President Clinton had a diabolical knack for turning his self-inflicted problems into referenda on the moral standing of his opponents, or of anybody who happened to be convenient for the purpose; thus the Monica Lewinsky scandal became a question not of the president’s venality in the Oval Office and elsewhere or of his consequent crimes — perjury, etc. — but a public trial of Kenneth Starr for the crime of being a buzzkill. Everybody — everybody, friend and foe — knew that President Clinton and his minions were lying about the matter, but the Democrats place an extraordinary value on cleverness: They are the party of the student council, and Bill Clinton has spent 50-odd years proving to the world that he is the cleverest boy at Hot Springs High School, and his admirers loved him not in spite of his gross opportunism and dishonesty but because of those very things. Finally, the Democrats rejoiced, a man who can show those Republicans for the unsophisticated, unclever fools that they are!...that the great GOP Clusterfuck of '98-'99 left such a stink, even wingnuts who were little children at the time are still pissed about it. Why, I bet Williamson is at this moment on a phone-throwing rampage!
UPDATE. Over at TownHall, Kurt Schlichter calls Mrs. Clinton, "a Lovecraftian monster, the Cthulhu of American politics," and Bill Clinton "an elderly leech" -- I think he was going for "lech," but was too engorged with Clinton rage to proof his own copy. Jesus, the election is 20 months away and these hate-wankers have already shot their loads. Really, where's there to go from here? Maybe Hitler, but in wingnut discourse Obama is Hitler, so that's out. Perhaps they can get some of their Culture Warriors in the Comics Division to create a horrible intergalactic tyrant who's like a thousand Hitlers, and then compare her with that. Or they can just fill pages and screens with BITCH and WHORE; really, it wouldn't harm their meaning and would save time.
Oh, you know that Williamson is really just salivating over the possibility of an HRC Presidency. Hating on the blackamoor pretender was really more a game for that new breed of unstable, misanthropic SOSHULISM-fighters in the Glenn Beck weeping circle. You could always tell that at least a few of the well-tempered cons were just going through the motions. Bill Clinton - now there's a guy you could hate. And the second that the unofficial election season '16 officially began, you could hear the uncomfortable crossing of legs in wingnut world.
ReplyDeleteAnd here we have our first proper exhibit. Given Williamson's odd and strained metaphor, the best I can guess is that he's been watching Saved by the Bell reruns and really regrets that he never had a chance to beat the crap out of Zack Morris.
They are the party of the student council, and Bill Clinton has spent 50-odd years proving to the world that he is the cleverest boy at Hot Springs High School, and his admirers loved him not in spite of his gross opportunism and dishonesty but because of those very things.And this doesn't apply to every fucking politician, CEO, show business (& other disturbed) personalities how?
ReplyDeleteIn related news, Ted Cruz scares little girl.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtKwtZI9l00
Bill Clinton was that fat kind in band who, inexplicably, got to fuck everybody. I kinda liked that guy (/wink) but I guess dudebros like Williamson hated his guts.
ReplyDeleteAlso, isn't Williamson the unmarried NY theatre critic? imo nothing ever adds up properly in wingnutopia.
The D-students who sat in the back of the room shooting spitwads at anyone trying to learn something now work for National Review, Fox News, etc., etc.
ReplyDeletea public trial of Kenneth Starr for the crime of being a buzzkill
ReplyDeleteDamn, I always miss the good parts. Must have been a fast trial.
I'm curious because I've never talked to anyone of my generation about this: did everyone really know Clinton was lying? Maybe I'm just a sucker, but my assumption as that whole circus got underway was that although I could easily imagine Clinton being a lech, I didn't think he would be so stupid as to perjure himself about allegations that if true would probably be proven true pretty soon. I didn't think it was anyone's damn business (except maybe Hillary's) but since it had already gotten to that point, flat-out lying seemed pointlessly self-destructive, and while I didn't really like the guy I thought he was pretty smart. But I was obviously pretty bad at predicting things. I didn't expect a huge government-funded volume of bad pornography to be made available to me at my desk at work, either.
ReplyDeletePresident Clinton had a diabolical knack for turning his self-inflicted
ReplyDeleteproblems into referenda on the moral standing of his opponents,
After driving perilously close to the Precipice of Newt Gingrich Had to Skedaddle When Because He Ditched His Cancer-Stricken Wife for a Younger Woman He'd Been Having an Affair With, he recovers in time to swerve away and drive into the Fire Hydrant of Leave Ken Starr Aloooone!
But it appears that during the next presidential election the GOP will be running against Obama and if HRC runs, B. Jefferson Clinton. And of course if HRC decides not to run, there will be loud angry gripes about about cock teases and silent despair because it will be hard to repurpose all of those articles they pre-wrote.
The media's insistence that Hillary is an unpopular, unelectable monster reminds me of Megyn Kelly's admonishment to another washed-up dude named Karl Rove on election night 2012: is this real math, or is this the fake math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?
ReplyDeleteShe isn't winning, he writes. That's funny. This week's Gallup poll showed her favorable numbers were higher than -- and her favorable-to-unfavorable ratio better than -- any Republican. Gallup noted in its write up that because she has almost 100% name recognition with voters, she is in a far stronger place than the GOP: it's unprecedented for someone that well known to have favorables that are way higher than unfavorable. She has such broad support that she has not attracted a single viable primary challenge. This is losing? Maybe in right wing/Beltway fantasy land.
