Take Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the generally anti-immigrant National Review, who in 2007, when an earlier immigration bill was before Congress, claimed a "Senate friend" complained that undocumented Mexicans were "walking around unabated in the United States Capitol...
Those were the after-hours cleaning contractors... bet their boss had a no-bid, cost-plus deal.
So, for weeks Gingrich points a giant loaded Howitzer at the head of the president saying, "do it and you die!" and now he calls Obama a coward for backing down. But then he reveals the real reason for Obama's cowardice:
This is one more example of Obama being incapable of figuring out how to do whatever he promises he's going to do. And you go to Ukraine, you go to Iraq, you go to Estonia this week, you go to all sorts of things and you get the Maureen Dowd kind of columns, that are so scathing that it's a little bit hard to believe she'd write it about a Democrat.
Seriously, if you can't be legitimately terrified of Maureen Dowd, who's left?
"A new GOP message for the midterms: November is your last chance to send a message to President Obama to not unilaterally rewrite America's immigration policy!" ventured Jim Geraghty of National Review.
I can't figure out whether to laugh or cry reading John Yoo going on about the limits of executive power. I wonder if Obama offered to crush the testicles of a few young immigrants--would that be okay with Yoo?
You left out the following sentence, which is a magical little nugget of petty solipsism:
"Why, if you're trying to make the case for amnesty, would you remind people of the local 7-11, where you sometimes can't get to your car for all the day laborer"
Just wait. Next week, when the topic changes to the merits of having no minimum wage, they'll be extolling those same day laborers for casting off the socialist shackles of the Democrat party.
Not sure what the takeaway is supposed to be here. Obama actually IS delaying the decision for political reasons, no? Is it somehow dirty pool for the GOP to point this out?
"A great temptation! As it happened, they needn't have bothered: Obama punted last Friday. He did so pretty obviously because the controversy around the very possibility of executive action made it very dangerous for Democrats in this years' races. John Boehner seemed to think so too, saying the decision 'to simply delay this deeply-controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action... smacks of raw politics.' So did Obama's fellow Democrats who are invested in the issue and disappointed in his decision."
So, Boehner and Edroso agree, Obama is delaying the decision because it might hurt the Democrats' chances in the midterm elections.
"Who knows how it'll work out. Rightbloggers did what they could to make sure it wouldn't, but they didn't seem to have much to work with."
And why wouldn't they? If the shoe were on the other foot, and a GOP president was delaying a potentially highly unpopular EO until after an election, wouldn't the Leftbloggers be doing the same thing?
"Accentuating the negative, the Daily Caller headlined, 'Obama: Unilateral Amnesty "Soon," Likely After Election.'"
But, again, isn't that more or less accurate? Obama probably will issue an EO (which, by its nature, is unilateral) extending amnesty, after the election. Why is objectionable for GOP'ers to say so?
"In another headline they referred to his 'Immigration Edict.' (The best of the headlines was from the Washington Times: 'Obama: I'll ignore the Constitution -- but only after the election.') "
And even that kind of hyperbole is more or less par for the course, no? To call an order an "edict" is not much of a stretch. And the term "unconstitutional" gets tossed around a lot, often without much real meaning, by both sides.
"'President Obama's announcement that he is going to delay his executive action on immigration shows that even his own administration realizes its constitutional transgressions,' said John Yoo -- yes, the guy who provided George Bush with legal justifications for torture -- at National Review."
OK, fine, for Yoo to say this is quite galling. But the basic point, ie that a constitutionally dubious and unpopular move is being delayed until after the election is still true.
"'The point is to ensure that voters aren't making a fully informed choice when they go to the polls this fall,' said Allahpundit of Hot Air, who did his best to make up for that informational shortfall: 'That might turn out badly for the left, so the king is once again exercising his royal prerogative to shield them from political difficulty,' he continued."
Again, to me, that last part sounds like standard partisan hyperbole. And the basic premise, that the order is being delayed until after the election for political reasons, is, in fact, correct. As Edroso himself admits above.
