Wednesday, May 15, 2013

WHERE THEY'RE COMING FROM.

It's a springtime for scandal in D.C., and most of the brethren are luxuriating in it. But there's a weird nervousness to their energy, and I think I see where it's coming from. DaTechGuy:
As a criminal investigation begins we’ve seen some the “I” word, Impeachment thrown about.

Now a lot of that is on twitter, but that’s no big deal, a lot of words are thrown about on twitter, but some of it has been thrown around in the press.

The funny thing is a lot of the people doing so are of the left,

This is not an accident, the left understand that talk of impeachment now would be a disaster, not to the president, but to those building the case against him.
He then tells us a story from Tip O'Neill's autobiography about how, back in Nixontime, Rep. Robert Drinan's early impeachment bill was briefly an impediment to the later successful impeachment drive, and comments:
I’ll wager not too may members of the Tea Party have read O’Neill’s book, nor GOP members of congress but I’ll wager plenty of people on the left have. They understand that if the GOP moves early, before democrats are on board, it becomes a party issue so they are going to do their best to force our hand before the facts are in evidence.
I don't know what's crazier -- that he thinks The Left is trying to protect Obama by talking about impeaching him (are Rep. Jason Chaffetz and all the other wingnuts talking about it double agents, then?), or that he thinks we all read Tip O'Neill's autobiography. (I guess nobody told him we only read Alinsky and porn.)

Over at National Review, the excitable Charles C.W. Cooke has an article celebrating the traditional conservative distrust of government, but goes a great deal further than the usual arghblargh. He calls the Founders' writings on the subject "codified paranoia" and seems to mean it positively ("and America is better off for it"); in fact, his article is called "In Praise of Paranoia." He affects to believe the recent IRS fuckup is "government tyranny" and says, "the IRS has done America a considerable favor... Next time an authoritarian [!!] explains how, say, a national gun registry will be just swell — and labels its naysayers as neurotic — his opponents will have a new and useful shorthand: 'IRS scandal.'" (For this analogy with the Tea Party scam to be perfect, actually, the people trying to get guns would have be intending to murder someone with them, and the tyranny would be that some of them would be delayed by the government in doing so.)

Later, chatting about his essay with friends, Cooke adds:
Odd as it might sound, having a sizeable portion of the population reflexively take the view that the government would hurt them if it could is, I think, a good thing. There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?
Cooke has said some pretty crazy things on this head before, but now reveals himself quite literally committed to irrationality. I don't think he's the only one. For years they've cherished this dream, and now something shimmering in the distance convinces them that it's come true. They've been waiting for Amok Time so long that they can't even hold back enough to make it look good.

52 comments:

  1. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard8:27 PM

    There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?

    Paranoia the destroyer, but, hey, it's creative destruction.

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  2. Waffle_Man8:28 PM

    "the IRS has done America a considerable favor... Next time an authoritarian explains how, say, a national gun registry will be just swell — and labels its naysayers as neurotic — his opponents will have a new and useful shorthand: 'IRS scandal.'"

    It will also be a handy shorthand to argue against Guantanamo, FISA, the Patriot Act, and Drone Courts!

    Well, as I've said here to much scorn, it's always bizarre to me how a big chunk of Republicans seem to think that the IRS using naive political criterion to judge people (Which, mind you, I also don't like) is the first step to the government sending secret agents and evil robots to kill and imprison political undesirables based on secret laws and secret evidence, and meanwhile the fact that the government already demonstrably does that isn't seen as a scandal worth mentioning.

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  3. Spaghetti Lee8:38 PM

    his opponents will have a new and useful shorthand: 'IRS scandal.'"

    Because if there's one thing the GOP has lacked until now, it's slogans and shorthands.

    Odd as it might sound, having a sizeable portion of the population reflexively take the view that the government would hurt them if it could is, I think, a good thing.



    Oh, there's nothing odd about it, Charles. "We on the left" have known for years that conservatives like it when people live in fear, because fear provides votes. The only thing that's new is your meta-awareness of it.

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  4. Jay B.8:44 PM

    By the way, Drinian was fucking right. He wanted Nixon impeached over Cambodia, an illegal bombing campaign that killed tens of thousands and pretty much pointed the way to the Killing Fields.

