Thursday, October 17, 2013

THE ASSHOLIFICATION OF ASSHOLES.

There's already been enough conservative blubbering over the shutdown-shutdown -- as well as declarations of Good News for (People Who Want to Murder) John McCain -- that I could fill up my Voice columns with it for the rest of the year. But there's something particularly weird about Daniel Henninger's sobfest in the Wall Street Journal, in which he accuses Obama of "Romneyizing the Republicans." At first I thought he meant Obama deviously finagled Romney onto the 2012 GOP ticket, the way Deep Throat suggested Nixon did to the Democrats with McGovern in 1972. No such luck:
As in the presidential campaign against Mitt Romney, the Twitter feeds going out in the name of the president of the United States are virtually wall-to-wall propaganda...
Barack Obama is Romneyizing the Republicans. He's doing to Ted Cruz and the House Republicans what he did to Mitt Romney and the 1%. It may be voter brainwashing, but in the expanded media age in which we all marinate, it works.
Though he uses words like "brainwashing" and "propaganda," Henninger doesn't tell us what things Obama said about Ted Cruz and the House Republicans that were untrue -- and in any event they have been no worse than what Republicans have been saying about Ted Cruz themselves. Henninger complains the way a murderer may complain that the cop has put the cuffs on too tight:
Everyone recalls the 2012 campaign's carpet bombing of "the wealthiest," even after they'd been shelled with a tax increase. Barack Obama has found—actually, it was handed to him—a scapegoat analogous to "the wealthiest" and "the banks" for his campaign to suppress votes for GOP candidates in the 2014 elections. It's "tea party Republicans."
As "'the wealthiest'" (by whom I guess Henninger means the wealthiest) do not attract my sympathy even when they have been "shelled" by a six percent tax increase, and as the "tea party Republicans" were "handed to him" by the fucking Republicans themselves, I am left with the impression that Henninger is mad because the President has fought back against his political enemies, which is considered unsporting in a Democrat.

There's actually one way Henninger's proper-name-to-verb usage makes sense: In the sense of Vietnamization, the process by which Nixon was supposed to transfer responsibility for the war from the Americans who'd been fighting it on their behalf to the ARVN. Conservatives are used to talking about the Tea Party and its affiliated nutcake causes as if they were natural patriotic reactions to the tyrannical reign of the Kenyan Pretender. Phony scandals, birtherism, noisy buffoons in Colonial Williamsburg costumes -- these were all described as natural phenomena. But like the AVRN, they have been kept afloat by the largesse of wealthy patrons. Maybe by "Romneyization" Henninger is signaling that these people have been cut loose by The Movement, and must sink or swim on their own. Wingnut welfare never runs out, of course, but it may be better invested in the future.

UPDATE. Fixed misrendered acronym -- thanks, readers, for letting me know.

153 comments:

  1. Mark_Bzzzz11:20 AM

    Obama's hand has been incredibly strengthened by the failed debacle of the government shutdown. The stench of failure that hangs over the Republican party will keep them in a weakened state at least until the election in 2014, maybe for the rest of his term.

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  2. As in the presidential campaign against Mitt Romney, the Twitter feeds going out in the name of the president of the United States are virtually wall-to-wall propaganda...


    He's just upset because Twitter was supposed to be the GOP's secret weapon.

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  3. Barack Obama has found—actually, it was handed to him—a scapegoat analogous to "the wealthiest" and "the banks" for his campaign to suppress votes for GOP candidates in the 2014 elections. It's "tea party Republicans."


    That's a really unfair way to treat the people who are calling you a Nazi.

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  4. Mango from the comments:

    I am not sure if it's the tea party or the GOP that he turned into political toast. It may be the GOP. I think that the GOP is ultimately doomed because it offers no real alternative to the Dem. Party. What's going to happen is that the Dems are going to destroy the GOP, and then it will be a battle between the Dems and the Tea Party. The Tea Party may be a small minority, but in the end, wars are won by small minorities, and I believe that the Dem model is simply not sustainable. In the end something has got to replace the Dem Party, just as it is now replacing the GOP. And when it does, it could very well be the Tea Party--or something even more extreme.

    I like the bit I highlighted: The Tea Party may be a small minority, but in the end, wars are won by small minorities.



    Wars may be, but elections aren't.

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  5. Mr. Wonderful11:37 AM

    Well, wait. Yes, "in the end" something will replace the Dem Party, but it will be Mother Nature reclaiming the Earth itself, after Republicans and Tea Partiers alike have helped usher in the extinction of the human race. How's that for an "end," Mr. Pundit?