And I like Republicans speaking for Democrats. And getting it completely wrong. This week's Wall Street Journal poll showed 86% of Democrats saying they still support Hillary. This week's YouGov poll found 71% of Dems now say the media is making too big a deal out of the email story, up from 62% the first week of the "scandal." Meaning the longer this witch hunt continues, the more Democrats will rally behind the Clintons, like they have with all other fake scandalmongering by Clinton Deranged Republicans and Beltway media types. Are Hillary's critics ignorant of the fact that her support is strong and not slipping on their account? Or do facts just not matter when you're desperate to convince yourself reality isn't real?
In fact, a majority of Americans see as monsters the cabal of Republicans who undermine our President, collude with Iran, demonize gays, and oppress the poor. Americans care about real issues, not Kevin Williamson's blatantly false wishful thinking about Hillary's irrelevant emails. Kevin Williamson, Maureen Dowd, Chris Cizilla, Conor Friederson and the rest of the anti-Clinton media cannot stand that they have irrevocably lost the public trust, and Hillary hasn't: Hillary doesn't need their approval, because she has that of the American people.
The media can no longer dictate who gets to be President because the public stopped falling for their schtick -- Hilary's resiliency embodies this,
and that's why the press is so upset. That's why they have to repeat
lies like "She's losing" and "She's unpopular", lies that are easily
debunked with data. When you have no other resort, I guess all you're
left to do is repeat what you want to be true and hope maybe someone
will care.
Yeah, that lame attempt to turn a years-long flagrant prosecutorial witch hunt into just a night out with Debbie Downer is pretty startling all by itself.
ReplyDeleteWhat scares me is that Williamson might actually believe his own drivel. I'm no Clinton fan, and even I could see that Starr was little more than a well-fed, bourgeois, partisan hack, a Javert in pinstripes.
Umm, let's put it this way--if you were married to Hillary Clinton, would you want to go on record as having gotten a knob job in the White House from a twenty-year-old intern?
ReplyDeleteDesperation makes even smart people stupid.
this is really awesome, if you imagine can paul heyman reading it aloud.
ReplyDeleteSmart kid. Cruz scares me, too.
ReplyDeleteto give you some idea, he compares her to Nixon and the Marquis de Sade
ReplyDeleteDamn, Rule 34 is a harsh mistress.
she doesn't have an email address he can add to his list, so fuck her
ReplyDeletehis admirers loved him not in spite of his gross opportunism and dishonesty but because of those very things
ReplyDeleteMy memory seems to fail me here... was Newt cheating on wife number two or wife number three during this kerfuffle?
Just you wait until Hilary is crushed by this smoldering volcano of charisma
ReplyDeleteOn Wife #2 with future Wife #3. Which proves Rule #1: IOKIYAR.
ReplyDeleteTrey Gowdy (R-Uncanny Valley)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see a bunch of articles making fun of Biden for wearing pantsuits.
ReplyDeleteI hear Biden might be a lesbian.
ReplyDeleteHe should have admitted it. The first thing I'm going to do as President is to get a blowjob in the Oval Office. I'd even try to get C-Span to televise it.
ReplyDeleteGee, he really does look like Zippy the Pinhead.
ReplyDeleteNah, he really regrets that he never had the chance to bust Zack Morris' cherry in the backseat of his parents' Ford Taurus.
ReplyDeletethe other way around
ReplyDeleteI followed it closely at the time. He was asked if was having sex with Monica and he asked "What is your definition of sex?" and they gave him a definition that technically didn't apply to what he did. Giving a blow job counted but getting one didn't if I remember correctly. He jumped at the loophole and answered "according to your definition, I did not have sex with her." They then sprung the blue dress on the public. It's also not perjury IMO because Monica was irrelevant to the Paula Jones lawsuit. Also also, that shit happens all the time in civil lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteThe longer I look at this the funnier it gets. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePresident Clinton had a diabolical knack for turning his self-inflicted problems into referenda on the moral standing of his opponents, or of anybody who happened to be convenient for the purpose;
ReplyDeleteIn this he was helped greatly by the self-evident fact that so many of his opponents were bullies, hypocrites, and the kind of vicious con men who would take your grandmother's hearing aid to auction off the batteries. I'm sure the Big Dog is capable of sleigh-of-hand, but it's not like a great deal was needed.
He wanted to have sex with the Taurus in Morris' backseat? Man, neo-cons are some really kinky dudes.
ReplyDelete"President Clinton had a diabolical knack for turning his self-inflicted
ReplyDeleteproblems into referenda on the moral standing of his opponents,..."
Y'know, I vaguely remember some Pug politician who was just on fire with the base and who shot sparkles from Rich Lowery's TV until a mean, partisan Lamestream Media(tm) brought her low with a never ending stream of "gotcha" questions in an attempt to make her look dumber than a bag of hair. She woulda had such a great future... it's a shame I can't recall her name...
Not true. But the fact he didn't leave his husband when he found he was cheating on him with Lewinsky proves he's a cold-blooded opportunist.
ReplyDeleteO the verbosity, the piling of metaphor on metaphor. It's like Williamson read Hunter Thompson's Nixon obituary and said to himself, "I wonder if I could do something like that for our side." Well, Kevin, now you have your answer.
