Political Theatre category archive

Over at Balloon Juice.

(With apologies to the Firesign Theatre.)

Jon Swift phones it in.

Rush Limbaugh is a fundamentally nasty and hate-full man.

But leave him alone . . . .

Via TPM.

Shamelessly stolen in its entirety from Josh Marshall:

From TPM Reader LF …

During the campaign, McCain hammered away on earmarks as if it were the end-all, be-all of reform. Obama basically humored him, but pointed out that there were much more important things. Now that Obama won, McCain is blasting Obama for not keeping McCain’s campaign promises.

Deep Thought:

Did anyone mention to McCain that he lost?

Maureen Dowd has long demonstrated that, in a conflict between snark and fact in her world, snark wins every time.

I think I’ve managed to finish one of her columns.

Now comes the dissection of today’s column: Brendan makes a lot of phone calls in researching various claims in Maureen Dowd’s lame column today. (There’s a call for every linked word.)

Brendan summarizes.

Duncan has the tag line.

Coda: Brendan gets an email. And answers it.

(I am really glad I queued this post for later tonight, so I could keep updating it so as to tell The Rest Of The Story.)

Aside: I’ve heard David Denby, the author of the book linked in the first line, interviewed several times. He gives a good interview and seems a most charming man. I think I get what he’s trying to say, but, when he tries to draw a line between sarcasm and snark, it’s like he’s trying to swim in melted peanut butter.

As near as I can figure, he differentiates between snark and sarcasm by defining snark as nastiness for nastiness’s sake–getting laughs by inflicting hurt–and sarcasm as nastiness to make a legitimate point–getting laughs by inflicting pain while adding a new point to the argument. But it’s awfully muddled.

Mudflats has details:

This may be bigger than hula-hoops, cabbage patch dolls or Pokemon cards! The latest Republican fad seems to be apologizing to Rush Limbaugh. We all know that sometimes it’s hard not to speak your mind, especially when inspired to do so by the bloviations of America’s favorite….bloviator. But we also know that the Republican Party will have none of that. Apologies to Rush Limbaugh are coming thick and fast.

John Cole has commentary:

. . . the fact that Republican leaders regularly prostrate themselves before El Rushbo means that Rush does in fact speak for the Republican party; and most of what he’s doing is telling Republicans to oppose Obama.

Addendum:

Margaret Carlson at Bloomberg.

Addendum-Dee-Dum-Dum:

The Booman explains the rise of Rush. A nugget:

No, no one has done more to deserve his present position of prominence within the Republican party. But as we all know (because Clint Eastwood told us so) “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” No Rush is The Man for one reason and one reason only: he’s the last [anatomical reference] standing.

The article actually seems to argue for the end of the religious right as having an identity separate from the Republican Party.

The writer argues that the Religious Right as a self-identified movement has taken over the Republican Party while members of other Republican factions (constituencies?) are abandoning it, while more recent conservative religious leaders, such as Rick Warren, late of Much Ado over Not Much of Anything, as eschewing partisan politics.

Consequently, as it no longer exists as a separate movement. It and the Republican Party are becoming one.

I don’t know whether I agree, but it’s worth thinking about.

Michelle Goldberg in the Guardian:

But until fairly recently, social conservatives were only a part of the Republican coalition, and the party leadership reflected that. The religious right co-existed, sometimes uneasily, with defence hawks (including the urbane, cosmopolitan neoconservatives) and laissez faire capitalists.

(snip)

The Religious Right’s victory in taking over the Republican party contained the seeds of the movement’s failure. That’s because one of its founding myths is that it had widespread popular support, that it was, as Falwell named his organisation, a “moral majority”. In fact, it was simply a brilliantly organised minority faction, never big enough to win national elections on its own. Now it owns the rump of a fractured and discredited party. Dobson’s own organisation is in decline: Focus on the Family had to lay off a fifth of its workforce after the 2008 election. It’s becoming both irrelevant and redundant, because the Republican party has taken its place.

Brendan makes a phone call.

Or at least the Republican Party.

The Republican Party is now officially in the control of the entertainment industry.

The entertainment industry.

The same people who gave you The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Killdozer.

Commentary from the Right here.

Via Atrios.

Joe the Plumber’s book signing. Into the toi–oh, never mind:

About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border’s bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.

Via Oliver Willis.