I guess I don't really see the point. Not every claim made by the Right or in the Rightblogosphere is objectionable, outlandish, stupid, etc. And much of what they write is indeed only the flip side of Left and Leftblogosphere practice. Accusations of power grabs, of unconstitutionality, of elected officials acting like kings or tyrants, and so on, are the stock in trade of our hyperventilating political milieu. And the main point here is agreed to by everyone, from Edroso and disappointed Democrats to Boehner, to the run of the ranch Rightbloggers, right on through the odious Yoo: Obama is delaying the decision for political reasons.
Perhaps it would be better to keep the powder dry for real outrages.
Sarah Jane Seman at Townhall moans about how unauthoried aliens are staying in America so much longers than they used to. That just might be because we're not authorizing them. Esoteric point, I know.
I'm looking forward to the right-wing version of Roy's column. Seeing how the two parties are simply "flip sides" of one another, finding examples of Leftblogosphere partisan hyperbole must be as easy as finding undocumented Mexicans unabatedly strolling the halls of the capitol.
No justification required (when is it ever with these people?). It's there to further stoke the resentment of the terminally illogical readers of ClownHall.
The justification is that minorities always have it better and easier. Especially poor minorities. And with illegal immigrants, it's a triple-whammy of special considerations.
Only conservatives could look with envy at a group of people who have no money, constantly get exploited by whatever employment they can garner, and live in constant fear that they'll be rounded up and shipped back to the death squads from which they fled.
I think this is the result of the obama administration letting the undocumented women and children take bus trips to their relatives without five forms of ID.
The Point, paragraph 2: This seems transparently political to us and everyone else -- and on Meet the Press on Sunday, Obama sort of admitted it was. But is it good politics -- that is, helpful at the polls? From the reaction of rightbloggers, we can see a case for it.
Krikorian: "Both by importing faithful Democratic voters and through sheer numbers creating more safe leftist seats in local and state and federal legislatures, mass immigration empowers statism and cultural leftism." . . .which observation apparently short-circuited both Marco Rubio's and Ted Cruz's careers in the Republican Party.
Anyone catch the 60 Minutes piece last night on how Nicholas Winton rescued Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and relocated most of them in Britain? Of course, since Obama is exactly like Hitler, wingnuts would helpfully point out that Guatemalan and Honduran parents were sending their children TO the modern-day equivalent of Nazi Germany.
All true, but I can't see how this helps Obama or the Dems much. After all, Obama has promised action after the election, and it gives Pugs the opportunity to brand him as cynical as well as the usual tyrannical illegal alien lover. And when Obama promises to put together an explanation of how this all is good for America and to have the debate after the election, it reminds me too much of the roll out of the Affordable Care Act without explaining, over and over again, how it would work and thus allowing conservatives too much leeway to lie about its provisions and demonize it.
In other words, the Rightbloggers are correct that the delay is politically motivated. If it is "good politics," well then, they are also correct that Obama doesn't really want the public to judge his actions at the polls. Which doesn't make him King George III, but does back up their basic criticism. So, again, what is the point? Is it "GOP Criticism of Obama More or Less Reasonable and Legitimate?" Somehow, I doubt it.
And their opponents cannot "legitimately" point out that timing, and call them out for it? Again, it seems to me that Democrats do this is well....vote on such and such constitutionally dubious measure is being delayed until after the election by House Republicans.....GOPer president is delaying such and such unpopular action until after the election... Water is wet and politics is politics, but only in one direction? I thought the idea behind monitoring the Rightblogosphere in a column was to provide a critique of it, not merely to neutrally report its actions. If its actions in a particular instance are not noteworthily bad, then, one would think, they don't provide fodder for the column.
Why is all conservative writing so awful? Do they think readers enjoy prose that sounds like a pamphlet handed out on the street corner while some unhinged lunatic rants from a soapbox behind them? Jeez, Soviet propaganda was hamfisted, but at least it had decent poster art.
Worth visiting the last link in the Veev column just to verify that Newt Gingrich is maintaining his reputation as the Playdoh Fun Factory of bullshit:
you get the Maureen Dowd kind of columns, that are so scathing that it's a little bit hard to believe she'd write it about a Democrat.