ReplyDelete"Giving a blow job counted but getting one didn't if I remember correctly"
ReplyDeleteUmm... haven't young evangelical and Catholic kids trying to remain pure until marriage been using that dodge since the invention of language?
You'd almost think that Kevin D. Williamson went to Hot Springs High with the Big Dog.
ReplyDeleteWhy, yes, yes they have. And to prove that good old American can-do spirit isn't dead, they've recently broadened the concept to include anal (ouch!).
ReplyDeleteFor now you'll have to be satisfied with the articles making fun of Biden for being Biden.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait for the GOP debates. These guys have a hard act to follow, but I think they're probably up to the challenge.
ReplyDeleteFucking genius is what it was.
ReplyDeleteOnly to be followed by Bob Barr--who was then forced to resign after it came out that he had a child outside of his marriage.
ReplyDeleteOne more reason why the Clinton impeachment still burns these assholes--it didn't take Clinton out of office, but it sure did take out their two top guys!
To clarify, I'm not at all trying to re-argue whether Clinton was really
ReplyDeletetechnically lying under oath, or what he should have done, or whatever. I'm just
asking whether I'm the only one who thought at the
time that it was at least somewhat plausible that nothing had happened with Lewinsky, because Clinton was denying it repeatedly both in and out of court in a way that seemed unwise if the thing was about to be proved. I'm sure I was naïve to think that. But I feel like Williamson might be exaggerating a wee bit in his claim that literally all Democrats were certain Clinton was bullshitting at that point and admired him for it.
Something no good Catholic would take sitting down.
ReplyDeleteD'you figure Cruz will be speaking in tongues by the fourth debate, or will he hold out until he's so far behind nobody cares anymore?
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that the default font size at National Review is like 24 points or something. Only 16 lines fits on my laptop screen. Do they want their readership to be able to read their shit without glasses?
ReplyDeleteFor a long time as a kid I thought a "pantsuit" must be some weird kind of not-appropriate-for-classy-grownups garment, like a track suit or a onesie. I was so confused when I learned it just meant a suit, worn by a lady.
ReplyDeleteTheir own goal of not learning anything has been fulfilled with aplomb.
ReplyDeleteEh, there's things that are more uncomfortable than anal sex...like explaining your unwed state of pregnancy. Also, lube is easier to buy nowadays.
ReplyDeleteYou mean Kevin got hold of some peyote?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there's fanfic to be written, for braver souls than I.
ReplyDeleteThe media can no longer dictate who gets to be President because the public stopped falling for their schtick...
ReplyDeleteIhre Lippen zu Ohren Gottes.
Winter squash, but the guy told him it was peyote.
ReplyDeleteHey, remember that Bob Livingston guy?
ReplyDeleteWhen the Very Serious People say a Democrat is unelectable, unpopular, or too extreme that's a damn good reason to vote for and support them in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteWhere do you even get a wetsuit that big?
ReplyDeleteA phone-throwing rampage? Shit, when these pervs get a conference call going about the Clenis™, that's their version of phone sex...
ReplyDeleteWoooooooo!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if all the Rep debates are gonna be moderated by true believers like Hewitt. This could get interesting.
ReplyDeletei hate you guys
ReplyDeleteMeaning the longer this witch hunt continues, the more Democrats will rally behind the Clintons
ReplyDeleteI don't know if they talk about it much--I wouldn't in their place--but the boost in the polls Clinton got immediately after the impeachment was announced had to really crawl up their ass...
Took the words right out of my mouth. It pays to read the whole thread before offering up our unique gems of insight...
ReplyDeleteIf his advisors tell him to go with his strengths, I'd guess sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteWell, to be fair, HST had much better drugs. And lots more of 'em...
ReplyDeleteAh, well, Thompson merely amplified the truth. Williamson's attempt to make Starr the victim, for example, is hard at work trying to invert the truth. I'd say that creates handicaps for Williamson that even earnest imitation can't overcome.
ReplyDeleteYeah, vaguely, now that you mention him. One of many.
ReplyDeleteVirtually every iNternet rag has redesigned itself (well, bought a template) like that. It's so awful young people can read the crap on their "devices". Why NR bothered is beyond me.
ReplyDelete(Does come in handy for old weasels like me w/ a lap-top, I'll admit.)
No, I didn't believe him, both because I had lived here during his entire governorship and the stories were legion (more of them than ever got into the national press) and because even though there were no big scandals while he was governor, they always denied denied denied anything that had potential to cause even the slightest political discomfort. Also I had witnessed the ease with which a lie could trip off his tongue if he thought it would gain him an advantage, as he did in the debates when he claimed "I'm the only one who's passed campaign finance reform in my state," at which point I almost threw a shoe through the TV, since I was the one, much more than he, who passed it; we did it through petitioning and he didn't endorse until it became clear in the polling it would pass. IOW, he stayed silent when he could have helped encourage people to sign petitions, hoping it wouldn't make it to the ballot.
ReplyDeleteAs I told my oldest friend when she called after he first started running for president and had that goofy "ask me about my governor" thing: "He can't keep his pants up and he lies when the truth would suit better. Other than that, he's competent, has some good ideas, and is not financially corrupt."
She remains amazed to this day, in light of what later transpired, how concisely and accurately I had summed him up in just a few words.