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  6. Mr. Wonderful11:41 AM

    a scapegoat analogous to "the wealthiest" and "the banks"


    Ooh, scare quotes. But two can play at that game. Watch this:


    "'The wealthiest'" and "'the banks'" deserve all the bombing we can give them.


    Note how my added apostrophe neutralizes your feeble quotation-mark snark. Your orthography-fu, like your analysis, sucks.

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  7. M. Krebs11:53 AM

    It depends on who counts the votes.

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  8. Bethany Spencer11:59 AM

    Is s/he admitting the Tea Party is extreme?

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  9. I think she finally saw all those "fnords" she was subconsciously typing into the Congressional record.

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  10. pillsy12:35 PM

    I can't quite express just how much I'm looking to Monday's "Runnin' Scared".

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  11. FMguru12:37 PM

    All those whats? I'm sorry, I couldn't make out what you typed just there,

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  12. tigrismus12:38 PM

    He's doing to Ted Cruz and the House Republicans what he did to Mitt Romney and the 1%.


    What, beating them?

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  13. Conservatives do like to really fuck around with proportionality. I recall Fox News once referred to the Israel-Lebanon War of 2006 as "Hezbollah's month-long assault on Israel" - this being the war, you recall, where some handful of Israelis were killed by stray mortars while Israel was leveling entire apartment blocks in Lebanon.

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  14. pillsy12:39 PM

    Ah, yes. Another dispatch from Wingnuttia, where placing arbitrary and capricious legal obstructions in the way of minority voters is "combatting voter fraud", and saying unkind but truthful things about Republicans is a "campaign to suppress votes". Have I mentioned today how much I hate these people?


    Because I really, really hate these people.

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  15. They're like a little child who hits you and you call them a jerk, and immediately they're shouting, "Mooooommmm! He just called me a jerk for NO REASON!"

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  16. tigrismus12:40 PM

    The Tea Party may be a small minority, but in the end, wars are won by small minorities


    This always happens except for when it doesn't.

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  17. Oh, they rarely deny it. As with all things, it's okay when conservatives do it and a horrible abomination when liberals do it. But I've seen many a conservative repeating MLK's quote, "When you are right you cannot be too radical" (and yes, they generally leave off the second half). To them, it essentially means "fuck the will of the people."

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  18. FMguru12:45 PM

    There's a cartoon on the cover of a Family Circus collection that featured a crying Jeffy running towards his mother, screaming "DOLLY HIT ME BACK!" that always comes to mind in these situations.


    Any internet greybeards remember the good ol' Dysfunctional Family Circus? Good times, good times.

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  19. Henninger writes, "The Washington GOP is now a political Gulliver, tied down by tweets and twerks."
    This is a very astute observation, actually. The Tea Partite has been rubbing their ass in the face of their GOP colleagues for a while now, and I'm not surprised that the writer has noticed the stench of fecal matter emanating from the Republican side of the aisle. Maybe a few thousand copies of the WSJ can wipe up the mess.

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  20. It was tragic: they spent so much time writing blog posts and National Review columns about how conservatives need to harness the power of social media that they forgot to, y'know, do it.

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  21. Formerly_Nom_De_Plume12:48 PM

    the Twitter feeds going out in the name of the president of the United States are virtually wall-to-wall propaganda...


    "And dammit, this employee of the Murdoch Empire won't stand for it!"

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  22. The Tea Partite has been rubbing their ass in the face of their GOP colleague


    Jesus, I just ate.

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  23. carolannie12:55 PM

    We can only hope

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  24. Maybe by "Romneyization" Henninger is signaling that these people have been cut loose by The Movement,


    Since everyone is playing the quotation marks game: Henniger is signaling that these "people" have been "cut loose" by The "Movement." Because I don't actually expect the GOP's base of Bircher Talibornagain seditious dumbshit psychopaths to relinquish their decades-in-the-making control of the party any time soon. I mean, Republicans supposedly learned the lesson from last November that they needed to be better at disguising their vicious, deranged agenda, and we've just seen how well that turned out.

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  25. Hey, now. As a wise man once said, "First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they win, then they laugh at you some more, and eventually they win enough to go back to ignoring you again."

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  26. redoubt12:58 PM

    "In the long run we are all Republicans." Zombie John Maynard Keynes

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  27. The Tea Party may be a small minority, but in the end, wars are won by small minorities.


    It would be really awesome if this were somehow the same person who was invoking Clausewitz in that NRO comment.

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  28. tigrismus1:03 PM

    I've been reminded of "Not Me" any time one of these bozos opened flapped his gums about "Obama's sequester" and "Obama's shut down."

