from all types of voters regardless of age, gender, educational attainment and the like. That's a contrast to Mike Huckabee who is viewed favorably by only 23% of conservative Republicans who aren't white evangelicals. Mitt Romney does well with that group, with 66% viewing him favorably. Rudy Giuliani's overall favorability rating has steadily declined from 88% in April 2006 to 57% this month while his unfavorable rating has jumped to 36% from 5%....
McCain has really high favorables among evangelicals? And even higher favorables among non-fundie conservatives? That doesn't fit the master narrative.
Go to the Pew's writeup of the poll and see this in chart form. Look at all those 70s in the left column! (Click to enlarge.)
McCain has a serious lead in South Carolina. He now has a small lead in Florida. (And if Rudy beats him there, so what? If we've learned nothing else this year, haven't we learned that a primary win gives you zero momentum for the following week?) And on Super Tuesday, well, Pew has pooled results for Florida and the states that vote that day. Guess who's #1? (And then after that: "McCain's lead over the rest of the field is far stronger in the states with primaries later on the calendar.")
I think McCain will finish strong wherever he doesn't win, and that'll be that -- the GOP might, astonishingly, have a candidate before Democrats do. And -- Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter notwithstanding -- rank-and-file Republicans like him.
That scares me.
It's fun to think that the GOP is in chaos and that Republicans aren't going to be able to settle on a nominee anytime soon, but The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog reports on a new Pew poll that suggests (though Pew doesn't draw this conclusion) that the race might be over much sooner than expected:
...Among Republicans, Sen. John McCain, who has risen to the top of the pack nationally, is now viewed by 42% as the most electable, compared with a mere 16% in November.
McCain is rated favorably by all of the key blocs of Republican voters: white evangelicals give him 66%, other conservatives, 72%, and moderates, 74%. He gets similar ratings from all types of voters regardless of age, gender, educational attainment and the like. That's a contrast to Mike Huckabee who is viewed favorably by only 23% of conservative Republicans who aren't white evangelicals. Mitt Romney does well with that group, with 66% viewing him favorably. Rudy Giuliani's overall favorability rating has steadily declined from 88% in April 2006 to 57% this month while his unfavorable rating has jumped to 36% from 5%....
McCain has really high favorables among evangelicals? And even higher favorables among non-fundie conservatives? That doesn't fit the master narrative.
Go to the Pew's writeup of the poll and see this in chart form. Look at all those 70s in the left column! (Click to enlarge.)
McCain has a serious lead in South Carolina. He now has a small lead in Florida. (And if Rudy beats him there, so what? If we've learned nothing else this year, haven't we learned that a primary win gives you zero momentum for the following week?) And on Super Tuesday, well, Pew has pooled results for Florida and the states that vote that day. Guess who's #1? (And then after that: "McCain's lead over the rest of the field is far stronger in the states with primaries later on the calendar.")
I think McCain will finish strong wherever he doesn't win, and that'll be that -- the GOP might, astonishingly, have a candidate before Democrats do. And -- Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter notwithstanding -- rank-and-file Republicans like him.
That scares me.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
MORE FUN WITH PUNDIT ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
From The New York Observer:
Time columnist Joe Klein created a stir at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier today when he suggested that "an element of unwitting sabotage" may be behind Bill Clinton's series of apparently off-message comments while campaigning on behalf of his wife.
Klein speculated: "He's worrying, 'Maybe she's going to be a better president than I was'."
He also suggested that Clinton was ambivalent about his wife's candidacy because, alongside those fears, "Consciously, I think that he sees her [possible] election as president as the final validation of his presidency." ...
So, according to Klein, Bill thinks Hillary could the ultimate validation of his genius -- or perhaps a succubus who'll drain him of his manly essence if she's not destroyed first!
Yes, I suppose it's entertaining to imagine what people, including her own husband, think about Hillary, but when they're searching for clues in an effort to figure this out, I wish our pundits would look someplace other than their own underpants.
From The New York Observer:
Time columnist Joe Klein created a stir at the Council on Foreign Relations earlier today when he suggested that "an element of unwitting sabotage" may be behind Bill Clinton's series of apparently off-message comments while campaigning on behalf of his wife.
Klein speculated: "He's worrying, 'Maybe she's going to be a better president than I was'."
He also suggested that Clinton was ambivalent about his wife's candidacy because, alongside those fears, "Consciously, I think that he sees her [possible] election as president as the final validation of his presidency." ...
So, according to Klein, Bill thinks Hillary could the ultimate validation of his genius -- or perhaps a succubus who'll drain him of his manly essence if she's not destroyed first!
Yes, I suppose it's entertaining to imagine what people, including her own husband, think about Hillary, but when they're searching for clues in an effort to figure this out, I wish our pundits would look someplace other than their own underpants.
JESUS WEPT
Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism makes the New York Times bestseller list, at #10.