"Don't knock shoddily-constructed convenience stores, Zip. They're the backbone of th' US economy."
ReplyDelete<--- takes a bow. It was I who introduced the Clenis™ to the internets lo these many years ago. Seriously, not shitting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/1999/06/07/hyde/
ReplyDeleteOh, no shit--Henry Hyde was a perfect example of the phenomenon. Everyone treated him as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and all the while he was behaving as if he were a veritable political Patrick Bateman.
ReplyDeleteProbably the worst example of representative democracy since Nixon.
Piling Pelion upon Ossa was the final straw that broke the red herring's back.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a job for Zombie Philip Jose Farmer.
ReplyDeleteWhat was Bush's usual venue for press conferences?
ReplyDeleteIf only there were "opinion polls" available, which could prove Williamson's contention that no-one supported Clinton at the end of his administration except die-hard Democrats (motivated by blind tribalism and by their own vile systems of morality).
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was Livingston and not Barr. I'm too lazy to look it up. But I do seem to recall that there were a handful of other Republicans who decided to make a clean breast of things at that time. They figured better to come out than get caught.
ReplyDeleteSuch family values!
Thus is history scrubbed of meaning in preparation for complete rewrite. Soon, Kenn Starr will be added to the Clinton Body Count as just another victim. (Yeah--remember the Clinton Body Count, keeping track of all the people Bill and Hil had executed for crossing them? Good times, good times.)
ReplyDelete"In fact, we picked up this congressman at the Circle-K on 5th and Lawrence just before he was gonna get thrown out with the rest of the day-old hot dogs."
ReplyDeleteI would like to share my AOL connection with you, oh mighty one!
ReplyDeletePerhaps based on this:
ReplyDeleteBetter to admire and love "leaders" who destroy the environment, promote corporate slavery, create generations of hatred toward Americans, enflame religious hostilities, worship weaponry and violence, encourage racism and social conflict, disdain democracy, and cripple the middle class (among other things), than to forgive a leader who lies about getting his dick sucked.
ReplyDelete"You are hearby found guilty of being hopelessly square...
ReplyDelete... and sentenced to not less than 10 years of PAR-TAY!"
[CUE Disco Ball and colored lights]
They (Democrats) are the party of the student council
ReplyDeleteI know how Williamson must feel. I've seen the GOP as the junior high student council for years now. They come up with all kinds of stupid plans and plots. The student council, though, has no power to actually DO anything. But the government, when controlled by the GOP can really wreck the place. They can start wars, bankrupt the country to make sure the very richest are a little bit richer, make it way harder to vote, etc. etc.
For just an instant, I wondered how Harry Truman got into this discussion.
ReplyDeleteBorn Harold Watson Gowdy III (What is it about Dixi-publicans and "III"? Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Harold Watson Gowdy III. . .you just know his great-grandfather rode with Wade Hampton or somesuch).
ReplyDeleteIf there was ever a man who deserved to be cut to steaming chunks on the steps of a public building, it was the guy who gave his name to a antibortionin' 'mendment.
ReplyDeleteinstead, we helped pay for his opiates while he dozed off to a slightly deeper unawareness.
This just makes me want to tell a curator to bring me that Reagan Bible, so I can caress it with my bare hands and look at it crosseyed.
ReplyDeleteIf you get elected, I'll be happy to deliver that blowjob. It'll be a shitty, awful blowjob, because I'm a straight guy and have zero experience delivering them, but hey, you're the President now: you should get used to being disappointed, because that's what the entire rest of your term is going to be like.
ReplyDeleteInstead of with some Jergens' lotion and a sock.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think those ears would keep him from getting his head all the way up his ass.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the old deaf-mute who used to beat off by the pinball machine at the Gulf station in the neighborhood where I grew up. The adults always told us kids "Just don't make eye contact."
ReplyDeleteApparently this was a hit with the White House at the time.
ReplyDeleteIf this guy was regarded as the town "eccentric" instead of the town sex offender, it must have been because his daddy was well-connected... and probably even had Roman numerals after his name.
ReplyDeleteHe could totally get his way if he ran as a republican with the goal 'heightening the contradictions' or whatever the leftist revolutionaries call it when they don't vote.
ReplyDeletehis admirers loved him not in spite of his gross opportunism and dishonesty but because of those very things.
ReplyDeleteFunny, Williamson seems to approve it when conservatives express support for Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, et al because "they'll make liberals heads explode" or "they're telling it like it is" or other disagreeable behavior. What's different, do you suppose?
a question not of the president’s venality in the Oval Office and elsewhere or of his consequent crimes — perjury, etc.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but note that "etc" is doing a HELL of a lot of work in this sentence. Would Williamson care to elucidate, or does he realize on some level that any other examples he can think of would make him sound like a crazy person?
Re: the paragraph of prime Williamson: I like to think that during the campaign for POTUS, a whole lotta people will see and hear this type of stuff, and just be confused or alienated. In spite of the work that's been done against the Clintons.
ReplyDeleteConvoluted overblown nonsense doesn't stick in the public consciousness real well. Not like a married president getting a blowjob in the oval office and then lying about it. But if you aren't terribly offended by that, why then the right has to make it a metaphor for the whole Clinton presidency. Which it isn't, so we're back to convoluted overblown nonsense.