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  29. redoubt1:03 PM

    When you sleep in and miss, oh, all of world history since the Thirty Years' War, you tend to make statements like this.

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  30. BigHank531:04 PM

    Dear Tea Party Caucus:

    Do you remember how much fun you had getting elected, when you ranted about the evils of big government in DC? Do you remember how Mr. Adelson and Mr. Friess and the Kochs were all to happy to give you money and helpful pre-written bills and rides on their airplanes? Do you remember how much fun it was to sneer at the stupid poors and the selfish olds and the moochers who were dumb enough to get sick? The easy, slow-moving targets of reproductive rights and homosexuality? (Though that last one can scoot, can't it? Well. Better luck next time...)

    My, the fun you had with your speeches and insinuations and denouncements of Obamacare and dark muttering about impeachment! It was a hoot! Fox News assured you daily that you could do no wrong, and pundits everywhere stroked their chins and nodded seriously at the stuff coming out of your ignorant pie-holes.

    But. Then you decided to stop muttering darkly and casting aspersions and Do Something. And the Something you decided to do was this: threaten the Money. And you forgot that while Mr. Adelson and Mr. Friess and the Kochs were so entertained by your antics that they would have been willing to give you the spare change out of the couch cushions for basically forever, what all of them really, really care about, more than anything else, is their Money.

    And you tried to fuck with their Money.

    Anyway, we're looking forward to your visit. We already have a great room picked out for you!


    Cordially yours,
    Oblivion

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  31. coozledad1:06 PM

    in the end, wars are won by small minorities.



    So, Adolf, why are sitting in this bunker shitting razors? Judging from the number of Russian motherfuckers outside, we have this thing totally dicked!


    Fuck you guys, I'm going out to get some sun.

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  32. BigHank531:07 PM

    With only 140 characters it's hard to make blowing a 70-year-old billionaire sound good.

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  33. redoubt1:07 PM

    Maybe a few thousand copies of the WSJ can wipe up the mess.
    "Elephant-cage liner for $200, Alex."

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  34. tigrismus1:07 PM

    Ha, or when your knowledge of military history consists solely of "David and Goliath", "Jericho", and "that one with the drinking like a dog at the creek, what was that again."

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  35. You mean Mitt Romney, tigrismus?



    The 1% are doing better than ever.
    ~

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  36. Seeing that your food hasn't been inspected in two weeks, it would be unfair to blame keta for any nausea you may experience.

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  37. M. Krebs1:18 PM

    Upvote for Freemason 1st class.

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  38. I'll add the Goldwater quote, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice." The problem is, the 'baggers define liberty as the freedom to be evicted from your house because crushing medical bills have pauperized you.

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  39. DocAmazing1:33 PM

    Remember, accurate reporting and properly-sourced quotes constitute libel. That's why they avoid committing those acts themselves.

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  40. L Bob Rife1:35 PM

    Damn, and I was so looking forward to an Acculurated article claiming twerking as inherently conservative.

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  41. zencomix1:37 PM

    Willard: Who's in charge here, soldier?
    Infantryman: Ain't you?
    ...
    Willard: Soldier, do you know who's in command here?
    The Roach: Yeah. [turns away]

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  42. L Bob Rife1:43 PM

    Oh, well, I'll settle for whatever Dukeßhakelegende they come up with.

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  43. Jay B.1:43 PM

    The Ghost of Grandpa is right now haunting Obama over that whole WWII Memorial thing.


    "When I was a private, I wouldn't even have to see the likes of you."

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  44. KatWillow1:47 PM

    Propaganda, brainwashing, voter fraud, media bias... are all effective GOP tools. Naturally they assume the Opposition uses them too, only its not fair, waaaaaaah!

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  45. Jay B.1:50 PM

    his campaign to suppress votes for GOP candidates in the 2014 elections


    Dude, pro tip, when complaining of the other side's propaganda don't unironically use Orwellian language to describe normal political campaigns.

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  46. Derelict2:03 PM

    As always, the conservatives use a Mossburg street-sweeper shotgun on their own feet, then complain that somehow those villainous Democrats made them shoot themselves.

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  47. ohsopolite2:03 PM

    These days we just have to make do with
    http://www.nietzschefamilycircus.com/

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  48. PulletSurprise2:16 PM

    Silly me, I thought that persuading someone to vote for you was effective campaigning. In Teabilly world, it's disenfranchisement.

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  49. ADHDJ2:29 PM

    Let's not forget about the contributions of Congresswoman Ida Know (R-Eh, let's say Michigan)

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  50. XeckyGilchrist2:35 PM

    Werll, yerss, but it's about *how* he does it. By letting them yap and make it clear to the voters just what dickweeds they are.