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  5. Yes, but the teabags know that you don't cry Havoc and let slip the Wolverines of War until the U.N. sends in the Cubans.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc

    ~

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  6. Jay B.8:46 PM

    There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?


    Say what you will about mass hysteria, but I never thought it would have adherents.

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  7. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard9:03 PM

    Sure, people are pooping their pants in fear, and some of them will go off the deep end, harming themselves and others, but it sure makes political sense!

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  8. Derelict9:17 PM

    Half the right's problem, though, is that they're talking in code to one another. Average people hear this stuff and wonder just what's wrong with these wingnuts. What's an Alinsky? Tip who?

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  9. If people are going to be unreasonable — and they certainly are – it’s better that they’re unreasonably scared


    OMG TEH SALTY SNACKS AND SODA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  10. There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black
    helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?


    Not when the people the black helicopter crowd send to Washington end up preventing us from having a functioning government it isn't. Putz.

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  11. AngryWarthogBreath10:14 PM

    (I guess nobody told him we only read Alinsky and porn.)

    Takes too long. I now exclusively read Alinsky porn. I mean, obviously, you've got the traditional Alinsky/Helene Simon, Alinsky/Jean Graham, and Alinsky/Irene McInnis, and there's always Alinsky/Adlai Stevenson for a little spice, but I gotta say, the hottest Alinsky porn out there is always Alinsky/Humanised America. Despite the order written, Alinsky typically starts off as a bottom, but ends up a top by the end of the porn - that's what he really meant by saying that Rules for Radicals was about taking power from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. Oh, yeah.

    I do believe that impeachment sounds stupid now, but I don't automatically let that persuade me that anyone saying it is actually a leftist playing at least five dimensional chess. Because impeachment of Obama has always sounded stupid, will always sound stupid (unless he actually commits some high crime; it's always a possibility, I s'pose), and already sounded stupid when they started ringing the bell for it approximately two minutes after he was sworn in. Sure, the current bloc of Republican crazypants are shooting themselves in the foot by bringing it up... but that's what we can rely on them to do. Shoot on, you crazy foot-shooters. Shoot on.

    (As long as you keep aiming at your foot, and not, for example, accidentally shoot a billion kids again.)

    There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn't it positive that people are worried about them?

    Yep, this is the pile-on line.

    No, Mr. Cooke. No, it is not. Because there are no black helicopters and there will never be any black helicopters. Witness the following.

    - "There are no reptilian aliens controlling the British royal family and there may never be any reptilian aliens controlling the British royal family. But isn't it positive that people are worried about them?"
    - "There is no Communist plot to pollute our precious bodily fluids and there may never be any Communist plot to pollute our precious bodily fluids. But isn't it positive that people are worried about it?"
    - "There are no Protocols of the Elders of Zion* and there may never be any Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But isn't it positive that people are worried about them?"
    - "There is no abortionist conspiracy to kill all the precious babies and there may never be any abortionist conspiracy to kill all the precious babies. But isn't it positive that people are worried about it?"


    See, Mr. Cooke? It is not positive to worry about something that will not happen. I know you think that it's helpful in preventing it from happening. But it's not. Because real things are happening, and your craziness over fake things happening makes things worse. For example, if you hadn't spent years screaming "BENGHAZI WE WERE LIED TO REMOVE OBAMA AND CLINTON BECAUSE THEY'RE SECRET MURDERERS", perhaps we could have spent some time thinking about what we can do to make sure good diplomats don't get killed in future.


    ...Of course, he doesn't see, he doesn't intend to see, and I've just written three of his next columns for him. (Only three. That last one about the abortionist conspiracy is all his columns already.)

    * YES. YES, I WENT THERE.

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  12. KatWillow10:33 PM

    Well, some people are worried about drones, but apparently not the wingers.

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  13. "having a sizeable portion of the population reflexively take the view that the government would hurt them if it could is, I think, a good thing."



    Just substitute "God" for "government" and it all makes sense.

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  14. AGoodQuestion11:03 PM

    History suggests that impeachment won't happen unless and until evidence surfaces of Obama getting his dick sucked. At which point the Village will turn on him en masse, the spirit of Broder rising from his grave to demand an ouster.

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  15. AGoodQuestion11:08 PM

    There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters. But isn’t it positive that people are worried about them?


    There always seems to be some concern when something black rises above its station.