Williamson's schtick might as well be Cockney rhyming slang for all the sense most folks could make of it. Bizarre, how he makes high school politics a reference point -- as if the councils and cliques have any real estate in my head, and resonate strongly with my feelings about Whitewater or something.
The problem with Ken Starr was not that he's a world-class buzzkill, that's for sure. It takes a nation of millions to hold us back, unsuccessfully. Here's a high five for Ol' Dirty Bill ... oops, I'm loving him for the wrong reasons!?!
It remains cute that Williamson thinks that before Clinton, we were grasping in the dark for some sort of skeleton key to unlock the problem of how to show the Republicans as "unsophisticated, unclever fools."
But again, this stuff is gonna read as gibberish. References to nothing, to whisps of vapor. So the whole body of work will have to be reiterated anew. Quite an anvil to drag around, the effort of hanging anvils around the Clintons' necks.
I've been playing too much Civilization 5 lately, so an analogy comes to mind. The artificial intelligence in that game is notoriously bad. The AIs can't fight effectively and can't adapt. The higher difficulty levels just give the robots crude advantages, like more money, so that the human has to play better.
ReplyDeleteWatching conservatives fight the Clintons for decades has been like watching a robot civ throw wave after wave of troops at a well-defended city. No variations in failed tactics. No attrition suffered in Clintonville. The sad spectacle is only enlivened by an inexplicable mistake now and then, usually on the right. Then there's lots of turd-polishing commentary skirting the obvious analyses. Meanwhile Bill and Hillary keep "leveling up," albeit suffering diminishing XP returns since their erstwhile nemeses don't seem to have any new lessons to teach.
Who ever heard of attacking your opponent as a way to deflect your opponent's attack? My God, those Clintons are diabolical!
ReplyDeleteTotally! The amazing thing was you'd work really hard to produce one defensive unit, and meantime they'd come up with a hundred feeble but persistent and annoying attackers. Just like the GOP.
ReplyDeleteMy late mother thought Starr was a pervert. Of course, her dislike of Republicans went back to 1932.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember either. Which one was he married to when the exposure of his gross opportunism and dishonesty forced him to deep-six his $4 million book deal?
ReplyDeleteThey throw out the day-old hot dogs?
ReplyDeleteDunno. But I seem to recall Newt hounding Jim Wright out of office over Wright's book deal--which turned out to be identical to Newt's book deal.
ReplyDeleteBut, then, Newt's always been a major hypocrite asshole. He was OUTRAGED!!!!! over the House check-kiting scandal--even though he had personally sailed 22 rubber checks. Newt was OUTRAGED!!!!! at the franking scandal, although he was no slouch in using his franking privileges. And, of course, scolding Clinton on morality while getting BJs from future-former wife No. 2 out in the parking lot.
Yup. The attacks do stop when they run of out military units, or money. But sometimes that doesn't happen, and it's not happening to the GOP.
ReplyDeleteIn Civ you can sometimes just bribe an AI to attack somebody else, or make enough concessions to them that they're friendly or realize they're better off being nice. But again, it's hard to see how that'd work with the GOP. They like Zerg mode and they can afford it. Due to cognitive dissonance they're always winning and yet always existentially threatened, so events on the ground aren't too important.
Is his head egg-shaped, or does he make his hair do that on purpose?
ReplyDeleteI had thought, "That guy literally looks like a football," but Zippy is more correct. In every way.
ReplyDeleteKurt Schlichter calls Mrs. Clinton, "a Lovecraftian monster, the Cthulhu of American politics,"...
ReplyDeleteAnd he thinks that will make us less likely to vote for her?! Iä! Iä! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Hillary Chappaqu‘ah wgah'nagl fhtagn!
...and Bill Clinton "an elderly leech" -- I think he was going for "lech,"
No, given the Lovecraftian theme, "leech" could well be correct. But "elder" was probably meant to be "eldritch".
"YES! YOUR world is on fire...But your mommy's here, and is going to (something) your world is EVEN...BETTER."
ReplyDeleteEven better than on fire: In that "even" is a lifetime of condescension to and smug patronizing of everyone--man, woman, and child--who isn't a politically reactionary, fundamentalist Christian. Cruz is a cross between Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd and Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry, with the face of Jonathan Winters and the voice of the Coroner of Munchkinland.
Then my laff response is in your debt. Well done!
ReplyDelete"Or they can just fill pages and screens with BITCH and WHORE; really, it wouldn't harm their meaning"
ReplyDeleteOr their page views.
OT but is anyone else watchign The Americans? Because we just caught up with the episode where the hero remembers how he was trained by the KGB to use sex/give sex as a spy. Its truly horrifying and creates a sense of despair in the viewer as you follow his younger self first to a younger woman, then an elderly woman, and then an old and horrifically ugly man. Any gendered notions you might have had that, as his wife says to him, "its different for men" are overturned as you remember, with him, being forced to "make it real" with anyone his masters told him to service.
ReplyDeleteOne has an enormous ego,
ReplyDeleteTwo has no ability to make decisions for himself
Three has run to seed and doesn't manage to produce offspring.
His head and ears remind me of the way a Snake swallows and egg, using its backward facing teeth to prevent it from slipping back out.
ReplyDeleteI, on the other hand, am afraid of typing anywhere near the internets she's using now.