Sorry, I though I was posting here. I think its a tactical mistake myself but I also think that the Senate hangs in such a terrible balance that many, if not all, presidents/party leaders would have to consider the desperate pleas of the most vulnerable democratic Senators at this time. The best thing for the party and country to do is always to lose red seats--this pushes the Senate and the House to a more liberal median point. But given that we don't control the house at all and won't after this election because of gerrymandering we simply can't afford to lose the Senate. Anything obama and the dems can do to hang on to the Senate, even if it doesn't pan out, has to be done on the off chance that it works. That's just the reality of the situation. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that this will work to keep those seats but Obama would come in for just as much criticism if he appeared to be the main cause of losing those seats and the Senate. I actually think that Obama doesn't do anything because he is criticized for it so I aquit him of cowardice or wishy washiness. I think that the red state senators made a strong case that in their states riling up the red base is worse for them, in this off year election, than firing up the state democratic base. And my guess is that this may be true because otherwise Obama would tell them to bank on the imaginary higher turnout of our weak democratic base in those states and devil take the hindmost.
Well, you were wrong. We aren't "providing a critique" of politics, as though politics is something that only the right side of the aisle is doing while we remain pure and above that sort of thing. We are just making fun of these assholes.
You have to remember the advertisers for most conservative blogs and websites - instant weight loss scams and the selling of gold coins. So the answer to the question "Do they think readers enjoy such lousy prose?" is "Yes, given our demographic we have no reason to doubt it."
If you think the rightbloggers' racism and hysteria on this issue is "more or less par for the course," maybe I've done my job too well. Nonetheless it remains noteworthy. That the Democrats are hypocrites doesn't excuse my subjects.
Lack of raging insane right wing screeching = Leftism.Hell, it's reached the point where the presence of anything but raging insane right wing screeching = Leftism. Obvserve how dumping David Gregory and adding Joe Scarborough as a contributor is meant to address the "left-leaning" tendencies of Meet the Press. No, seriously, consistently booking more Republican guests than Democrats and catapaulting every single fucking stupid and deranged wingnut opinion without challenge is "left-leaning" now.
John Boehner seemed to think so too, saying the decision "to simply delay this deeply-controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action... smacks of raw politics."
This is my favorite--Boehner tut-tutting over "raw politics." My wife wants me to get hearing aids, because I'm losing my hearing and play the tv too loud in the bedroom. (Don't get her started on the sub-woofer connected to the audio system.) Now I'm tempted to get them, so I can throw them away with the claim that now I've heard everything.
"So, again, what is the point?" To paraphrase Mick Jagger in some long-forgotten Rolling Stone interview, me and my mates thought it was a bit of a laugh.
Can someone point me to a Maureen Dowd column that is a scathing attack on a rightwinger? Cause I would like to see one of those. Preferably a rightwinger who has actual power.
Damn! They've figured out that Obama is going to bring hundreds of busloads of undocumented Salvadorans to John Boehner's home district and let them roll off the bus and into the voting booths. There's simply no possible way to prevent this kind of thing!
It always helps, I think, to bring the discussion back down to Earth. Ed does often get in some trenchant analysis, in his customary "luminous" style, but when all is said and done--which hopefully won't be for a while, yet--yeah, we're basically making a whole lotta fun of these assholes.
There's also the damned-if-he-does-damned-if-he-doesn't aspect. He acts in support of D candidates who may need it, he ignores 'em and risks their seats (maybe, a little), he's gonna get bashed for it, and in this case, he stands to get it from both sides for either choice.
Why the fuck anybody wants that lousy job, I'll never understand...
Some douchenozzle elsewhere on Disqus wants me to be concerned about the ep-ee-DEMic of illegals flooding across our designer borders and killin' our young innocent ladies, and got all snotty when I graced him with the following as a comment:
Blimey! I knew they was stealin' our jobs, now they done gone and are stealin' our hommy-cides! AUX ARMES CITOYENS
I admit it, I cannot take the menace of poor white Christian youth being brutalized by thuggish border-non-respecting foreigners with the gravitas it demands! I AM ASHAMED. *hangs head*
I don't think there is any evidence that Obama or his surrogates like Michelle have ignored any candidates who have asked for his help. The evidence goes the other way--he has stayed out of races where the candidates are deliberately refusing to ask for his help because in their opinion he is toxic for some significant portion of their potential voters. Michelle is out campaigning right now in the black community for Michelle Nunn. Does anyone think Obama is sending her as "second best" or because in their considered opinion she has a better shot at rallying the troops than he does?