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  16. Spaghetti Lee11:12 PM

    Have blowjob-Americans truly made no progress over the last 16 years? What's the matter with this country?!

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  17. redoubt11:14 PM

    Why not quote one of the fail parade of Republican House Speakers. . .

    (never mind)

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  18. "Amok Time"

    You keep saying you're not a fan.

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  19. I don't know what's crazier…

    Good list, and I'll add – he believes the facts are so compelling that Democrats can be convinced to impeach Obama, that the public will pressure Dems to do so… and that Obama deserves impeachment over the IRS "scandal"? Not even the sexier Benghazi non-scandal instead?

    I don't know what the exact breakdown was for congressional Republicans when it came to impeaching Nixon, but let's suppose one factor was actual disapproval of his actions, and another was that it would be political suicide at that point to try to save him. (I suspect the latter was much more compelling.) DaTechGuy honestly believes Obama deserves impeachment? (It's not as rightwingers oppose routine imperialism, after all.) Rightwingers really do live in an alternative reality.

    Added comedy about the high principles of the Republicans:

    "it becomes a party issue"

    "The congress HAS to be perceived as investigating facts."

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  20. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume12:31 AM

    I’ll wager not too may members of the Tea Party have read O’Neill’s book


    I'll wager Tip O'Neill didn't read his fucking book.

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  21. What happened to the muslims?

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  22. Spaghetti Lee3:15 AM

    A quibble: As I understand it, the Noble Lie as proposed by Plato is meant to maintain peace and civility. This updated version is meant to maintain fear and hatred. Once again, conservatives show how they can take something bad and make it worse.

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  23. montag23:39 AM

    Explains One-L, fer sure. That Old Testament IRS was a motherfucker.

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  24. smut clyde6:41 AM

    Everything is better with Trebuchets.

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  25. This guy really believes the British accent mitigates the dumb and crazy.


    Silly Limey, that shit only works on the NRO crowd.

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  26. Adrian7:21 AM

    Don't tell the Wingnuts but these "scandals" are all part of a giant conspiracy aimed at getting a Democrat in the WH in 2016.

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  27. mortimer7:41 AM

    DaTechGuy honestly believes Obama deserves impeachment?

    Most wingnuts do. For the high crime and misdemeanor of being reelected.

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  28. DBake8:03 AM

    To listen to the amateur philosophizing of Obama and Blow is to be unhappily reminded of a 1767 essay, “On Public Happiness,” in which that execrable Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau argues terrifyingly that one should “give man to the State or leave him entirely to himself.”

    Listening to that moron Joe Biden is to be unhappily reminded of the notebooks of that damnable kraut, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

    Hearing that harpy Nancy Pelosi speak puts one in the mind of Middlemarch a tedious novel vomited out by notorious limey transvestite George Eliot.

    Reading the twaddle of George Soros can only call to mind some unholy melange of the writing of that loathsome Scot, Andrew Carnegie, as channelled by that verbose and shallow Brit, John Stuart Mill.

    Jon Stewart is so terrible, he reminds me of Aristophanes, Moliere, and Mark Twain all at once!

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  29. DBake8:04 AM

    well, it made more sense with the italics.

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  30. More specifically, "being reelected while unheartlandishly-hued."

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  31. montag28:13 AM

    Now I'm getting images of Tea Partiers launching Hoverounds into the building with giant slingshots.


    Although it would be much more symbolic were they to choose the Medicare offices.

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  32. BigHank538:17 AM

    I'm actually wondering where Mr. Cooke purchases trousers made of 100% Teflon, so he can just hose them out every couple hours.

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  33. Is the Klu Klux Klan a tax-exempt political group? Would anyone (other than white supremacists) get upset if the rest of us questioned the KKK's claim of tax-exempt status as a political organization? Not sure why rational and decent folks feel the teabaggers are any different.

    Be that as it may, there are just waayyyyy too many exemptions for groups and individuals from contributing their fair share to the nation's stability, including (IMHO) ANY mythological reenactment group (aka religions).

    As long as we have these ridiculous and arbitrary standards for who is allowed a free ride at the expense of the rest of us, we're always going to give rope to paranoids claiming bias.

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  34. There are no black helicopters and there may never be any black helicopters.