ReplyDeleteI see a definite business opportunity here: a cross between clickbait and a new kind of online solitaire.
ReplyDeleteBehold, the mighty power of the Clenis™!!!!
ReplyDeleteObligatory: Hello, Cthulhu! http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-12-01
ReplyDeleteI have, as well as Allegiance (which apparently won't live to see a season 2), and I'm frankly amazed that we're not all speaking Russian today. Those deep cover operatives are easily running circles around the FBI and CIA, when they're not beating the shit out of them. Are "Christian Nations(tm)" able to train that kind of deep cover operative?
ReplyDeleteHaven't heard of Allegiance but you know what was really very good (not quite as good as The Americans but very good) was "Sleeper Cell" at least for the first season or maybe the first two. The lead actor, Michael Ealy and this nemisis Oded (I'll pay israelis, arabs, you name it!) Fahr were both brilliant. And the writing and the reflection on the experience of an american born AA muslim vs. a foreign born muslim were fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of Hillary's support comes from the fact that no other candidate has stepped up and made a serious bid for the nomination. She's perceived as the only game in town, so of course, poll respondents say they will support her, but I wish someone else would step up. Before Obama took the plunge in '07 and got serious about campaigning, Hillary was a lock because she sucked all the air out of the process. But he put in the work, made his case, and seems to have done quite well for himself. I do admire her, and if next November she's the candidate, I'll vote for her, but I do think the Dems need someone fresher and more exciting, someone who's not afraid to make a more progressive case that she can. And no, not Elizabeth Warren. Much as I love our homegirl, she will not have even finished her first Senate term in '16, and she's doing great work where she is. We should be able to field a new face to go to war with the GOP circus.
ReplyDeleteOkay no no wait, here's the whole Schlichter Cthulhu quote:
ReplyDeleteHillary is a Lovecraftian monster, the Cthulhu of American politics who
sleeps dreaming of victory, but she will never be president. You can
take that to the bank, the same too-big-to-fail bank that probably paid
her $250,000 for a 10 minute speech about income inequality.
So... huh. In what sense is she asleep? In the sense that she isn't currently president? Is wanting to be president what makes her a monster? It is such a weird choice of metaphor in how botched it is and in how his target audience is unlikely to have any idea what the letters "cthulhu" mean. Ah well, at least he immediately gearshifts from the elder god who sleeps at R'lyeh to... banks! Which he is against! Maybe? He thinks they should have failed? Or should be smaller? Because they exacerbate income inequality? And he hates Hillary because she didn't let them fail? Or because she talks about income equality sometimes? Or because he wishes the free market didn't value her speeches so highly? Or he wishes her speeches were longer? I can't follow it. It is the wild, unlanded haymaker of paragraphs. I picture Schlichter twirling 180 with the effort of throwing it. Hillary laughs and walks away. And then a hive of bees falls on his head.
Fhtagn this guy.
...the Big Dog is capable of sleigh-of-hand,...
ReplyDeleteRemember kids, always lube before you luge.
Here's the one that really got the right hot and bothered:
ReplyDeleteInteresting idea, these things you call "opinion polls."
ReplyDeleteI wonder what that would look like?
And people say the government's not good for anything. Huh!
ReplyDeleteThis, in spades. if for no other reason than to sharpen HRC's focus.
ReplyDeleteYes, the "inevitability factor."
ReplyDeleteI may raise some hackles by saying this, but I don't particularly like Hillary Clinton. I don't think she's a bad person - she's just not very personable. She doesn't seem to connect very well, lacks that gift of at least seeming sincere. To me, anyway.
I've thought about it and it's not just a holdover from when I met her many years ago (1989), long before Bill's first presidential run, in a private setting. She successfully transmitted the vibe to me that I was of no importance whatsoever; she was practically dismissive. This was at an Easter egg hunt event the non-profit I directed held every year in the governor's mansion neighborhood. I wasn't sure if she put off that vibe to let me know that our silly event was of no matter other than for a photo-op or if it was because, at the time, I was still a cute young thing and she had her hands full trying to keep her husband away from young women. (Not that she would have had any worry - I was not his type and I didn't get any lecherous looks even). I met the whole family that day, including Roger and Virginia. Whatever the case, the feeling she communicated to me, intentionally or not, was that I and the others there and the event were important only as a backdrop to whatever agenda they had for the day. I was like, whatever.
The problem is, that's still the same vibe I get from her when I see her campaigning. While it's naive for anyone to believe that it's about anything but the candidate when someone is campaigning, some candidates do a pretty credible job of pulling it off. Obama, for example. Or Bill Clinton. Hillary doesn't (again, IMO). I didn't get that vibe from hearing her speak as SOS or in other working-type speeches. But when she's campaigning it just comes across as insincere and calculated.
What did Monica carry in her blue dress?
ReplyDeleteA wad of Bill's.
Upvoted for back-to-back 'postrophes!
ReplyDeleteThis is why I'm no fan of the Bond movie series. Not a single installment alludes to his servicing men.
ReplyDeleteThis hetero decries the lack of fucking verisimilitude.
I think the new Bond, Daniel Craig, might be game.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine this greasy, doughy sociopath has two children of his own?
ReplyDeleteActually the same thing is said about Obama--especially when it comes to campaigning.
