Political Theatre category archive

Who cares about them anyway? Get ready for the awards show that matters.

The Dukies:

From the Booman Tribune. Read the whole thing:

Of course, it would be a futile exercise to list all the instances of racial slurs, grafitti, nooses, etc. which have occurred since Obama won the election, much less since he began his candidacy. But I think we can lay a great deal of the blame on those right wing politicians and their allies on radio and television who have done so much to stoke racial fears and anger against anyone who isn’t a “Real American.”

Who wants to help me flesh out this idea for a quiz show:

Who’s smarter than an elected official?

H/T Karen for the inspiration. If we go national, she gets credit for creating the show.

This gnashing of teeth on the part of some folks because some of Mr. Obama’s choices worked in the Clinton administration is foolish and stupid.

Not too many persons from the Carter administration are still around. And, frankly, they didn’t do a very good job of administering stuff.

Addendum, Several Podcasts Later:

As I just heard someone say on Marconi’s Magic Box, “Change doesn’t require new faces. It requires doing new things.”

It’s here.

My results below the fold.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Read more »

From Josh Marshall:

Princeton Proposition 8:

Via Andrew Sullivan.

. . . but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

The Republican Party’s image has gone from bad to worse over the past month, as only 34% of Americans in a Nov. 13-16 Gallup Poll say they have a favorable view of the party, down from 40% in mid-October. The 61% now holding an unfavorable view of the GOP is the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992.

We’re starting to get a handle on who the “some of the people all of the time” crew is.

Shamelessly Stolen(tm) from Atrios.

Newt is back.

A newt, of course, is a lizard that lives under rocks except when it comes out to dine on unsuspecting insects.

Newt is best known for letting the contract on America and for exemplifying the high standard of Republican Family Values by dumping his cancer-stricken first wife for another woman and by being a serial cheater.

One thought: Proverbs 26:11.

I don’t like it, but, in the long run, we’re all dead it doesn’t really matter.

Mithras talks some sense.

Obama ran as a unifier. Now people are surprised that he’s acting like one.

Trailin’ Palin:

McCain’s guys now trash Palin as a dunce
(Implying vetting should have been much stricter).
They may be right, but gracious they are not,
Considering that they’re the ones who picked her.

From the Nation:

If you want to understand how Barack Obama won the 2008 election–and how the great changes he talks about the United States making over the next four years can be achieved–come to Indiana and meet Luke the Plumber. Unlike the media darling Joe the Plumber, who wasn’t really a plumber and who favored John McCain, Luke Lefever is a licensed plumber who spent many hours this fall volunteering for Obama. Lefever’s hometown of Elkhart is in northern Indiana, traditionally a very red area of a very red state; no Democrat had won a presidential election here since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In the more distant past, Indiana was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan, which still has local followers, said Lefever: “Up until a few years ago, the mother of the Klan’s Grand Wizard lived in Goshen [five miles from Elkhart]. She sewed all of their uniforms.”

Read the whole thing.

Find out here.

H/T Karen for the link. Again.

Addendum:

Via Atrios, here’s more on the GOP infighting.

I say, let ’em take each other out. They’ve earned plenty of blame to go around.

Josh Marshall:

H/T Karen for this link:

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Wednesday she would be honored to help out President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with an “unrepentant domestic terrorist.”

Mr. Obama would do well to heed the advice that comes about 3:10 into this clip:

Enforced by ASZ.

. . . but this is just too funny to pass up:

H/T Alison for the link.

Vince would say she is a piker:

The high-ranking state official already under investigation for authorizing a personal records check on “Joe the Plumber” is now in troubled waters for what appears to be political fund raising on state time.

Gov. Ted Strickland placed Ohio Job & Family Services direc- tor Helen Jones- Kelley on paid leave late Friday for apparently vi olating state poli cies by using her state computer and e-mail ac count to help raise money and organize events for President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign.

Looking up Joe the Unlicensed Plumber on state time on a state computer may well be misconduct. So far, there seems to be no evidence that any improperly-obtained information about Joe the U. P. was used publically. I know that all the reports I heard and read about him indicated that the information about his lack of a plumbing license and his tax problems came from freely available public records.

Participating in personal political activity on the job–in this case, relaying names of potential donors to a campaign–though it is common, is just plain stupid, especially in a political climate in which the primary only political strategy in certain quarters is to demonize to opposition.

Work computers should be used for work.

Home computers are for all that other stuff.