    But if there were, Republcans would find a way to: (1) steer the black helicopter-building contracts to their corrupt business buddies; (2) plunder the Treasury by shamelessly overcharging taxpayers for the black helicopters; and (3) in the event that any black helicopters were actually delivered, make sure that their hostility to quality and safety regulations makes the black helicopters intrinsically dangerous to operate.


    So yes, a sizeable portion of the population might indeed reflexively take the view that the government could hurt them, once people started getting crushed on a regular basis by falling black helicopters. Mission accomplished!

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  35. tigrismus9:00 AM

    If people are going to be unreasonable — and they certainly are – it’s better that they’re unreasonably scared



    Yeah, that certainly sounds reasonable. Wait, what?

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  36. Uncle Kvetch9:35 AM

    Say what you will about mass hysteria, but I never thought it would have adherents.


    Hey, at least it's an ethos.

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  37. satch9:37 AM

    Haven't we crossed some kind of Rubicon when wingnuts from Mitch McConnell to Cal Thomas refer to Obama's actions as "positively Nixonian"? Jeez... these are the same people who for years have been defending Nixon while at the same time searching for the Obama version of Watergate, and who are only now realizing they can't do both. It's actually a pleasure watching these twerps trampling Nixon's corpse and throwing it into a lime pit while feverishly maintaining that 'See... Obama's even WORSE!!11!!"

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  38. satch9:47 AM

    Robin Williams first identified the problem in 1987 in "Good Morning, Vietnam", and here we are, twenty six years later, still in dire need...

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  39. Halloween_Jack9:49 AM

    Well, there are "black helicopters", metaphorically speaking, in the form of a huge, largely unoverseen security apparatus that is directed mostly at the same people who fund it (quoth Alec Baldwin in The Departed: "Patriot Act, Patriot Act! I love it, I love it, I love it!"). They are unmarked, save for a single acronym, stenciled on the side in low-contrast matte black: IOKIYAR.

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  40. Halloween_Jack9:50 AM

    Your comment is like Colbert meets Flaubert.


    AFAIK

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  41. Halloween_Jack9:52 AM

    *tents fingers* We'll catch him citing a "Kobayashi Maru scenario" one of these days, just you wait...

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  42. Mr. Wonderful10:52 AM

    I would like to give this comment a token of my esteem.

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  43. Eh, it would just be giving a label to the topic of most of his posts.

    (Though if he ever decides to retire the "alicublog" moniker, "Kobayashi Maru America" would be a nice replacement.)

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  44. IOKIYAR.

    Wait, wait, wait. Next you'll be telling me that the IRS investigated liberal groups, too, or that subpoenaing AP communications in a leak investigation is small potatoes compared to illegal warrantless wiretapping on a nationwide scale. And I'm pretty sure I would have heard congressional Republicans loudly denouncing those things, too, if they could spare any outrage from their relentless investigation of all those Bush-era consulate attacks.

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  45. The schadenfreude pie is even tastier, as there have also been a few mentions of "Iran-Contra." Why, it might almost be worth the destruction of the last vestiges of functional government, if it means the GOP is willing to scrape the whitewash off of Saint Ronnie's sepulchre to do it.

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  46. AngryWarthogBreath11:43 AM

    The ignoble lie! The baseborn lie! The by-idiots-for-idiots lie!

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  47. billcinsd11:46 AM

    you say potatoe, I say potatah

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  48. TomParmenter1:07 PM

    My friend Marty called Drinan's office the day he came out with impeachment and got Fighting Father Bob himself on the line. "I'm calling to complain about impeaching Nixon." "Yes," the Congressman answered. "What took you so long?"

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  49. smut clyde4:08 PM

    I am sure that Cooke shared the concerns about "irrational exuberance" in the expansionary, pre-crash phase of the Bush economy. I just can't find his warnings on the Interweb.

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  50. smut clyde4:14 PM

    On the subject of carbon emissions, Cooke believes that concerns about global climate are MISGUIDED PARANOIA, whipped up by those who would manipulate the masses. Thus a BADTHING and evidence of (to be charitable) cognitive incompetence on the part of people who are concerned.

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  51. He should name all his columns after old episodes, just to see if anyone notices.

    "THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING. Obama's turnaround on drones doesn't exactly impress, but..."

    "FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW, AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY. We haven't looked in on our friend Dreher, lately..."

    and so on.

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  52. Didn;t Monty Python do that skit?

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