(The list was just sent out by e-mail. It should be on the Times site this weekend.)
Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism makes the New York Times bestseller list, at #10.
(The list was just sent out by e-mail. It should be on the Times site this weekend.)
GO, RUSH, GO!
Posted at Limbaugh's site yeserday:
If McCain or Huckabee Gets the Nomination, It Will Destroy GOP
... CALLER: ... you had a woman call yesterday that just frosted me to no end that if either Huckabee or McCain won the nomination she was going to sit the election out.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: People like her, I coined a term, a call them TV Republicans, and it doesn't stand for television, it stands for tunnel vision.... If they sit out the general election, the Democrat wins it by default, whichever one of the Three Stooges wins it. Guess what? In the next four years, there's going to be probably one, maybe two Supreme Court vacancies come up. Do they really want one of the three bozos over there appointing the next two Supreme Court justices?...
RUSH: I understand what you're saying. I hate to tell you this, but she's not alone. I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party, it's going to change it forever, be the end of it. A lot of people aren't going to vote. You watch.
I love that -- I love the fact that he's trying to undermine the GOP's strongest candidate. As I've said, I still think McCain is the front-runner (check out his South Carolina numbers, including the latest poll). If he gets the nomination, he's the favorite to win. McCain skeptics like Limbaugh might be the only thing standing between America and a Chris Matthews-abetted, Maureen Dowd-abetted four more years of GOP rule. So go, Rush, go!
*****
Alas, I'm not sure Limbaugh remains the GOP Voice of God -- these days, some of the Dittoheads seem decidedly less ditto-ey. He posted another transcript yesterday, under the title "YOU MUST READ AND LISTEN TO THIS!!!" (emphasis his), and it's truly fascinating, because he's catching flak even from his own party mates, primarily on the economy, yet he refuses to bend:
... CALLER: ... for 20 years I lived by the Republican Party, and today you could hold a gun to my head and I'm not voting for a Republican. I've never in my life voted for a Democrat, and I don't want to begin, but the Republican Party betrayed people like me.
... When a man of your wealth -- yes, your wealth -- no matter what happens, you can afford it. What about guys like me out there? I've had years where I've made big six figure and years that I haven't, and, all in all, me and my wife are fairly financially stable, but do you know how expensive life is, or how much it costs to pay for health care, and why...?
RUSH: Yes, I damn well do because I do pay for it myself!
CALLER: Well, exactly.
RUSH: Let me tell you something.
CALLER: But when I talk about your wealth --
RUSH: No, no, no. Let me tell you something about this wealth business. I've been broke twice in my life. When I was 31 years old, I was making $17,000 a year. I have been fired I forgot how many times. Seven times! So I've been there. This constant refrain that I'm "out of touch," is just bogus.... What you need to hear is the truth of why it happened, so that you can make plans in the future. These are cycles, and everybody in every country and every society goes through them, and ours are not nearly as bad as people around the rest of the world are. I know health care is expensive. That's why I'm focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how do you do that? You do it with conservatism! I'm by no means out of touch on this.
... You want to fix health care? You make it like buying a hotel room. We have all kinds of choices. You can go to a Motel 6 and you can go to a Ritz Carlton. Depends how much you want to pay. Why is health care any different? ...
In other words: I don't really give a crap that you're hurting -- just shut up and eat your capitalist vegetables.
I love Rush's solution to buying health care: make it like buying a hotel room. Never mind that a hotel room is a luxury, unlike survival -- nobody has to travel for pleasure, and plenty of people can't afford to. It works for Rush, so it's good enough for everyone else. Why can't the rest of you whiners become multimillionaires too, hunh?
Oh, but Rush gets it because Rush used to get fired a lot. Well, when was Rush last fired? A quarter-century ago? Nahhh, that couldn't possibly mean he's "out of touch," right? (Or is he counting the loss of his TV show, or his Monday Night Football gig, which occurred even though his very successful radio show was ongoing?)
And he was making $17K when he was 31? Well, that was 1982, and it's the equivalent of $36,526.57 in 2007 dollars -- not a lot to raise a family on, but Limbaugh was divorced and childless and living in Kansas City. As a single guy in my early twenties, I was able to buy my own insurance a year after that on even less income than Rush's -- in New York City. But that's because the price I was paying was a tiny fraction of what you'd have to pay now, even adjusting for inflation.
*****
In comments to one of my posts yesterday, Bulworth reminded me of parallel narratives in the Obama and Huckabee campaigns -- ordinary African-Americans and evangelicals, respectively, are flocking to the candidates, but old-guard leaders are resistant. I'm sensing something similar in the GOP -- rank-and-file voters in Michigan responded to a non-free-market economic message from Romney, voters there and in other states are responding to some of Huckabee's economic populism, and McCain, damned as a RINO, is getting a second look. All the while, wingnut mandarins like Limbaugh are harrumphing in disgust.