I think it will be considered left-leaning after the permanent rightist government takes over. You can't have your Two-Minute Hate without a Goldstein, after all.
Anyone who gets between KLo and the ice cream freezer is a terrorist and probably has Ebola. That's on the way in to the 7-11. I confess to being surprised that she ever even tries to leave.
Take Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the generally anti-immigrant National Review, who in 2007, when an earlier immigration bill was before Congress, claimed a "Senate friend" complained that undocumented Mexicans were "walking around unabated in the United States Capitol...
ReplyDeleteThose were the after-hours cleaning contractors... bet their boss had a no-bid, cost-plus deal.
So, for weeks Gingrich points a giant loaded Howitzer at the head of the president saying, "do it and you die!" and now he calls Obama a coward for backing down. But then he reveals the real reason for Obama's cowardice:
ReplyDeleteThis is one more example of Obama being incapable of figuring out how to do whatever he promises he's going to do. And you go to Ukraine, you go to Iraq, you go to Estonia this week, you go to all sorts of things and you get the Maureen Dowd kind of columns, that are so scathing that it's a little bit hard to believe she'd write it about a Democrat.
Seriously, if you can't be legitimately terrified of Maureen Dowd, who's left?
"A new GOP message for the midterms: November is your last chance to send a message to President Obama to not unilaterally rewrite America's immigration policy!" ventured Jim Geraghty of National Review.
ReplyDeleteit just rolls off the tongue.
I can't figure out whether to laugh or cry reading John Yoo going on about the limits of executive power. I wonder if Obama offered to crush the testicles of a few young immigrants--would that be okay with Yoo?
ReplyDeleteHow do you abate a person?
ReplyDeleteIn this context, surely that "Senate friend" meant arrest and deportation on appearance alone. What else to expect from a Master Abater?
ReplyDeleteThe same way Michael Brown got 'abated' in Ferguson, I think.
ReplyDeleteJohn Yoo is going to be very upset that you hacked into his computer and read "erotic fantasy.txt".
ReplyDeleteOh, sure. Any testicles are fine, as long as they're not the testicles of the Master Race.
ReplyDeleteThere are limits, after all.
You left out the following sentence, which is a magical little nugget of petty solipsism:
ReplyDelete"Why, if you're trying to make the case for amnesty, would you remind people of the local 7-11, where you sometimes can't get to your car for all the day laborer"
Tyranny, Unitary Executive Theory, potato, potahto...
ReplyDeleteJust wait. Next week, when the topic changes to the merits of having no minimum wage, they'll be extolling those same day laborers for casting off the socialist shackles of the Democrat party.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what the takeaway is supposed to be here. Obama actually IS delaying the decision for political reasons, no? Is it somehow dirty pool for the GOP to point this out?
ReplyDelete"A great temptation! As it happened, they needn't have bothered: Obama punted last Friday. He did so pretty obviously because the controversy around the very possibility of executive action made it very dangerous for Democrats in this years' races. John Boehner seemed to think so too, saying the decision 'to simply delay this deeply-controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action... smacks of raw politics.' So did Obama's fellow Democrats who are invested in the issue and disappointed in his decision."
So, Boehner and Edroso agree, Obama is delaying the decision because it might hurt the Democrats' chances in the midterm elections.
"Who knows how it'll work out. Rightbloggers did what they could to make sure it wouldn't, but they didn't seem to have much to work with."
And why wouldn't they? If the shoe were on the other foot, and a GOP president was delaying a potentially highly unpopular EO until after an election, wouldn't the Leftbloggers be doing the same thing?
"Accentuating the negative, the Daily Caller headlined, 'Obama: Unilateral Amnesty "Soon," Likely After Election.'"
But, again, isn't that more or less accurate? Obama probably will issue an EO (which, by its nature, is unilateral) extending amnesty, after the election. Why is objectionable for GOP'ers to say so?
