Political Theatre category archive

Daniel Ruth wonders where all the Miss Grundys have come from, counseling that fools should not be called out for their follies. A nugget (emphasis added):

In recent days some people have accused Joe Biden of being impolite to Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan during their debate last week simply because the vice president offered up a few snickers and suggested his opponent was full of “malarkey” — more or less.

Truth should be a defense, but suddenly the body politic and members of the chin-rubbing classes have become Miss Manners, decrying the lack of civility and rudeness creeping into the political discourse.

Helen Philpot outlines the similarites:

Now I am sure comparing Paul Ryan to Sarah Palin is a stretch for some but when you are as old as Margaret and me you see these things a little more clearly. Nothing is more apparent to an older person than a younger person blinded by their own youth. With age comes wisdom. If you doubt me, just wait.

Four years ago, Palin debated Biden and painted the world in black and white – oil and snow. This time Ryan painted it in red and black – debits and credits. Everything gets all summed up in rows and columns where nothing matters but the bottom line. Life has yet to throw him any problem that can’t be solved with a calculator.

Read the rest.

Nightmare on Sesame Street

Rated: PG-17

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To counterbalance them wingnut predictions of the future if President Obama wins the election, Reg Henry offers his vision of a future under Mitt the Flip. A nugget:

On a more familial note, Congress will pass and the president will sign the Wholesome Intimacy Act, which will mandate that married couples adopt the missionary position (as you know, this involves knocking on the bedroom door and handing religious tracts to a potential convert of the opposite sex).

Read the rest.

And now, put your hands together for Mr. Dick Destiny!

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

From a Romney rally:

Chauncey Devega has some suggestions for Republicans on how to spin this.

As a Delawarean for 25 years, all I have to say is “Joe.”

Helen Philpot on the unreported story:

Margaret, once again I am going to have to call bullshit. I get that most people thought President Obama didn’t put in a stellar performance at the debate. And I understand that his not doing well was newsworthy. After all, he’s done much better in the past with much less on the line. But I can’t believe that I actually need to tell the media just how the cow ate the cabbage on this one.

It’s pretty simple really. The other guy lied.

How can the media continue to make Obama’s poor performance the top story rather than the fact that the other guy looked really, really great while he lied through his teeth?

Warning: Moderately bad taste about half-way through (at the 1:09 mark to be precise).

Political Prof evaluates Mitt the Flip’s foreign policy paean to blowing stuff up as a first resort and finds its hollow core:

The thing that always gripes me about conservatives is that, in the end, they’re scaredy cat blowhards. They insist—as Romney did yesterday—that the United States is an exceptional nation blessed by God for its special role in the world, and then they insist that the only way to enact this role is to be ready to kill everyone who dares to disagree with us.

The Lebanon Daily Star analyzes the kabuki. A snippet:

When former French President Nicolas Sarkozy faced his Socialist challenger, Francois Hollande, that was a debate – addressing substantive issues and lasting more than two hours. By contrast, presidential debates in the United States are more like staged performances, where the answers to every possible question have been rehearsed endlessly with teams of coaches and advisers.

The candidates in U.S. debates address carefully selected journalists who rarely follow up on a question. And the candidates’ performances are scrutinized less on the substance of their arguments than on their presentation . . . .

Dummying down the discourse, below the fold.

It’s too true to be funny.

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In a typically long and densely reasoned post, Chauncey Devega considers how the right wing uses fantasies of race war and conflict to further itself. A very small nugget:

Americans are unable to come together to solve common issues of public concern because political elites–the Right is preeminently guilty here–have developed a concerted campaign to “otherize” and marginalize those Americans with whom they disagree.

In all, the Right-wing media apparatus feeds conservatives a daily diet of misinformation, distortions, and hate speech in which their foes are described as insects to be crushed, mentally defective, traitors, and people not fit to live. Such rhetoric is not harmless political theater: seeds do indeed bear fruit.

In September, the conservative website the Free Republic published a hypothetical scenario about how the American economy will collapse and “urban” riots by black people will need to be put down by white suburban vigilantes.

The right has nothing to sell but hate, but, sadly, hate sells.

Check the comments. One of the commenters thinks Devega may be overreacting to the fringe.

I’m inclined to disagree; the fringe may be at the edges, like the fringe on a rug, but it’s still part of the rug, woven from the same fabric.

Celebrating more than a decade of harassing the innocent.

Learn more at ACLU.org.

Via Bob Cesca.