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  51. Jaime Oria2:36 PM

    I don't see any method...at all.

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  52. XeckyGilchrist2:40 PM

    And if not, it's not like the voters won't be getting several hundred more reminders of what assholes these yayhoos are.

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  53. Chris J2:41 PM

    Yes: Army of the Republic of Vietnam

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  54. PersonaAuGratin2:52 PM

    Nah, you're thinking of mARViN, which makes energy efficient windows and doors.

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  55. MikeJ2:58 PM

    Nah, Marvin made the illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

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  56. LittlePig3:12 PM

    wars are won by small minorities.

    Ask the boys at Thermopylae how that worked out.

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  57. reallyaimai3:13 PM

    So campaigning and governing are now revealed as just a cover for Obama's spiteful determination not to accept Republican policies? Is the proper role for a Democratic candidate to stand silent in the public square and just pray that people notice him? Everything else is "propaganda" and unfair manipulation of the voter? Somehow this reminds me of the christianist assertion that jews really know that jesus is lord we are just too spiteful and selfish and ornery to admit it.

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  58. reallyaimai3:14 PM

    Thats what the check is for.

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  59. reallyaimai3:17 PM

    Jeez, who downvoted you?

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  60. reallyaimai3:18 PM

    I actually laid in a supply of pre-war vintage frozen chicken fingers at the start of the shutdown, in case I never dared buy chicken again.

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  61. PersonaAuGratin3:21 PM

    You DO NOT want to see Daniel Henninger and Dorothy Rabinowitz twerking. Trust me.

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  62. Mark_Bzzzz3:22 PM

    Chickens have fingers?

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  63. satch3:32 PM

    I think I'm going to hold off on the gloating till after the 2014 election. Why, you ask? Google "Louie Gohmert to run for senate ", but before you do, be sure to lock away any sharp objects you might have lying around, and pad the corners of your keyboard.

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  64. satch3:33 PM

    Don't tell me a One-Percenter actually reads THIS blog...

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  65. reallyaimai3:36 PM

    And clams have legs.

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  66. tigrismus3:37 PM

    Hmm, Mitt Romney DOES have a lot of time on his hands nowadays...

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  67. ADHDJ3:39 PM

    Does he believe that people were brainwashed by a few tweets and/or booty dancing into the belief that shutting down our government and blowing up our economy were bad things? Or that without Obama's tweets, people would be happy the government was shut down?

    Something super crazy like "George Soros has a mind control satellite that melted Ted Cruz's brain" would at least explain the events that took place. (Hmm.. maybe that's what he's getting at with the bit about "twerking" -- Miley Cyrus' butt has some kind of supernatural mind control powers? If we were talking about Beyonce, maybe, but Ms. Cyrus simply doesn't have enough juice in the caboose for that to be plausible.)

    What is his alternate, fantasy world scenario? Were people supposed to instantly fall in love with Ted Cruz and call for a coup to make him President, and this totally would've happened without the existence of Twitter? (The "Reverse Arab Spring"?)

    Or without those tweets, does he think people *wouldn't* think the Tea Party was responsible for the shutdown? The Tea Party spent two weeks bragging about how they shut down the government and were going to do everything possible to trigger a default! Those dirty liberals, constantly shoving TV cameras in Ted Cruz's face! What's a humble man like Cruz to do in such a situation but spend 16 hours reading Dr. Seuss into the Congressional Record? So not fair.

    What was the message that got distorted here? This is like a Frito-Lay executive complaining that Cheetos aren't selling because of false rumors that they are "dangerously cheesy." Or someone from Mountain Dew say that their product has been unfairly depicted as having an X-treme taste.


    Being fucking nutjobs with no plan was the brand all along!

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  68. redoubt3:41 PM

    Shake Your Honkymaker

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  69. ADHDJ3:44 PM

    Or Ted Yoho. Definitely doesn't stand for "You Only Heave Once".

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  70. Smut Clyde4:26 PM

    In the end, wars are won by small minorities.


    "The Mouse that Roared" was not a documentary, dude.

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  71. L Bob Rife4:29 PM

    That's from Pantload Fartadelic's "Citizen's United Under a Groove" album, right?

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  72. Smut Clyde4:30 PM

    Propaganda, brainwashing, voter fraud, media bias

    ...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope...

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  73. What I find curious in all this is that the Koch Brothers essentially designed the shutdown plan and goaded the Tea Party on leading up to it, only to disavow all ties with it the moment it became unpopular. Don't get me wrong - that's not the part I find curious. We have always been at war with Eastasia and all that.


