Political Theatre category archive

Jon Swift wields his scapel to dissect the disaster of President Elect Obama’s first press conference. As Andrew Sullivan would say, money quote:

Conservatives were shocked when Obama snubbed Fox News, the country’s only fair and balanced network, by not calling on its reporter during the press conference. “Wisdom and judiciousness were not exactly evident,” scolded RedState, where “wisdom and judiciousness” are dispensed by the bucketful. Apparently, Obama still holds a grudge against the network, and its president Roger Ailes, for reporting that he went to a madrassa as a child, joking about assassinating him, referring to him as a socialist, attacking him for calling his grandmother a “typical white person,” calling his cigarette smoking “”a dirty little secret” and asking its viewers “Would you vote for a smoker?,” mixing him up with black former congressman Harold Ford Jr., making a joke that his name was similar to Osama Bin Laden’s and who knows what other perceived slights. Unfortunately, the Fox reporter was prevented from asking such very important questions as which cabinet post William Ayers will be appointed to and which policies from the Communist Manifesto Obama was planning to implement first.

All seriousness aside, what bleeping planet do the wingnuts live on?

Oh! Oh! I know! (jumping up and down waving hand in air)

Camazotz.

Watch the presser here. See whether you can find all the gaffes that Jon Swift found:

Youtube via TPM.

No, not a post mortem on the election.

A post mortem on the post election.

Why Joe has got to go (from the Washington Monthly):

This seems to be routinely overlooked, but take a moment to consider what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs actually does: it’s the committee principally responsible for oversight of the executive branch. It’s an accountability committee, charged with investigating the conduct of the White House and the president’s administration.

As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman’s House counterpart — Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee — was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.

And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn’t used? I’ll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.

It’s time to consign Joe Lieberman to the dustbin of Republicanism where he can feel at home.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

There’re reasons I watched the returns on NPR.

Reality-based. No screaming.

Bill Shein sums it up nicely here.

The Republican Party ignores the warning signs and chooses to drive off the cliff.

This is good news.

Dick Polman is one of my favorite political analysts. He’s perceptive and fact-based, writes well, and has a sense of humor.

His blog post today is a potpourri of comments about the election and its aftermath; it is well worth five minutes.

The best part, though, is this, occuring about 2/3rds of the way down the page:

I wasn’t totally sold on the notion that Obama would win this election…until the 30th of October, when Bill Kristol let loose with a bullish prediction about the GOP, declaring on TV that John McCain would “win huge.” Given Kristol’s long track record of being grievously wrong almost all the time (starting with his pie-eyed prognostications about an Iraq war), that’s when I knew Obama truly had it in the bag.

The neoconservative talking head and columnist is always worth hearing and reading, if only so that we can safely conclude the opposite of whatever he is predicting. For instance, he said during the runup to ’08 that “Fred Thompson knows what he’s doing, and he will be formidable,” which meant, of course, that Thompson didn’t have a clue and was destined to be toast.

This summer, Kristol envisioned a GOP ticket of “McCain-Lieberman” or “McCain-Ridge,” which meant that we could safely conclude that neither guy had a prayer of being picked.

Last year, he predicted that voters would “recoil” from the prospect of electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress, thereby alerting us that ’08 would be a good Democratic year.

Last year, he also predicted that George W. Bush would go down in history as a successful president, in part because he would leave behind “a strong economy,” which meant, of course, that Bush would play out his string with the economy in free fall and the conservative deregulation credo in disrepute.

And his sunny 2005 economic prediction – “Last week the Bush Administration’s second-term bear market bottomed out” – was sufficient proof that the worst second-term bear market was still to come.

Obama supporters can only hope that Kristol will soon insist, in his New York Times column, that the new president will prove to be an unmitigated disaster. Such a prediction may well trigger further dancing in the streets.

I wish I could get established as a right-wing pundit; I’d love to be in a line of work where being consistently and persistently wrong just seems to cement job security.

Never happen, though. I’m not a very good liar.

Does this help us understand wingnut talk radio hosts?

Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

From the Guardian:

“Go enjoy yourself,” said President Bush in his congratulatory telephone call to Barack Obama on election night. It was like a child who has just smashed up all his toys inviting another to come and play in his nursery. To inherit two wars and a broken economy would not be most people’s idea of fun. But that’s pig-headed Bush for you.

His remark made me brood about the trials that Obama will face as president and the sad likelihood of disappointed expectations . . . .

A few days ago, Jon Swift wrote one of his usual brilliant, prescient posts, enumerating the many reasons why John McCain was going to win the election.

It is well worth five minutes of your time, even though, well, he sort of, like, you know, blew it. Like, totally, Dude.

But he has recovered quickly, and here explains how the election of a scary black man is a good thing for conservativism and presages its resurgence.

It is worth a read.

Fight the effort to revive McCarthyism and bring shame to the United States of America.

Sign the petition.

Via Phawker.

Let the Republicans all sit together:

From Josh Marshall:

Contact the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee here.

Sign the petition here.

H/T Brendan for the link.

Ravings from a parallel universe.

One, via Atrios.

Two, via the Booman Tribune.

Three, via Brendan.

Four, via Phillybits.

And ASZ rounds up a whole flock.

Making more stuff up.

Then, again, the California Republican Party, that paragon of statesmanship, doesn’t care about her.

I’m not going to bother to post them, but Fact Check dot org has their end of campaign fact checks up.

endorses Obama (old news) with a wonderfully balanced discussion, not only of the Senator, but also of the malfeasance of the Current Federal Administration.

Consider this news story. Follow the link. Read the whole thing.

In the hours before Election Day, as inevitable as winter, comes an onslaught of dirty tricks — confusing e-mails, disturbing phone calls and insinuating fliers left on doorsteps during the night.

In the entire story, there is not an example of a dirty trick designed to keep potential Republican voters from voting.

As my mother would have said, not a single solitary thing.

The Republican Party is deeply corrupt.

No, it’s not the corruption of graft and bribes; whenever you get a large enough number of persons in a room, you will find a certain percentage of the them are greedy and selfish. That is a human thing, not a political party thing.

As George Washington Plunkett famously said, “There’s honest graft and there’s dishonest graft.”

And Republican graft is the most dishonest of dishonest graft.

It betrays the very concept of the United States of America.

From the Washington Post’s The Trail:

H/T Karen for the link.

Glomarization on Joe Biden:

Sure, Joe Biden is known for putting his foot in his mouth. But it’s a foot in the mouth that we can believe in.