Hmmm. Even though we might get stuck with President McCain, is it possible that fundamentalist wingnuttism is really dying?
Posted at Limbaugh's site yeserday:
If McCain or Huckabee Gets the Nomination, It Will Destroy GOP
... CALLER: ... you had a woman call yesterday that just frosted me to no end that if either Huckabee or McCain won the nomination she was going to sit the election out.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: People like her, I coined a term, a call them TV Republicans, and it doesn't stand for television, it stands for tunnel vision.... If they sit out the general election, the Democrat wins it by default, whichever one of the Three Stooges wins it. Guess what? In the next four years, there's going to be probably one, maybe two Supreme Court vacancies come up. Do they really want one of the three bozos over there appointing the next two Supreme Court justices?...
RUSH: I understand what you're saying. I hate to tell you this, but she's not alone. I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party, it's going to change it forever, be the end of it. A lot of people aren't going to vote. You watch.
I love that -- I love the fact that he's trying to undermine the GOP's strongest candidate. As I've said, I still think McCain is the front-runner (check out his South Carolina numbers, including the latest poll). If he gets the nomination, he's the favorite to win. McCain skeptics like Limbaugh might be the only thing standing between America and a Chris Matthews-abetted, Maureen Dowd-abetted four more years of GOP rule. So go, Rush, go!
*****
Alas, I'm not sure Limbaugh remains the GOP Voice of God -- these days, some of the Dittoheads seem decidedly less ditto-ey. He posted another transcript yesterday, under the title "YOU MUST READ AND LISTEN TO THIS!!!" (emphasis his), and it's truly fascinating, because he's catching flak even from his own party mates, primarily on the economy, yet he refuses to bend:
... CALLER: ... for 20 years I lived by the Republican Party, and today you could hold a gun to my head and I'm not voting for a Republican. I've never in my life voted for a Democrat, and I don't want to begin, but the Republican Party betrayed people like me.
... When a man of your wealth -- yes, your wealth -- no matter what happens, you can afford it. What about guys like me out there? I've had years where I've made big six figure and years that I haven't, and, all in all, me and my wife are fairly financially stable, but do you know how expensive life is, or how much it costs to pay for health care, and why...?
RUSH: Yes, I damn well do because I do pay for it myself!
CALLER: Well, exactly.
RUSH: Let me tell you something.
CALLER: But when I talk about your wealth --
RUSH: No, no, no. Let me tell you something about this wealth business. I've been broke twice in my life. When I was 31 years old, I was making $17,000 a year. I have been fired I forgot how many times. Seven times! So I've been there. This constant refrain that I'm "out of touch," is just bogus.... What you need to hear is the truth of why it happened, so that you can make plans in the future. These are cycles, and everybody in every country and every society goes through them, and ours are not nearly as bad as people around the rest of the world are. I know health care is expensive. That's why I'm focused not on making it more expensive, but on making it cheaper, and how do you do that? You do it with conservatism! I'm by no means out of touch on this.
... You want to fix health care? You make it like buying a hotel room. We have all kinds of choices. You can go to a Motel 6 and you can go to a Ritz Carlton. Depends how much you want to pay. Why is health care any different? ...
In other words: I don't really give a crap that you're hurting -- just shut up and eat your capitalist vegetables.
I love Rush's solution to buying health care: make it like buying a hotel room. Never mind that a hotel room is a luxury, unlike survival -- nobody has to travel for pleasure, and plenty of people can't afford to. It works for Rush, so it's good enough for everyone else. Why can't the rest of you whiners become multimillionaires too, hunh?
Oh, but Rush gets it because Rush used to get fired a lot. Well, when was Rush last fired? A quarter-century ago? Nahhh, that couldn't possibly mean he's "out of touch," right? (Or is he counting the loss of his TV show, or his Monday Night Football gig, which occurred even though his very successful radio show was ongoing?)
And he was making $17K when he was 31? Well, that was 1982, and it's the equivalent of $36,526.57 in 2007 dollars -- not a lot to raise a family on, but Limbaugh was divorced and childless and living in Kansas City. As a single guy in my early twenties, I was able to buy my own insurance a year after that on even less income than Rush's -- in New York City. But that's because the price I was paying was a tiny fraction of what you'd have to pay now, even adjusting for inflation.
*****
In comments to one of my posts yesterday, Bulworth reminded me of parallel narratives in the Obama and Huckabee campaigns -- ordinary African-Americans and evangelicals, respectively, are flocking to the candidates, but old-guard leaders are resistant. I'm sensing something similar in the GOP -- rank-and-file voters in Michigan responded to a non-free-market economic message from Romney, voters there and in other states are responding to some of Huckabee's economic populism, and McCain, damned as a RINO, is getting a second look. All the while, wingnut mandarins like Limbaugh are harrumphing in disgust.
Hmmm. Even though we might get stuck with President McCain, is it possible that fundamentalist wingnuttism is really dying?
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