Political Theatre category archive
Shutdown Shenanigans 0
When I lived on the Main Line a long time ago, I always looked forward to Clark DeLeon’s writing; he had a delightful column on bits and pieces in the Metro (I forget exactly what it was called) section. Eventually, he left the Inky and I left the Main Line.
Recently, he was back in the Inky writing about the recent Republican decision to ungovern America. A nugget:
“Pardon me, Is the majority always drunk?”
Conspiring Minds Want To Know . . . . 0
PoliticalProf provides a handy guide to finding the conspiracy theory that’s right for you.
Follow the link; you’ll be glad you did. I can’t scale it down to fit here and keep it legible.
So Why Did They Do It? 0
Updated: A half-formed version of this post excaped captivity prematurely.
Long-time Maine Republican Matthew Gagnon has an interesting take on the current shenanigans within the Republican Party. He thinks it’s a battle over means, not ends. A nugget. (Read the rest, then bookmark Matthew Gagnon. He’s a sane voice from the right.):
Yet to the average Republican activist, those three senators are as different as night and day, and the source of their perceived difference is mostly in their tactical approach to governing.
Given that, why did they do it? Because, as Chauncey Devega explains, it just felt sooooo goooood.
The Pernicious Hand of Jerry Mander 0
Noah Feldman in the Charlotte Observer.
But the outcome is clear: Safe Republican districts gave us the tea party.
Freed from chasing the median national voter, tea party representatives could move far to the right without fear of being voted out of office. The motivated voters who showed up for primaries pushed out more moderate Republicans still playing the old game.
The disastrous consequence for Republicans is a self- perpetuating party-within-a-party that doesn’t care if it makes the wider party unelectable nationally. Tea party supporters think they are fighting for the Republican soul, and they are: If they win, they will drive the party so far from the median voter that a Republican president will become unimaginable.
Read the rest.
Twits on Twitter 0
Well, that sure worked out nicely.
To a Tea 0
Daniel Ruth doesn’t like the blend. A nugget:
If only Sen. Ted Cruz, R-I Feel Petty, Oh So Petty, had been paying attention.
(snip)
Are there lessons to be learned from Washington’s answer to “Hee-Haw on the Potomac”? Sure, beginning perhaps with the notion that civic illiteracy, especially among many elected officials, is at epidemic proportions.
Read the rest.
Oh, do please read the rest.
The Palin Indicator 0
Lawrence O’Donnell’s opening line is priceless.
Watch the Fun(ding) Begin 0
Skirmish ended. Likely more to come.
Let the circular firing squad commence firing.
Afterthought:
While it lasts, savor the confusion of your enemies. Then gird your grid for the next one.
Because “true believers” never give up, for they think they don’t have anything to lose (even when they do).
Both Sides Not 0
Thom and Tommy Christopher explore the weird world of “both sides do it” and find that there’s no biz like show biz.
Im-pounded 0
If you wish to move pets or animals from one country to another, strict quarantine rules apply to prevent the spread of disease.
In one of the odder side-effects of the Republican refusal to govern in good faith, AKA the “shutdown,” here’s a family pet stuck in Republican limbo.
Backfire 2
Dick Polman dissects the Republican backpedaling from the decision by Senator Cruz-missile and his teabags to blow up the economy over the Affordable Care Act. It doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for the geniuses behind it.
A snippet:
(snip)
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of politics – a minority of a minority in one legislative chamber can’t outfight a president who handily won re-election – knew that the GOP would wind up the loser in a shutdown showdown. Indeed, the smartest conservatives knew it, and warned against it.
Instead, the saboteurs are currently looking for something, anything, that might pass muster with President Obama and help extricate them from their ill-fated drive around the ideological cul de sac.Expect the teabaggers to portray themselves as martyrs willing to nobly sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Heaven forbid they be seen as power-hungry hacks who think governance is a video game in which it’s okay to sacrifice the general welfare for hit-points.
Republican Wedgery 0
PoliticalProf attempts to make sense of the Republican fixation on the Affordable Care Act and concludes that it’s not about the issue; it’s about the wedge.
A small nugget:
Pro-life abortion politics is one such issue. As a practical matter, abortion, as an issue, is fraught with an array of emotions, perceptions of rights, and beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. It is possible, and indeed quite common, for individual voters to hold an array of what might be termed “liberal” political positions — pro-labor, pro-environment, in favor of increasing taxes on the better off — while holding a “pro-life” position on abortion at the same time. No voter is perfectly ideologically consistent.
Read the rest.
It makes more sense than any other attempt I’ve seen to explain the Republicans’ willingness to shoot the economy to get their way.