ReplyDeleteI believe that.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things at the time was Newt telling his wife that they had to keep his adultery secret because the people needed to believe their leaders were men of good character -- that the faith of the people outweighed the facts.
ReplyDeleteI think you can actually make that case. But I think the guy who makes it should probably apply it to the President before applying it to the Rep from the suburbs of Atlanta.
Well, thus my admission that it's amorphous & ill-defined & perhaps irrational, because my personal feelings are like everyone else's, subjective. Thinking on it, I think Bill Clinton was equally gifted as both a campaigner and an executive; Obama is more gifted as a campaigner than as an executive; and Hillary is perhaps less gifted as a campaigner than as an executive. IOW, I don't question her ability to lead; I'm just a bit uncomfortable with her trying to present a persona as a candidate that doesn't feel true (to me), though I understand the realities of campaigning may demand it.
ReplyDeleteSerious question: are conservatives under the age of 40 even motivated by this Clenis stuff? It was over 20 years ago. The only person I know still obsessed by the Clenis is a wingnut uncle of mine who still regularly makes Caddyshack and Fletch references.
ReplyDeleteand Bill Clinton "an elderly leech" -- I think he was going for "lech,"
ReplyDeleteShirley he meant 'Lich'. Elder Lich.
was Newt cheating on wife number two or wife number three during this kerfuffle?
ReplyDeleteOnly to be followed by Bob Barr
Sounds like the orgy got completely out of hand.
He is inspired by Mixotricha paradoxa.
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Mixotricha_paradoxa.png/405px-Mixotricha_paradoxa.png
The rank and file hate who they're told to hate. As to under the age of 40, the rightwing media landscape is littered with 30-somethings who cut their milk teeth on the Lewinsky scandal...(Ben Shapiro for example) who will instruct the under-40 rank and file that yes, the Clenis damaged our sacred democracy almost as much as Obummer did.
ReplyDeleteRule 34 is a harsh mistress
ReplyDeleteWhich is why we return to her asking for more punishment.
I was guessing stigmata, but your way is good too.
ReplyDeleteI would watch that debate if the moderator brings out a basket of snakes for competitive handling.
ReplyDeleteI am honored to internet-know you.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats place an extraordinary value on cleverness: They are the party of the student council
ReplyDeleteCompared to the party of C-student, frat boy cheerleaders ---
The thing that was so epic about Livingston, though he's but a footnote to history now, is that he was to take over as speaker to replace the resigning Gingrich who was, unknown at the time, carrying on an extramarital affair...and Larry Flynt had the goods on Livingston's own dalliances, which caused him to resign as well.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I can still do a bang-up Larry Flynt impersonation: "It's about the hypocrisy, Geraldo."
Ted Cruz will deliver his concession speech while nailed to a cross.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that Biden "likes" women.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they can get some of their Culture Warriors in the Comics Division to create a horrible intergalactic tyrant who's like a thousand Hitlers, and then compare her with that.
ReplyDeleteA Transformer made entirely of Hitlers!
HitlerVOLTRON!!!!
ReplyDeleteTrey Gowdy! Trey Gowdy! Trey Gowdy!
ReplyDeleteChrist, these clowns still hate flouridated water, as I overheard last weekend in Biscoe, NC (don't ask). One local guy was explaining that Hitler had fed all the Jews flouride which was why they climbed on those trains meek as could be. Apparently he missed the part of the story where they explained that the alternative was to be beaten to death in front of your family.
ReplyDeleteStarr's testimony was very moving:
ReplyDeleteI am Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk
I can't swim, I never could swim
I never will swim
Oh, put me down
Let go my leg
I told ya, will you shut up
I told ya I can't swim, ha ho no
Put me down, I hate water, no
Ya know, I'm digging this "Hilary Clinton is the Cthulhu of American politics" meme. It's so spot-on, the merest hint of her surfacing "when the stars are right" has sent a shockwave of insanity through the right-wing, a cult of madmen and death-worshipers of the deepest dye.
ReplyDeleteClinton ftaghn!
WHY VOTE FOR THE LESSER EVIL?
ReplyDeleteOr consider your wingnut pups, who are still outraged over Chappaquidick, even though Mary Jo Kopechne was a decade in her grave - or more - before they were born.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean my comment to be any kind of corrective or rebuke to yours. Just an observation about Obama as a campaigner. Although people seem to project on to him a warm and engaging interest in their lives I think (IIRC) that reports from people much closer to him indicate that he is actually extremely uncomfortable with retail campaigning and doesn't really enjoy the meet and greet.
ReplyDeleteMan I'd forgotten all of this. I guess we only remember Newt because he wasn't content to take a sinecure with some lobbyist group and shut the fuck up.
ReplyDeleteOr she observed the long line of horn dogs hopping after various sweet young things with their pants down around their ankles.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, he only did it because he loved America so much it clouded his judgement.
ReplyDeleteNeeds soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gTLxgssOXI
ReplyDeleteNo, don't!!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's so nice to have you back where you belong!
ReplyDeleteIt's Gowdy Doody time!
ReplyDeleteTrey Gowdy is def not tres gaudy
ReplyDeleteHe fakes it believably. I don't think she does.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. I guess I don't care. I'm attracted to people who are all business. "I've seen this crap before and I'm not impressed or frightened by it" seems like a pretty good characteristic in a leader, if not in a campaigner.