    Now, I'm not saying the Koch Brothers have half a functioning brain between them, but they have to have seen this coming. Surely they didn't expect the American people, in contradiction of all polls and indicators thus far, to rise up in support of the shutdown, demanding to be freed from the oppression of slightly more affordable healthcare.


    So what was the Kochs' angle in all this? Was the shutdown plan just a shiny new toy to keep the Tea Partiers occupied, which they didn't expect the TPers to actually use?

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  74. Smut Clyde4:35 PM

    The Ghost of Grandpa is right now haunting Obama

    Given the allusion to Gremper's Ghost, I am now legally obliged to link to "Sleeping Planet".

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  75. L Bob Rife4:38 PM

    Twerkkrafterzetzung - "impeding the progress of True Patriots by distracting the sheeple with Youtube videos"

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  76. Horribly - they got the Frank Miller treatment. *shudder*

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  77. Smut Clyde4:48 PM

    When did Shakira's Ass become the symbol of the Democratic Party?

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  78. whetstone4:49 PM

    Recall how after it was over, the GOP promised that it would duplicate the incredible modern messaging machine the



















    Obama















    team created across every available new-information platform. That delivery system was why across four years Barack Obama
    kept hammering "the 1%" and "the wealthiest." He was feeding the
    machine that was emailing, texting and tweeting this propaganda to
    targeted audiences.



    This is the old Zhdanovite whining repurposed for a new medium—their stuff is evil evil propaganda brainwashing and our heroic patriotic propaganda spin FIREHOSE OF TRUTH really sucks and I haaaaaate that and Obama too, SOMEONE REALLY SMART SHOULD FIX THAT. Not it!



    You guys suck at this because the smart people are increasingly embarrassed to be seen with you. It's hard to be good at strategy and technology and writing while pursuing the dead-end votes of a few gibbering mouthbreathers, singing "Amazing Grace" on the deck while actively steering the ship towards an iceberg.

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  79. Smut Clyde4:51 PM

    Surely I'm not the only person who was surprised when they sang 'Amazing Grace' and not 'Nearer My God to Thee'.

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  80. Even Nietzsche couldn't capture the existential horror of human existence as clearly as Garfield Minus Garfield does.

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  81. tigrismus4:54 PM

    "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder," with a watch check to see if they're running late.

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  82. Smut Clyde4:55 PM

    Not 33rd-Degree?

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  83. XeckyGilchrist4:56 PM

    No, he's the one with the brain the size of a planet, but nobody listens to him.

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  84. glennisw5:34 PM

    He's the most divisive president ever, because they hate him.

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  85. glennisw5:42 PM

    They've already given us a list of things that it's unseemly for a President to do (at least, this President):

    Campaign during an election year
    Travel outside of Washington
    Stay in Washington (in that big mansion)
    Ride in motorcades
    Travel to foreign countries
    Host state dinners
    Go to Camp David
    Meet with foreign leaders
    Give speeches at funerals
    Answer direct questions from the press
    Put his feet on the desk
    Meet with members of his own party
    Go to meetings of the other party
    Eat expensive food prepared by a chef
    Eat inexpensive food bought at small local businesses
    Go on vacation and stay at other peoples' houses
    Go on vacation and stay on federal property
    Travel back to his home city
    Any others?

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  86. BigHank535:42 PM

    The same way that so-called "Christians" would let sick people without insurance die, the same way supporters of "family values" embrace Ensign and Vitter and Gingrich and Bristol Palin, the same way that some people can look at 47% of the country being so poor they don't pay income taxes and then get angry at the poor people: by embracing cognitive dissonance as an ideal, not a flaw. By celebrating tribalism: what we do is good and what they do is bad....even if it's the same thing.* By rejecting fairness and universal standards and seeking only one thing: power over their opponents**



    *How a health insurance plan designed by the Heritage Foundation became nation-destroying socialism.


    **Which leads to a charming/appalling exercise in circular reasoning: What is power? Anything we can use to defeat our opponents. Who are our opponents? Anyone who objects to our use of power. That's the alpha and omega of the rabid-dog right.

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  87. reallyaimai5:55 PM

    No but it was a great little book.

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  88. philadelphialawyer5:57 PM

    To me, that's the weird part, not the cry baby nonsense (which I take more or less for granted). This is from Henninger's WSJ article:

    'Now suddenly comes a marketing ploy from the GOP's backbenches: "Defund ObamaCare." This idea was supposed to rally the nation against the Affordable Care Act. So if you were to ask students in marketing at the local community college what they thought of "Defund ObamaCare," what do you guess they might say? They'd say, absent the product, it sounds like a niche strategy with a low sales ceiling. Defund ObamaCare is now the Republicans' New Coke.'