"In another headline they referred to his 'Immigration Edict.' (The best of the headlines was from the Washington Times: 'Obama: I'll ignore the Constitution -- but only after the election.') "
And even that kind of hyperbole is more or less par for the course, no? To call an order an "edict" is not much of a stretch. And the term "unconstitutional" gets tossed around a lot, often without much real meaning, by both sides.
"'President Obama's announcement that he is going to delay his executive action on immigration shows that even his own administration realizes its constitutional transgressions,' said John Yoo -- yes, the guy who provided George Bush with legal justifications for torture -- at National Review."
OK, fine, for Yoo to say this is quite galling. But the basic point, ie that a constitutionally dubious and unpopular move is being delayed until after the election is still true.
"'The point is to ensure that voters aren't making a fully informed choice when they go to the polls this fall,' said Allahpundit of Hot Air, who did his best to make up for that informational shortfall: 'That might turn out badly for the left, so the king is once again exercising his royal prerogative to shield them from political difficulty,' he continued."
Again, to me, that last part sounds like standard partisan hyperbole. And the basic premise, that the order is being delayed until after the election for political reasons, is, in fact, correct. As Edroso himself admits above.
I guess I don't really see the point. Not every claim made by the Right or in the Rightblogosphere is objectionable, outlandish, stupid, etc. And much of what they write is indeed only the flip side of Left and Leftblogosphere practice. Accusations of power grabs, of unconstitutionality, of elected officials acting like kings or tyrants, and so on, are the stock in trade of our hyperventilating political milieu. And the main point here is agreed to by everyone, from Edroso and disappointed Democrats to Boehner, to the run of the ranch Rightbloggers, right on through the odious Yoo: Obama is delaying the decision for political reasons.
Perhaps it would be better to keep the powder dry for real outrages.
Sarah Jane Seman at Townhall moans about how unauthoried aliens are staying in America so much longers than they used to. That just might be because we're not authorizing them. Esoteric point, I know.
ReplyDeleteRoy's just telling you what they said, not commanding you to be outraged about it. He reports, you decide.
ReplyDeleteHe's going to take his balls and go home.
ReplyDeleteIf he can't get some immigrant's...
ReplyDeletewould that be okay with Yoo?
ReplyDeleteHe'd offer the use of a pair of gold-plated vicegrips he's been saving for just such an occasion...
I'm looking forward to the right-wing version of Roy's column. Seeing how the two parties are simply "flip sides" of one another, finding examples of Leftblogosphere partisan hyperbole must be as easy as finding undocumented Mexicans unabatedly strolling the halls of the capitol.
ReplyDeleteI knew someone was gonna go there. Just glad it wasn't me...
ReplyDelete"These include allowing illegal immigrants to ... fly (probably with less hassle from TSA than most legal
ReplyDeleteresidents have)
I have an Enquiring Mind™, and I'd really, really like to hear the justification for that little gem. Did she get drunk with MoDo last night?
Not tyranny - tranny:
ReplyDeleteThe optimist in me wants to believe that this is `shopped, and the keen observer of these United States in me tells the optimist that he's a fool.
ReplyDeleteNo justification required (when is it ever with these people?). It's there to further stoke the resentment of the terminally illogical readers of ClownHall.
ReplyDeleteForget it, Aimai, it's K-Lo town.
ReplyDeleteAlright, which one of you smart alecks is writing for Townhall under a porn name?
ReplyDeleteRoy reports, we deride.
ReplyDeleteSteve Silberman swears it's real, and he got from a friend who took it:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/497039504029388800/photo/1
K-Lo with her head out the car window, flashing a twenty: "I need 800 words extolling the virtues of the freelance economy!"
ReplyDeleteSalvadorans, not Mexicans, not that K-Lo or her Senate friend would care.
ReplyDeleteSo the choice is between "Libety" (in rainbow hues) or a monochrome Tranny. Difficult.
ReplyDeleteThe justification is that minorities always have it better and easier. Especially poor minorities. And with illegal immigrants, it's a triple-whammy of special considerations.
ReplyDeleteOnly conservatives could look with envy at a group of people who have no money, constantly get exploited by whatever employment they can garner, and live in constant fear that they'll be rounded up and shipped back to the death squads from which they fled.