ReplyDeleteWIL WHEATON!
ReplyDeleteOops. Wrong thread. My apologies.
I don't know. At least in the early comics, Zippy was fairly guileless and sweet.
ReplyDelete"I've seen this crap before and I'm not impressed or frightened by it"
ReplyDelete...is a good way to approach the current crop of wingnut crazoids, and I hope she does more of it. That's one lesson, perhaps the main one, that I wish it hadn't taken Obama six years to learn.
They're unskewing them as fast as they can!
ReplyDeleteYeah, my point. I think that's who Hillary really IS and I'm good with that; I'm uncomfortable with campaign mode Hillary pretending to be something else - it doesn't ring true w/me. FWIW, when everyone was on the John Edwards bandwagon, I thought he was too slick & smarmy; I never bought into him being about anything but John Edwards first and foremost.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he's Zippy's evil twin, Lippy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there is something to horseshoe theory, because if you told me that was from the comment section of an alternet article, I wouldn't know the difference.
ReplyDeleteStarr has been president of Baylor University for several years now. I'm not sure which way that fits.
ReplyDeleteKinda sucks that neither of us can come up with a viable alternative, doesn't it? Suppose Ms Clinton declined to run? What the fuck would happen then? I have no idea.
ReplyDeleteOr use them in the construction industry
ReplyDeleteI think that's who Hillary really IS and I'm good with that; I'm uncomfortable with campaign mode Hillary pretending to be something else ...
ReplyDeleteSadly, that's the state we're in though. I would like to round up all the professional campaign advisers, etc, and send them off to harvest bananas someplace. But this is the US of A, and we do bullshit like nobody else. Half the economy runs on it.
I do love that sick bastard Larry Flynt.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Jenn, I'm curious what you thought of the film The Hunting of the President. Personally I'm pretty sympathetic with the true believers (e.g. Conason).
Oh, it did.
ReplyDeleteWow. And I thought the "Ben Carson for President" sticker I saw the other day was kinda special.
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/S1ModuleCover.jpg
ReplyDeleteOh come now! They don't throw out day-old hotdogs. Maybe 2-week-old ones, if they're green.
ReplyDeleteAs a liberal over the age of 60, and even agreeing with what Jenn of Ark said above, if Bill Clinton could run again, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat ... and I bet he'd win.
ReplyDeleteNewt actually looked in the mirror and saw a president-to-be. How do I get a mirror like that?
ReplyDeleteI kind of feel bad for editing my original comment now.
ReplyDeleteEven the mainstream media will find itself compelled by the sheer weight of her venality to shout, "The Emperor has no clothes," while the rest of us plead, "Please put some on!"
ReplyDeleteThe saddest thing about reading Schlichter's column is the secure knowledge that he really did bring his A material.
I didn't see the movie but I read the book, and used to keep up a sporadic email correspondence with Conason's partner, Gene Lyons. I'm sympathetic as well.
ReplyDeleteYou've got me curious about what the right thread is.
ReplyDeleteYeah, me too. His propensity to prevaricate on matters mundane is annoying, not disqualifying.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the mirror made him see that--it's severe personality disorder.
ReplyDelete"a horrible intergalactic tyrant who's like a thousand Hitlers"
ReplyDeleteOMG HILLARY IS GALACTUS!
Martin O'Malley... Man Of Destiny!
ReplyDeleteImagine one of those commercials where ordinary folks are sitting around with coffee cups, discussing a candidate, product, or service. This time it's Bill Clinton. The last line goes to a sensible, attractive-yet-not-threatening woman. "Yeah, me too. His propensity to prevaricate on matters mundane is annoying, not disqualifying." Cue slogan, and cut.
ReplyDelete(How is it that I'm still unemployed?)
I own one of these. Never was quite sure why that Cleric is on his knees. He looks like the guy who played Monk. Find your inner strength in spite of the phobias, bro!...
ReplyDeleteI'd say that cons see Hillary as the lich, but they like to pretend she's fat with thick old cankles. This feller is more like the Joan Rivers ideal. He only got that skinny after he died, though, I bet.
"Possible leader of the civilizing forces." Gingrich wasn't tying himself to any particular office.
ReplyDeleteI mean, really fuck Bill Clinton for his various assaults against good sense which are currently haunting us, be they NAFTA, various deregulations of the financial sector or Russia policy. And fucking his intern. The man is at the end of the day, a Southern Baptist who allowed people to nickname him "The Big Dog" and has been rubbing elbows with the scumbags ruining this country pretty much constantly since leaving office. So, yeah, fuck him.
ReplyDeleteBut the fact that Ken Starr started out investigating the non-scandal of Whitewater and instead of going back and saying "Yup, it's bullshit. Clintons didn't do anything wrong" Starr ends up
asking Clinton about his jerky sex life tells you all you need to know
about Ken Starr.
See, Clinton had him exiled!
ReplyDeleteI've seen one of those, too.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that some of them want him because he's a brilliant surgeon who proves often he knows fuck-all about anything going on outside of a chest cavity and has no experience in politics. Others, it's just so they can shout "Am not!" when anyone notices how super-racist their party often is, but that's a least a sort of understandable reason.
Which would make Huma Abedin the Silver Surfer. Works for me!
ReplyDelete