    In other words, the shutdown/defund Obamacare ploy itself, according to Henninger, was a bad one. And so bad that even the non 1 per center marketing students at the déclassé local community college could have told you so.

    Jeez, not only was it bad, but it was "New Coke" bad (for you youngsters out there, New Coke was an attempt to change Coca Cola; it came out in 1985 and nobody liked it...it didn't taste as good as "regular" or "old" Coke and part of the appeal of Coke is that it is this old, supposedly unchanging brand, with lots of presence in the pop culture history of the USA over the last century or so; the market "resistance" was so great that the company re instated "regular" or "old" Coke (as "Coke Classic") and renamed New Coke "Coca Cola II;" eventually, New Coke was killed off altogether; its failure was so pronounced, and the move itself so bad, that many questioned whether the whole thing was not a super slick trick on the company's part: get folks excited about the product they already liked, but took for granted, by taking it off the market and replacing it with something inferior....not that I'm a CT guy, but sales did spike when "Classic Coke" was put back on the market),

    In other words, yeah Derelict, that's right, the GOP shot itself in the foot with a big old shot gun. And, as you might expect, their chief political opponent, President Obama, was not shy in pointing all of this out. Why would he be? But to Henninger, it it is somehow unfair that Obama is maybe, ya' know, actually good at politics ("Want a look at how a pro is spinning the Washington mess?...The Obama tweets the past week have been fairly amazing.")."Hey," the President twitted, in effect, "the Republicans have come out with New Coke! What idiots! Who wants that?! NOBODY! Duh!" And yet somehow it is President Obama that is to blame. Because he pointed out that the GOP was rolling out New Coke. NOT the GOP itself, which did the rolling out. How dare Obama be a "pro" and blame them for their own stupidity! Why can't he be an amateur, or at least perform like one, as they do! And, moreover, it was somehow unfair for Obama to pinpoint the blame even more accurately and precisely. What the GOP is to the Coca Cola bottling company, the Tea Party is to the marketing geniuses at that company who really thought New Coke was a good idea. How dare President Obama blame the exact set of folks who came up with New Coke........for coming up with New Coke!

    It's an outrage, I tell ya'!

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  89. reallyaimai5:59 PM

    i know you guys already saw this and I know I thought I would never say this but DAMN, John McCain can deliver the cut direct and subtle. When asked about Gohmert's accusation that he is an Al Quaeda mole he said, more or less directly "If a person had any idea what they were talking about I'd take offense at something like that, it would be malicious and deliberate. But if a person is a perfect idiot, barely able to speak without swallowing his own tongue, you just put it down to idiocy and you wave it aside."

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  90. reallyaimai6:01 PM

    Hey, I came up with the New Coke comparison already. In my head.

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  91. philadelphialawyer6:04 PM

    But that's the thing, you didn't have to come up with it, and neither did I! Henninger did it for us! And it's like he's saying New Coke was Pepsi's fault!

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  92. I am left with the impression that Henninger is mad because the President has fought back against his political enemies, which is considered unsporting in a Democrat.


    After months of drinking cheap beer and bitching with his redneck buddies 'bout the neighborhood going to hell, now that they've let those people move in, he finally got the nerve up to march up the street, only to get his ass calmly handed to him by that skinny black feller---and in front of his kid and all the neighborhood milfs!!


    This is how I see the rank and file goobers and wingnuts at this moment--the kid and/or buddies who just saw this happen to their gut-bellied hero.

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  93. Something something about returning overdue loans to foreign countries.

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  94. Wow, those days were so long ago they were BC fer realz.

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  95. Hey, now, Charlie Brown got the Frank Miller treatment and it was awesome, because Frank Miller didn't do it.

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  96. KatWillow6:39 PM

    I bet that, like Rmoney, the Kochs believe their own Propaganda, and have their own special pollsters assuring them that everything they're doing is right and popular.

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  97. KatWillow6:45 PM

    I read that the market-testing for New Coke made the mistake of just letting their tasters have small amounts of the stuff. I recall the difference in taste wasn't noticible immediately, one had to drink a third to half a bottle before realizing "hey, this isn't Coke!"


    Perhaps the Kochs/Repugs made the same error: they've been ranting about "Obamacare" for so long with reasonably high "agreement" ratings in response to their propaganda. BUT, when people actually tried Obamacare, they liked it.

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  98. gainsayer6:48 PM

    I wish to share a case of Natty Light and get shitfaced with this comment.