Because politics is always political? Because water is wet? Because politicians legitimatly do things and time things for political reasons?
ReplyDeleteI think this is the result of the obama administration letting the undocumented women and children take bus trips to their relatives without five forms of ID.
ReplyDeleteThe Point, paragraph 2:
ReplyDeleteThis seems transparently political to us and everyone else -- and on Meet the Press on Sunday, Obama sort of admitted it was. But is it good politics -- that is, helpful at the polls? From the reaction of rightbloggers, we can see a case for it.
Krikorian: "Both by importing faithful Democratic voters and through sheer numbers creating more safe leftist seats in local and state and federal legislatures, mass immigration empowers statism and cultural leftism."
ReplyDelete. . .which observation apparently short-circuited both Marco Rubio's and Ted Cruz's careers in the Republican Party.
They insisted on building a fence on the border...so people cant get back home even if they want to.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be more like "Cast off your socialist shackles, but do it somewhere out of my sight."
ReplyDeleteThe NRO is always looking for proofreaders...
ReplyDeleteAnyone catch the 60 Minutes piece last night on how Nicholas Winton rescued Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and relocated most of them in Britain? Of course, since Obama is exactly like Hitler, wingnuts would helpfully point out that Guatemalan and Honduran parents were sending their children TO the modern-day equivalent of Nazi Germany.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's this guy: Gary Dell'Abate.
ReplyDeleteOf course, our turning away refugees is not new:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
The one on the left is a redneck haiku (with a typo).
ReplyDeleteWhereas,
The Jobs Obama,
Liar.
All true, but I can't see how this helps Obama or the Dems much. After all, Obama has promised action after the election, and it gives Pugs the opportunity to brand him as cynical as well as the usual tyrannical illegal alien lover. And when Obama promises to put together an explanation of how this all is good for America and to have the debate after the election, it reminds me too much of the roll out of the Affordable Care Act without explaining, over and over again, how it would work and thus allowing conservatives too much leeway to lie about its provisions and demonize it.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the Rightbloggers are correct that the delay is politically motivated. If it is "good politics," well then, they are also correct that Obama doesn't really want the public to judge his actions at the polls.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't make him King George III, but does back up their basic criticism.
So, again, what is the point? Is it "GOP Criticism of Obama More or Less Reasonable and Legitimate?"
Somehow, I doubt it.
"Latest Outrage: Brown People Getting Between Me And My Slurpee"
ReplyDeleteAnd their opponents cannot "legitimately" point out that timing, and call them out for it? Again, it seems to me that Democrats do this is well....vote on such and such constitutionally dubious measure is being delayed until after the election by House Republicans.....GOPer president is delaying such and such unpopular action until after the election...
ReplyDeleteWater is wet and politics is politics, but only in one direction?
I thought the idea behind monitoring the Rightblogosphere in a column was to provide a critique of it, not merely to neutrally report its actions. If its actions in a particular instance are not noteworthily bad, then, one would think, they don't provide fodder for the column.
Why is all conservative writing so awful? Do they think readers enjoy prose that sounds like a pamphlet handed out on the street corner while some unhinged lunatic rants from a soapbox behind them? Jeez, Soviet propaganda was hamfisted, but at least it had decent poster art.
ReplyDeleteRoy's gotta write this column every week whether the wingnuts have done something truly insane or not (the man has to eat).
ReplyDeleteIf there's nothing better, I'm fine with him recording them squealing like a stuck pig because Obama is outmaneuvering them politically.
Worth visiting the last link in the Veev column just to verify that Newt Gingrich is maintaining his reputation as the Playdoh Fun Factory of bullshit:
ReplyDeleteyou get the Maureen Dowd kind of columns, that are so scathing that it's a little bit hard to believe she'd write it about a Democrat.