The Booman analyzes the effects of the Republican Party’s policy of “Just say, ‘No'”:

His (Obama’s) early, conciliatory tone was necessary to teach the American people lessons that would allow them to accept the ambitious and uncompromising tone he is taking now. The Republicans did him a favor by slapping away the olive branch and adopting a harsh, paranoid, dishonest, and delusional stance in opposition. Few people can still see any merit in an inclusionary, bipartisan approach.

One of Bill Clinton’s nicknames was “Slick Willie.” It would more accurately have been “Slippery Willie.” Mr. Clinton had a knack for slipping out of tough spots, most of which were of his own creation.

Mr. Obama is not slippery. But he sure as heck is slick, slicker than the Republicans have yet comprehended. If politics were chess, he would be Deep Blue.

Republicans are still acting as if the tactics they used against Mr. Clinton (mostly screaming, lying–Vince Foster q. v.–finger-pointing, and fantasizing about other persons’ sex lives) will work against Mr. Obama.

They won’t.

Dick Polman takes a look at current Republican strategy. He sums it us thus:

There are surely tens of millions of voters whom the Republicans have yet to alienate, but, as evidenced this week, the project appears to be all systems go. CPAC will hear tomorrow from its closing speaker, Rush Limbaugh. That should help the project immensely.

And there’s arguably no better way for CPAC to signal the paucity of thought on the right, and thus alienate more voters, than to free up some time at the podium for…Joe the Plumber. Which is what happened yesterday, I kid you not. Need we say more?

Follow the link for the whole analysis.

Transcript here.

Before you bet on the ponies, you gotta read the Racing Form.

FactCheck dot org. Nitpicked in parentheses. Follow the link for the full analysis:

President Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress was stuffed with signals about the new direction his budget will take and meant-to-be reassuring words about the economy. But it was also peppered with exaggerations and factual misstatements.

• He said “we import more oil today than ever before.” That’s untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are substantially lower today. (Because unemployed persons don’t drive far–ed.)
• He claimed his mortgage aid plan would help “responsible” buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program including Fed Chairman Bernanke and FDIC chief Bair concede foolish borrowers will be aided, too. (Bair and Bernanke were both appointed by Republicans–ed.)
• He said the high cost of health care “causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds.” That’s at least double the true figure. (That’s over half a million bankruptcies a year, rather than over a million a year. Significant.–ed.)
• He flubbed two facts about American history. The U.S. did not invent the automobile, and the transcontinental railroad was not completed until years after the Civil War, not during it. (The Transcontinental Railroad was funded in 1862, the second year of the war, and completed in 1869. I think FactCheck blew this one–ed.)
• He claimed that his stimulus plan “prevented the layoffs” of 57 police officers in Minneapolis. In fact, it’s far more complicated than that, and other factors are also helping to save police jobs.

The president also repeated some strained claims we’ve critiqued before.

. . . the Spanish Inquisition.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Bonddad looks at the “stress test“:

First, I always liked the stress test idea. The Treasury has to go into all of the big banks and take a look at all their books in detail. And no party involved can pull any punches. In addition, the more a party tries to obfuscate the truth, the more trouble they are in. I’ve always thought this was the best way to figure out who gets help. In other words — we know how to find out who.

How is a big issue. The markets are already reeling from the threat of nationalization. Every time it gets brought up, the markets tank. This was cited as a primary reason for last week’s market instability. In other words, the actual process of shifting from private to public ownership is an issue.

Now enter the above plan. I would personally use the remaining TARP money to make one big bank. Then I would stress test all the money center banks at the same time and come out with a report on all of them at the same time. Force them to sell their good assets to the one good bank and let the dregs remain in the old banks. If you do this over a short time period — say 2-4 weeks — you can end this problem pretty quickly.

The main reason I like the idea of one big bank is there is only one bank to monitor.

I think that the reason that “the markets are already reeling from the threat of nationalization” is that, despite the fiction that “stockholders own the company” (and, for all practical purposes, it is a fiction), neither the companies nor the managements which have destroyed them want to pay the financial price for their misdeeds.

Steven D:

Conservatives, to protest the imminent descent of our nation into unmitigated socialism, should immediately reject and return immediately to the federal government all federal benefits they receive or have received, on principle. That is, all benefits received under social security, medicare, student loans, small business loans, FHA loans, etc. And to be fair they should take their kids out of all public schools and any colleges or universities which receive federal funding in any way, shape or form.

Not to mention unemployment benefits. Which Steven D did mention.