Political Theatre category archive

This is an absurdist hoot.

It’s curious how right-wingers so frequently see themselves as victims when they don’t get their way in everything.

Teabaggers have been upset about the Michelle Bachmann Newsweek cover photo, claiming that Newsweek chose a portrait in which Bachmann has crazy eyes.

Frankly, I didn’t think that the picture looked any crazier than other pictures of her.

Now comes Noz to inform me that Newsweek has retaliated by releasing its other potential cover photos.

Oh. I was correct about them eyes.

One thing puzzles me out of all of this: Who cares about Newsweek?

Via Kiko’s House.

Government of the committee, by the committee, for the should be committed.

Listen all the way through.

Via TPM.

Daniel Ruth wonders whether the old phrase, “know them by the company they keep,” should apply to Governor “Wingnut Rick” Perry.

In a nation that treasures the freedom of religious expression, Perry is more than entitled to campaign in vestments if he thinks it will help him win votes. But the governor should be mindful about the clerical company he keeps.

If Barack Obama was held to account for all the looney-tunes comments made by his former minister, Jeremiah Wright, shouldn’t Rick Perry be subject to the same standard of spiritual scrutiny?

Saturday’s ministrations were hardly a group of faithful souls known for offering up their hopes for the betterment of the nation’s spiritual health. The list of fundamentalist preachers lending their support to Perry’s rally looked like something out of the Oliver Stone Theological Seminary.

Follow the link to see some examples of the company he keeps.

This has been the first edition of what Jamie said.

Here’s the second.

In case you think Chauncey de Vega’s use of the word “despise” cited in the preceding post is too strong, here’s a nugget from E. J. Dionne:

In our fixation with a deeply ideological debate over government spending, we have lost track of what really matters. Washington, acting in concert with other nations, should be focused on creating jobs and restoring growth. It needs to deal with a housing mess and personal debts that have destroyed the balance sheets of millions of households. It needs to increase consumer purchasing power. And it should be expanding public investments in the nation’s future, not cutting them.

Yet the world is looking to the United States to help power a recovery and provide leadership at a time when we are suffocatingly inward-looking — and when ultraconservatives are so dogmatic about slashing government that they are prepared to boot away our nation’s influence. Default? No problem.

“We weren’t kidding around, either,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told The Washington Post. “We would have taken it down.” He said it with pride, yet the “it” involved the American economy and America’s standing around the globe. This is patriotism?

The Republicans’ debt ceiling fanaticism is paying off with what Bloomberg describes as a rout in global stocks.

Why were they willing to defy good sense and past practice and cause the first downgrading of the credit of the United States of America since 1789?

Chauncey de Vega has a theory:

Let us be frank and state the obvious…a reality that so many in the mainstream media are loathe to admit: The Tea Party GOP and its highwayman want to destroy President Obama because he is a Democrat. But, they despise him because he is Black.

And they are willing to take the rest of us down with him.

Before you dismiss his theory because it sounds icky and gross and “we don’t want to talk about that,” click to read the whole thing, then decide whether or not he’s got a point.

These are not nice people.

Dick Polman parses the Standard and Poor’s report on the downgraded credit rating of the United States.

Whatever you think of S&P, which has a demonstrated record of incompetence (AAA-rated securitized mortgages anyone?), Mr. Polman’s analyis is quite worthwhile. A nugget:

S&P believes that the Republicans will protect their rich friends by blocking the expiration. The money quote: “We have changed our (fiscal projections) because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the (deal).”

Hence, a credit downgrade. Such is the tragic damage wrought by ideologues – at a time when most Americans deplore the ideologues.

One more time: Truman was correct.

In the Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts, Jr., recounts a partial list (a newspaper column, probably not even a book, is insufficient for a complete list) of the wing-nut racism directed at President Obama, then sums up:

See, here’s the thing: If, as is frequently said, Obama represents America’s future, what do they (the racism-dealers–ed.) represent?

You know the answer. Worse, they do, too.

Click and read.

Via Paying Attention.

It says something about the current Republican Party that a quite conservative governor with a record of enacting layoffs and cuts in services gets to be a hero for simply saying something sane (Warning: Short commercial at beginning):

Via C&L.

Asia Times reports on what appears to be the principle export of the United States. Here’s a bit from the intro:

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that US Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the George W Bush presidency. By the end of this year, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me that number will likely reach 120. “We do a lot of traveling – a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently. This global presence – in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged – provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

Read the whole thing. It ain’t pretty.

Here’s more from Nick Turse at TomDispatch.

Chancey de Vega quotes from Salon:

In light of this recent history, it is clear that the origins of the debt ceiling crisis are to be sought, not in generic American conservatism, but in idiosyncratic Southern conservatism. The goal, the methods and the passion of the Tea Party in the House are all characteristic of the radical Southern right.

From the earliest years of the American republic, white Southern conservatives when they have lost elections and found themselves in the political minority have sought to extort concession from national majorities by paralyzing or threatening to destroy the United States.

Follow the link for his discussion.

Matt Damon calls out some wingnuttery, and the cameraman too (Warning: Mild Language):

Via DelawareLiberal.

Jonathan Bernstein tries to step back and get some perspective on the debt ceiling debacle. It’s recommended reading. A nugget:

(L)ots of people just don’t understand the limitations of the presidency within the political system. There’s some of that now, too.

Voters put a lot of teabaggers in the House in the last election. As Helen Philpot observes (in another post that’s recommended reading),

You get what you vote for.

Addendum, a Few Moments Later:

Also, the Booman:

I don’t know if it is just dawning on people or what, but electing dozens of tea baggers to Congress means that horrible things are going to happen. When you finally find out what those horrible things are going to be, you shouldn’t act shocked. This is why it was vitally important that people on the left show some unity of purpose instead of taking their ball and going home. But, when did that ever happen with a Democrat in the White House? . . . It’s just who we are, and why we lose. Still, the magical thinking is depressing me.

President Obama is not the problem. Republican policies and tactics are the problem.

President Obama cannot fix the problem.

Only voters can.

Peter Bergman discusses why this is not politics as usual. It’s only about 10 minutes. Listen up.