I think its a tactical error, myself, but I don't think its wrong because its political or because it is labled political.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I though I was posting here. I think its a tactical mistake myself but I also think that the Senate hangs in such a terrible balance that many, if not all, presidents/party leaders would have to consider the desperate pleas of the most vulnerable democratic Senators at this time. The best thing for the party and country to do is always to lose red seats--this pushes the Senate and the House to a more liberal median point. But given that we don't control the house at all and won't after this election because of gerrymandering we simply can't afford to lose the Senate. Anything obama and the dems can do to hang on to the Senate, even if it doesn't pan out, has to be done on the off chance that it works. That's just the reality of the situation. I don't think anyone is under the illusion that this will work to keep those seats but Obama would come in for just as much criticism if he appeared to be the main cause of losing those seats and the Senate. I actually think that Obama doesn't do anything because he is criticized for it so I aquit him of cowardice or wishy washiness. I think that the red state senators made a strong case that in their states riling up the red base is worse for them, in this off year election, than firing up the state democratic base. And my guess is that this may be true because otherwise Obama would tell them to bank on the imaginary higher turnout of our weak democratic base in those states and devil take the hindmost.
ReplyDeleteWell, you were wrong. We aren't "providing a critique" of politics, as though politics is something that only the right side of the aisle is doing while we remain pure and above that sort of thing. We are just making fun of these assholes.
ReplyDeleteRight, and they are shooting even harmless bat biologists so even if people could head back they'd be at risk from the vigilantes.
ReplyDeleteRemember in righty world every journalist and pundit is a raving, tearing, socialist style democratic operative.
ReplyDeleteYou have to remember the advertisers for most conservative blogs and websites - instant weight loss scams and the selling of gold coins. So the answer to the question "Do they think readers enjoy such lousy prose?" is "Yes, given our demographic we have no reason to doubt it."
ReplyDeleteIt's a package deal. Preferential airline service comes with their welfare, free healthcare and mandatory voting privileges.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the rightbloggers' racism and hysteria on this issue is "more or less par for the course," maybe I've done my job too well. Nonetheless it remains noteworthy. That the Democrats are hypocrites doesn't excuse my subjects.
ReplyDeleteLack of raging insane right wing screeching = Leftism. See also, "That liberal leaning David Brooks", Thad Cochran, Politico Magazine and so on.
ReplyDeleteI used to engage in mutual abation with my ex all the time.
ReplyDeleteLack of raging insane right wing screeching = Leftism.Hell, it's reached the point where the presence of anything but raging insane right wing screeching = Leftism. Obvserve how dumping David Gregory and adding Joe Scarborough as a contributor is meant to address the "left-leaning" tendencies of Meet the Press. No, seriously, consistently booking more Republican guests than Democrats and catapaulting every single fucking stupid and deranged wingnut opinion without challenge is "left-leaning" now.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in the "Coastal Plain". I'm thinking Jeff Davis County. (Because of course there is a Jeff Davis County in Georgia.)
ReplyDeleteMost of what he wrote is styrofoam packing peanuts. To paraphrase an old Far Side cartoon, here's what his readers actually hear:
ReplyDeleteblah blah blah OBAMA blah blah blah IMMIGRATION blah blah blah TYRANNY blah blah blah
It will be left leaning until we have a permanent rightist government. Also, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
ReplyDeleteYes. Next she's going to deplore "unabashed Mexicans."
ReplyDeleteJohn Boehner
ReplyDeleteseemed to think so too, saying the decision "to simply delay this
deeply-controversial and possibly unconstitutional unilateral action...
smacks of raw politics."
This is my favorite--Boehner tut-tutting over "raw politics." My wife wants me to get hearing aids, because I'm losing my hearing and play the tv too loud in the bedroom. (Don't get her started on the sub-woofer connected to the audio system.) Now I'm tempted to get them, so I can throw them away with the claim that now I've heard everything.
Who ISN'T?
ReplyDeleteUnabated Mexicans is the new uppity for brown people.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the names were sort-of a giveaway, weren't they? Woody Massif. Astra Gleid. Buck Naked. Thomas Sowell.
ReplyDelete"So, again, what is the point?" To paraphrase Mick Jagger in some long-forgotten Rolling Stone interview, me and my mates thought it was a bit of a laugh.
ReplyDeletethis is the best thing.
ReplyDelete"Famously left-leaning" is the phrase I keep hearing repeated to describe David Gregory these days.
