Political Theatre category archive

No doubt this was the reasoned action of a thoughtful person.

Also, pigs, wings.

Masudur Rahman, an Arabic-language instructor at the University of Memphis and Mohamed Zaghloul, a religious leader in the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis told the AP they were removed from a flight leaving Memphis International Airport, heading for Charlotte, after the pilot refused to takeoff.

Wonder how large the settlement will be?

On of the dumber aspects of our current jounanimalism is the belief that for every “yes,” there is a “but”–that for every truth there is an equal and opposite truth.

I saw a particularly egregious example of this earlier this week in a column that otherwise appeared to be a quite sane; it discussed President Obama’s release of his birth certificate (which of course followed the release of his birth certificate in 2008). You can read the whole thing at the link; here’s the bit that set me thinking:

Up until that point, and possibly still, 25 percent of Americans believed Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. And a whopping 45 percent of Republicans also believe he was born elsewhere, according to a poll.

Of course, before you go off and believe in some conspiracy theory that nearly half of all Republicans are nuts, it’s important to note that more than half of all Democrats might be nuts, too.

About a third of Americans, again, suspect that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or failed to stop them so the U.S. could go to war in the Middle East.

And a majority of Democrats think President Bush may have known about the attacks in advance: 35 percent said he did know and another 26 percent weren’t sure but were, you know, keeping an open mind to the idea the president willingly let Americans die to benefit his Halliburton buddies.

He is unable to address the loonies on the right without positing equal and opposite loonies on the left.

But, despite his attempt to find a “but” for his “yes,” those loonies aren’t there, not as he has characterized them.

And here’s The Rest of The Story:

Read more »

Andy Borowitz reports:

A new survey of likely voters indicates that in a hypothetical match-up between former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and billionaire Donald Trump, a majority would choose suicide over either candidate.

Full poll results at the link.

. . . Paris, Texas, that is, is apparently not so great, especially if you are not-white.

Whether or not the story is true is yet to be determined, but I have been reading Field long enough to know that he does his homework and does not speak lightly.

If you find the story appalling, it is because it is.

If you find the story unbelievable, it is because you don’t know your history.

Via DelawareLiberal.

Heh.

Via Noz.

I got no license to drive the 409 on the 405. Better stay home.

Dick Destiny explains how licentious outsourcing led to unlicensed California drivers.

It’s a mind-boggling tale of how pathetic public-private partnership phleeces the polity.

Aside:

And, by the way, what’s with this “the” stuff in how Californians address their highways? Never figured that out.

Nobody east of the Donner Pass would say, for example, “the 95” or “the 80.”

I find the Rude One’s questions quite on point:

Are we leaving Afghanistan now, let alone Iraq? Are we going to stop the relentless cutting back of civil liberties? Are Republicans gonna treat President Obama like a leader and not the lawn jockey who won the lottery? (That we’ll discuss later.)

One last note: the Rude Pundit finds it sadly funny that, after a trillion plus dollars spent on the wars, after thousands of soldiers killed, that what it took to get Osama bin Laden was a criminal investigation and an intelligence operation followed by a quick strike. As we ponder our dead, all our dead, as we remember and make silly statements about “closure,” let us wonder what might have been for the United States had that been our approach all along.

Every snake has a head.

If you cut off the head of Hydra, two grow back.

Snakes, not so much. Maybe one. Maybe none.

But ignoring a snake–never a good idea.

Asia Times considers the possibilities of new snakeheads.

Video via Bob Cesca.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Steve Benen:

There’s a difference between talking tough and being tough, just as there’s a difference between chest-thumping rhetoric and getting the job done.

Oh, yes, please.

New York real estate developer Donald Trump says he has decided “in my mind” to run for president, yet won’t make an official announcement before the season finale of his reality television show later this month.

“In my mind, I have already decided,” Trump, 64, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “I am going to announce. But I can’t do anything until the show ends.”

Mike Littwin of the Denver Post offers some theories about why conspiracy theories seem so popular amongst certain segments of the American populace. A nugget:

Truth. This, I believe, is where the question really turns. If you’re of a certain age — as I am — you grew up believing in truth, justice and the American way. It was taught to us by the Superman announcer who saw no irony — yes, it was a simpler time — in an illegal alien promoting the American way.

But what is true is that we understood exactly what the announcer meant. It was the ’50s and dissent was frowned upon. But even if you were a skeptic, you knew what the stakes were.

Now, there’s truth and there’s truth. This is, on balance, a good thing. We have more ways to get at the truth — and therefore more ways to understand it. But it’s not all good. If we doubt all our institutions — and the polls say we do — what do we share? If there’s a democratization of truth, it has to mean more than reading one article on climate science and thinking you’re qualified to deconstruct the work of a scientist who’s spent his entire life studying it.

Cynthia Tucker, writing at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, illustrates how folks refuse to see what’s going on around them.

In this case, she’s considering Haley Barbour’s inability to see the racist undertones of many of his public statements; she tells a story to illustrate her point that he has an excuse for not knowing how to behave in public:

When I was a teenager, an older white lady whom I barely knew volunteered to help me hone my piano solo for the county Junior Miss Pageant, in which I played W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues.” My talent presentation included a short recitation explaining the origin of the blues — born of black folks’ suffering. Upon hearing me recite the prose I’d written, she said, “Cynthia, the Negroes never had it that hard.”

I was stunned by her certitude, her arrogance and her lack of compassion. But I didn’t believe her response was born of flat-out racism. It was born of a willful ignorance — an unwillingness to confront the truth about a system in which she was complicit.

Nor do I believe Barbour is racist. But he showed the same blindness my piano tutor did — an inability to empathize with Jim Crow’s victims. Given his state’s history, that’s no minor failing.

I am not nearly so charitable.

In the case of the old lady from Ms. Tucker’s youth, I can accept this argument, at least somewhat.

When you grow up and live inside a system that seems immutable, you tend to accept that system.

Jim Crow seemed quite normal to me when I was seven years old.

In the case of Mr. Barbour (and many others like him), not so much. He has lived to see the system change (though much more change is needed).

In his case, not only is ignorance no excuse, ignorance is inexcusable.

Bob Cesca, in this week’s Bob and Elvis Show:

Ayn Rand . . . is the L. Ron Hubbard of politics.

Why releasing the birth certificate was silly:

Via Bob Cesca.

Really big twits.

This may well be Lawrence O’Donnell’s swan song on MSNBC, as he calls out the lies and lying liars as enabled by his bosses at NBC in what he appropriately dubs the “Trump hatred campaign”:

Via Balloon Juice.

With just a touch of too late out of the gate: