Political Theatre category archive

Richard Hofstadter was correct.

Leonard Pitts speaks to contempt for facts in supporting a run for the Presidency by Beyond the Palin.

So no, this is not a clash of ideologies, but a clash between intelligence and its opposite. And I am tired of being asked to pretend stupid is a virtue. That’s why I’d welcome the moment of truth your campaign would bring. It would force us to decide once and for all whether we are permanently committed to the path of ignorance, of birthers, truthers and tea party incoherence you represent, or whether we will at last turn back from the cliff toward which we race.

Despite what you might have learned from 24.

It is sometimes a duty. But it’s not a game.

Shaun Mullen considers what he calls “worst Supreme Court ruling since the Dred Scott decision.”

Everything loose rolls to California.

Via Will Bunch.

As I have mentioned, there has been much gnashing of teeth amongst some Lefties because President Obama hasn’t turned out to be a fierce fighter for things that are politically impossible. (He is subject to wrath which, by rights, belongs to the U. S. Senate, which has turned inertness into an art installation.)

Much of this results from projection. President Obama’s campaign slogan was “change.”

Persons have poured into to that word whatever they wanted without paying attention to what he actually said.

Lefties poured into it, among other things,

• single-payer healthcare (which I support but which he said during the campaign was, in his opinion, a non-starter),
• withdrawal from Iraq (which he promised and is working on),
• closing that symbol of shame, the prison at Guantanamo (which he is working on but which I think he should have just done, and done quickly, so that it was fait accompli),
• withdrawal from Afghanistan (which would be directly counter to what he said during his campaign, desirable though it may have become–I certainly would like to see my son withdrawn).

Righties, deciding he is a scary black man, poured into it from their own paranoia a bunch of stuff which I won’t even attempt to list. In their construct, he is, rather than a slightly to the left of center middle-of-the-road American pol, an amalgam of Abbie Hoffman, Karl Marx, Albert Schweitzer, and Che Guevara from another planet in some kind of parallel universe.

Now, some lefties, because he hasn’t done stuff he didn’t promise and is fighting a calcified Senate to do what he did promise, have been, dumping on him. (Where they get the idea that the way to get stuff done is to dump on their friends is beyond me. Mithras expresses my puzzlement succintly. John Cole dissects the illogic of it deftly.)

Certainly, I did and do support President Obama, but I did and do not delude myself into thinking that we agrees on lots of stuff. I wouldn’t have his job for the world and I’m glad he wanted it.

And given the track record of Republicans (and anyone who thinks that track record would change if they got back in is from LalaLand–I want to gag everytime I hear Republicans fulminate about “fiscal responsibility,” as if they would know a responsible fiscal if it bit them), I would have voted for a dead rat had it headed the Democratic ticket.

And, honestly, what you really rather have President McMaverick and Vice President Beyond the Palin?

Much of the discontent on the left goes back to not blanking listening to Obama the candidate in the first place (and the rest goes back to forgetting that successful progressive change in America has almost always been fiercely and unrelentingly fought by them what has).

Patrick Frank, a Facebook friend and a friend on Facebook, in a comment in a Facebook conversation, described what Obama meant when he talked of change as well as anyone I’ve read (quoted with permission):

“A lot of the change Obama was talking about had to do with ending the bitter partisanship in DC and around the country and bringing people of good will together to solve problems. With the rise of the neo-fascist tea bag movement, as well as some on the left who see compromise as sellout, we see schism actually on the rise, as opposed to receding. (others may disagree with this analysis)…This widening gulf is deeply unsettling to many Americans…That’s my take…More later…”

And, by God, President Obama has tried mightily to accomplish this change, the change of which he spoke. But Republicans have no interest in “bringing people of good will together to solve problems.”

No mistake: the partisanship in Washington comes from the Republican side of the aisle and to the extent it has grown on the Left, it has done so in reaction to the Right.

Governmental dysfunction: it’s a Republican thing.

I’m pretty much a civil liberties abolutist (give to the ACLU here), so I must say that this is wrong.

Delightful, but wrong.

Via TPM.

I toyed with blogging about this and got distracted by the local rally for health care.

Now, Karen has saved me the trouble of thinking about what to say.

Read more »

Bill Shein foresees the future:

April 1, 2010 – The Supreme Court has granted corporations the right to marry, noting that marriage is a “fundamental right for all non-gay persons.” Almost immediately, longtime partners Walmart Stores and China Plastic Junk ‘n’ Stuff, Inc. announced plans to wed – and not via a “second-class” merger or stock-swap. Instead, a full-fledged marriage ceremony will be held on a seaside bluff in Carmel, California. Bride Walmart will reportedly wear black.

Follow the link for the rest of the predictions.

More on the Trijicon gun sight fuss:

Last November, the University of Chicago published a study quantifying the blazingly obvious: people tend to create God in their own image, to ascribe to the deity their own opinions, interests and beliefs. But is that really faith, when you reduce God to a bigger version of you?

Mother Teresa’s faith drove her to foreswear material riches and spend half a century working to uplift the wretched poor of Calcutta.

Martin Luther King’s faith drove him to gamble his very life in a dangerous campaign to win human and civil rights for African-American people.

And then there’s Glyn Bindon (founder of Trijicon–ed.), whose faith led him to inscribe coded Bible verses on his gun sights.

From Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings:

Why do they hate America?

Not just in Canada. (In fact, hardly in Canada except for certain elective or non-emergency surgery.)

The state’s (California’s) so-called timely access rules went into effect over the weekend after an eight-year delay during which doctors, health plans and consumer groups quibbled over details.

“It’s a big victory for California consumers. These are groundbreaking consumer protections for them to get the care they need when they need it,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California.

Under the new rules, HMO physicians must see a patient who requests an appointment within 10 days. Specialists have 15 days. Urgent-care patients must be seen within 48 hours.

(snip)

Today, the average wait to see a general practitioner for a physical is 20 days in some of the state’s large cities, according to a report last year by the market research firm Merritt Hawkins and Associates. In Los Angeles, the usual wait was 59 days.

This should be interesting:

Iraq has begun collecting signatures for a class action lawsuit on behalf of people killed or wounded in incidents involving US security firm Blackwater.

It will seek compensation for a number of such cases, the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

Incidents include the 2007 killing of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square.

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar in the Philadelphia Shrinquirer. Read the whole thing.

Equally disturbing, however, are the prophets of fear who have taken to the airwaves to tell us that the rule of law is a luxury we can no longer afford. That’s a formula for destroying America to save it.

The struggle against terrorism will take years. We need to set aside partisan scare tactics and think strategically about weakening the terrorists without weakening ourselves by resorting to lawlessness, cruelty, and revenge – which have short-term political appeal but are ultimately self-defeating.

Particularly self-defeating is the assertion that the U.S. justice system isn’t up to handling terrorists, and that ad hoc military commissions in Guantanamo Bay are better for the job. In fact, the reverse is true.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

. . . the biggest nothing.

The cost of silence, the price of speech.

Teacherken.

Rewrite, Republican style (emphasis added):

In the end, though, the brain trust – such as it is – of the Republican party wouldn’t be attempting to re-write recent history if their focus groups and polls didn’t show that truthiness pays political dividends. Shortly after Perino’s comments, polls showed voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on issues of national security and that 63% of voters think that “political correctness” – a refusal to disobey laws prohibiting racial profiling – was the root cause of the failure to prevent one soldier’s attack on his colleagues at Fort Hood.

Republicans have apparently decided that they can improve their standings with Americans if they can convince them, despite all evidence to the contrary, that terrorist attacks only happen when Democrats are in power. Republicans seem perfectly and increasingly happy to slough off all responsibility for the things that happened and that they caused during their watch, as long as it brings them back to power. The question for Americans ought to be what they’ll do with that power when they get it back. Last year, they weren’t so keen on keeping Republicans in power. This year, many of them seemingly know nothing about that.

There has been some light-hearted discussion about what to call the first decade of the 2000’s, since someone apparently decreed that each decade must be called something cutesy-poo.

Their have been a number of votes for the “aughts.”

The Guardian went for “the naughties,” as did, I’m sure, others.

But I think TerranceDC has nailed it with “the Uh-Ohs.”