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  99. philadelphialawyer6:59 PM

    And they certainly liked Obamacare plus the government funded as usual and no default a lot better than defund Obamacare and shut down the government and default.
    Maybe that's the analogy...a little bit of defund Obamacare, in the abstract = a little taste New Coke, but a lot of defund Obamacare for real, with all the rest of it (shutdown, default) = one half to one third of a bottle of New Coke.

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  100. reallyaimai7:04 PM

    And you should see them bitch about his overdue library books.

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  101. reallyaimai7:05 PM

    Thats definitely it. A little bit of shutdown seemed like "serve those washington insiders right" to the country, but an actual shutdown of the national parks, fema, agricultural outreach, and all that other stuff? that was a step too far. Elizabeth Warren's brilliant riff on all the things the "anarchy gang" is opposed to that they then bitch about missing was spot on.

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  102. reallyaimai7:08 PM

    I really, really, really, hated Reagan so I kind of get that. I didn't hate Bush with quite the same fervor. But I think the Reagan/Obama comparison is that the people who liked Reagan really liked him, personally, and they kind of loved his aesthetic. And that made me angry because I saw right through it. I think if you really hate Obama you hate him all the more because he seems so well liked by other people. Its the old "antichrist" fools you with his peace and prosperity thing. Or "Antchrist" as Juanita Jean has spotted on someone's car.

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  103. The Clams7:14 PM

    Now we have to kill you.

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  104. smut clyde7:19 PM

    Shakira can Dolchstoß me any time.
    Let me rephrase that.

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  105. satch7:37 PM

    It's like the scene in Independence Day where President Bill Pullman asks the alien: "What is it you want us to do?", and the alien hisses: "DIE!"

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  106. I want this comment written out on a needlepoint throw pillow for the loveseat.

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  107. montag27:57 PM

    Oh, I'm not sure that Koch was the object of that column. It sounded more as if, with that line, Henninger was just sucking up to the boss (something that's been happening a bit more frequently since ol' Ruprecht took over the WSJ). "I'm so sorry that Obama's picking on you, massa!"

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  108. Not this current Pope! Socialist southern hemisperian...

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  109. Not even that, we're talking about Ewoks or Cylons or Orcs, OH MY!

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  110. Antchrist, being able to lift ten times his body weight, didn't need help carrying the cross.

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  111. mgmonklewis8:12 PM

    I've always been a fan of "Hello Cthulhu." http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

    Though the Nietzche Family Circus and the BC references were aces.

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  112. montag28:12 PM

    They've been playing in derivatives (interest swaps, I hear) for a couple of years, and have been making pretty big dollars on it (net worth between them jumped from about $55 billion to $72 billion just lately).


    So, my guess is that they were planning on shorting dollars if the shutdown kept up, or, perhaps were intending to do interest rate swaps with counties and cities that suddenly found themselves going belly up without federal cash flow.



    Now, these guys like making misery almost as much as they like making money, so it stands to reason that they'd get a big kick out of making money off the misery of others.

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  113. M. Krebs8:21 PM

    True story: I knew a guy whose last name is Avrin. Whenever he would introduce himself he mades a point of saying, "That's Avrin, not Arvin. Arvin makes space heaters."

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  114. L Bob Rife8:25 PM

    mehr als Dat-Ass-ist-Legende, ja?

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  115. Lurking Canadian8:33 PM

    It has been clear for years now that the Republican party, and indeed the bulk of the US media, believes any action by a Democrat other than curling into a defensive crouch is cheating. No wonder Obama drives them completely batshit.

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  116. M. Krebs8:34 PM

    The actual quote was "Sometimes comments like that are made out of malice, but if someone has no intelligence I don't feel it as being a malicious statement." (But yeah, what you said was basically the gist of it.)

    Gohmert grunted back, "Obviously, Senator McCain would be better off with ‘no intelligence’ ..."



    I wonder if there any sentient beings in Gohmert's district. Other than cows, that is.

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  117. montag28:35 PM

    The Donald Segrettis are the old guard. They didn't want to attract attention to themselves. Today, they have the James O'Keefes, who seem as much interested in making a name for themselves to ensure a lifetime of wingnut welfare as causing political mayhem.



    They've been undone, I think, by their own capitalistic instincts.

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  118. XeckyGilchrist8:59 PM

    You're right, but I'd say it's their own capitalistic instincts coupled with world-class stupid.

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  119. montag29:04 PM

    And here I thought the world-class stupid was addressed by mere mention of O'Keefe....

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  120. XeckyGilchrist9:07 PM

    True, there is a sort of entailment thing going on there, isn't there.


    (But I think it's not *only* stupid, and maybe some of these folks aren't exactly dumb, just insulated, deluded, and radically entitled - but most of them are droolers into the bargain.)

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  121. Mr. Wonderful9:45 PM

    This thread is over, but for the record: I don't necessarily think so. I would be surprised if they didn't care one way or the other about creating misery. In the words of an old Python sketch, "We don't morally censure you. We just want the money."

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  122. Mr. Wonderful9:46 PM

    She's right. I was there.

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  123. Mr. Wonderful9:48 PM

    Sez you. La Jolla approved his raze/re-build plans. He has architects to torment.

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  124. M. Krebs10:03 PM

    BigHank's on a roll.

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  125. Derelict11:14 PM

    I find this comment very uplifting. I want to take it on a picnic!

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  126. JennOfArk12:10 AM

    You missed the biggest one:


    Continue to be black

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  127. DocAmazing12:59 AM

    People who despise artists and the creative process trying their hand at theater cannot help but be unintentionally funny.

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  128. DocAmazing1:03 AM

    If you kick him there, you will inevitably hit his head, what with insertion and all.

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  129. RHWombat5:01 AM

    Loser is the most foul and feared epithet that can afflict the Right. It is the fear that underlies the Randroid world view and stops them accepting anything.

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  130. MikeJ5:49 AM

    Life. Don't talk to me about life.

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  131. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps8:07 AM

    O'Keefe happens to be the one wingnut I'm personally familiar with, because he was in my senior class in high school. He's definitely not a stupid man; his original career goal was to become either an actor or a rapper (!), so I imagine once he got to college and found out that there were people who would pay you handsomely to uphold propaganda, he didn't even have to change his career trajectory much.

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  132. montag29:03 AM

    Well, then, given what's in the public record, I'd say he got pretty fuckin' stupid really damned quick.

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  133. Halloween_Jack9:26 AM

    I think that they think that the news about voter suppression is finally starting to sink in, so they're twisting the definition to claim that Both Sides Do It.

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  134. realinterrobang9:41 AM

    I want to stand in line behind this comment at the GUM store.

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  135. realinterrobang9:42 AM

    Well, that's because they misinterpret "right" there, since they're not actually acquainted with the concept of being correct...

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  136. Halloween_Jack9:56 AM

    All of the above, and more, can be covered (and, unsurprisingly, often is, by the usual suspects) as "uppity".

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  137. I'm heartened to see that Erick son of Erick is still willing to purge the GOP until it can be drowned in a bathtub. By the time he's done, the party will look like this:
    http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080224213925/simpsons/images/e/e2/Mountain_of_Madness.png

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  138. And there will be public access to the beach in front of his house, unless you're a weed-smoking hippy.

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  139. me631011:43 AM

    Mitt thot he was pushing the "down" button on his car elevator.

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  140. Duncan11:50 AM

    That's really impressive, because the book "The Mouse that Roared" was published in 1955, twelve years before the Anguilla revolution of 1967. Leonard Wibberley was a prophet!

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  141. True-ish story: we held my son's Orangutan under the water in order to baptize it. Now it can be competitive in the primary for Louis Gohmert's seat.

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  142. I stand corrected. I think the belief in this connection is Caribbean folklore, which is ihow I would have come by it.

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  143. me631012:12 PM

    Well, apparently, Obama isn't the only one in possession of a time machine.

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  144. Jimcima12:23 PM

    And what is the "Dem model" exactly? Disparate groups with disparate interests marginally united under the core assumption that all of these interests are valid to someone, so we should respect each other and work with each other and achieve the best common good we can for everyone, even if we aren't all Dems?



    Is that the fucked up, non-sustainable model made invalid by the clearly superior "you don't look or speak like me so I must kill you" one proffered by the "Rep Model"?

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  145. DocAmazing12:47 PM

    That's it. I'm buying half a 'z and a ticket to San Diego.

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  146. KatWillow1:01 PM

    But aren't the Kochs Birchers? They hate a lot of people, as I recall.

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  147. So say we all.

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  148. Chocolate Covered Cotton4:29 PM

    now I'm picturing a rapper wearing a diamond asterisk on a huge gold chain.

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  149. Chocolate Covered Cotton4:40 PM

    Ha. My first click on "refresh" there gave me a reminder of why I'm still a Democrat: "At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."

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  150. Chocolate Covered Cotton4:51 PM

    And buffalo have wings. But they're really tiny wings, which is why they can't fly.

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  151. Chocolate Covered Cotton5:08 PM

    Kurtz to Willard: "Are you an assassin?"
    Willard: "I'm a soldier."
    Kurtz:" You're neither. You're an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill."

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