ReplyDeleteIt's like opposite world or something. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills...
Roy's just reporting on Obama's actions and then looking for comedy in the right-blogger reactions. What is difficult about this concept?
ReplyDeleteCan someone point me to a Maureen Dowd column that is a scathing attack on a rightwinger? Cause I would like to see one of those. Preferably a rightwinger who has actual power.
ReplyDeleteThe one on the left is a redneck haiku (with a typo).
ReplyDeleteAre there any other kind?
Your last chance. Except for next year.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, won't you please send us money? As true believers in the American way of capitalism, we can't survive without your donations.
If by "mandatory voting privileges" you mean "handed an absentee ballot already filled out for Demoncrat candidates."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Karl Rove's back-up singer David Gregory, famous leftist dirty hippie.
ReplyDelete. . . importing faithful Democratic voters . . .
ReplyDeleteDamn! They've figured out that Obama is going to bring hundreds of busloads of undocumented Salvadorans to John Boehner's home district and let them roll off the bus and into the voting booths. There's simply no possible way to prevent this kind of thing!
Indeed. "It's just not fair of Obama to break the law slowly!"
ReplyDeleteIf any reporter within earshot of that statement did not bust out laughing, he or she should be taken to the nearest bar and heavily sedated.
Near where I grew up there was a sign that read "uesd cars." I always thought that a better spelling.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, if you can't be legitimately terrified of Maureen Dowd, who's left?
ReplyDeleteHear, hear. She's obviously an alien wearing a hideous human mask.
Competence with English prose has a liberal bias.
ReplyDeleteReally! George Orwell said so! Look it up!
Which highway are they taking, again?
ReplyDeleteWe are just making fun of these assholes.
ReplyDeleteA much more important task.
John Boehner channels Veruca Salt:
ReplyDelete"You can impeach the Usurper after the election, dear."
"BUT I WANNA IMPEACH HIM NOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!"
All the serious analysis here is in the comments section!
ReplyDeleteYou have to lean left just to stay upright.
ReplyDeleteIt always helps, I think, to bring the discussion back down to Earth. Ed does often get in some trenchant analysis, in his customary "luminous" style, but when all is said and done--which hopefully won't be for a while, yet--yeah, we're basically making a whole lotta fun of these assholes.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the damned-if-he-does-damned-if-he-doesn't aspect. He acts in support of D candidates who may need it, he ignores 'em and risks their seats (maybe, a little), he's gonna get bashed for it, and in this case, he stands to get it from both sides for either choice.
ReplyDeleteWhy the fuck anybody wants that lousy job, I'll never understand...
At least MoDo wasn't stuck with one a size too small...
ReplyDeleteWere the Tranny wearing a more colorful outfit the choice would be easier.
ReplyDeleteFar as I know he hasn't even gotten a blow job out of it.
ReplyDeleteSome douchenozzle elsewhere on Disqus wants me to be concerned about the ep-ee-DEMic of illegals flooding across our designer borders and killin' our young innocent ladies, and got all snotty when I graced him with the following as a comment:
ReplyDeleteBlimey! I knew they was stealin' our jobs, now they done gone and are stealin' our hommy-cides! AUX ARMES CITOYENS
I admit it, I cannot take the menace of poor white Christian youth being brutalized by thuggish border-non-respecting foreigners with the gravitas it demands! I AM ASHAMED. *hangs head*
Well, he does speak French, so...
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is any evidence that Obama or his surrogates like Michelle have ignored any candidates who have asked for his help. The evidence goes the other way--he has stayed out of races where the candidates are deliberately refusing to ask for his help because in their opinion he is toxic for some significant portion of their potential voters. Michelle is out campaigning right now in the black community for Michelle Nunn. Does anyone think Obama is sending her as "second best" or because in their considered opinion she has a better shot at rallying the troops than he does?
ReplyDeleteI think it will be considered left-leaning after the permanent rightist government takes over. You can't have your Two-Minute Hate without a Goldstein, after all.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who gets between KLo and the ice cream freezer is a terrorist and probably has Ebola. That's on the way in to the 7-11. I confess to being surprised that she ever even tries to leave.
ReplyDelete