Political Theatre category archive
Wingnut Ignorance 0
Oh, my.
This is what passes for scholarship in the Wingnut community.
It even makes Tweety look good.
Don’t these folks read?
(I should know better. If they read, they would be Democrats. Silly me.)
Via DelawareLiberal.
“Words Fail Me . . .” 1
One of my colleagues once told me that, when Augustus Caesar was presented with a request or a narrative that was so outrageous as to cause his mind to boggle, he would say, “Words fail me. Nothing I can say can express the depth of my feelings at this point.”
So, when I heard the latest antic of the Warmonger in Chief, words did indeed fail me.
Fortunately, they did not fail Brendan , who delves in the record of how the Bushes got their riches; nor did they fail Mithras, nor did they fail Joe, nor did they fail Duncan, who pointed to this.
Nor did they fail Daffy.
Mr. Current Federal Administrator, Daffy had it right.
Branding Is Something Cowboys Do 0
The marketers idea that everything is a brand is a crock of hooie.
A brand is something that is put on a product to identify the manufacturer. It is, in other words, a label. If the product is junk, the label therefore becomes worthless.
All the fancy dancing the in the world to redeem the label can’t hide that the product is junk.
From ASZ. Follow the link for a discussion that is somewhat more civilized, though it reaches the same conclusions, as my discussion last night:
Trademark Infringement (Updated) 0
Depressant duels with anti-depressant: The Republican House caucus has selected a new slogan, The Change You Deserve. The slogan was already (TM) an anti-depressant.
Clearly, they researched it about as well as they researched their legislative policies:
So, does that mean two Efflexors can cancel out two Republicans?
Via Huffington Post.
Addendum, Later That Evening:
Seems Efflexor may have a history which makes it suitable for delusional persons or organizations.
The Wright Stuff 1
As much as I would like to, I have not yet been able to boil one of the Demon Princess’s posts down to a neat excerpt, with a quotation and a link.
But, damn, she can get to the heart of an issue.
All I can do is say, please, just go read this.
100 Years Is a Century 0
Pine View Farm, which my grandfather purchased in 1912, has been in my family for a shorter time than that:
Campaign Round-Up 0
Josh Marshall:
Not Only Is Experience Not Everything, It’s Just, Well, Not 0
I’m behind on my Fact Check dot org postings since my server crash, but I’m catching up with this one. Follow the link for the full analysis (emphasis added to highlight hypocrisy inconsistency:
- Clinton claims to have “negotiated open borders” in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees. But the Macedonian border opened a full day before she arrived, and her meetings with Macedonian officials were too brief to allow for much serious negotiating.
- Clinton’s activities “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Irish officials are divided as to how helpful Clinton’s actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations.
- Clinton has repeatedly referenced her “dangerous” trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit – or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers.
- Both Bill and Hillary Clinton claim that Hillary privately championed the use of U.S. troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That conversation left no public record, however, as U.S. policy was explicitly to stay out of Rwanda, and officials say that the use of U.S. troops was never considered.
- Clinton’s tough speech on human rights delivered to a Beijing audience is as advertised, though Clinton herself has been dismissive of speeches that aren’t backed by solutions.
Moe Mentum 0
On the Media looks at whether or not the idea momentum in a nomination campaign is anything other than a steaming pile of media fantasy:
Go to the website or listen to the story here:
Talk of the Nation explores the question of “experience.” The guest pretty much concludes, as I did, that it is irrelevant. From the website:
Presidential historian Robert Dallek talks with guest host Robert Smith about the experience previous U.S. presidents had before they took office. Callers weigh in with what they would like to see on the next president’s resume.
Meanwhile, Dick Polman does the math:
In the competition for pledged delegates last week, she gained almost no ground on Barack Obama. And she will probably lose ground again tomorrow.
No spin can mask that fundamental fact. For instance, the latest CBS-tabulated results show that, for all her electoral success in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island last Tuesday, she has managed to trim Obama’s lead by only six delegates. Then, when you factor in the results of Saturday’s Wyoming caucuses (where she lost by another landslide), her net gain over the past week stands at four delegates. And when you factor in tomorrow’s Mississippi primary (where African-Americans will vote heavily), and the resulting delegate allocations, Clinton’s March gains are likely to evaporate completely.
(snip)
But enough of that. The most significant moment yesterday came when Tim Russert asked (Pennsylvania Governor–ed.) Rendell whether he thought that Obama was qualified to be president. Rendell replied, “I think he’s qualified” – certainly qualified enough to be vice president, and, moreover, if Obama turns out to be the nominee, Rendell said he would work his heart out for him.
Well, those were certainly inconvenient remarks – given the fact that Clinton during the past week has suggested precisely the opposite about Obama’s creds. Here she was last Monday: “I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander in chief threshold, and I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly Senator McCain has done that. And you’ll have to ask Senator Obama with respect to his candidacy.”
Rendell was then asked to square his assessment of Obama as “qualified,” with Clinton’s intimation that Obama is not.
His response: “Well, I, I think he’s ready. He’s not nearly as ready as Hillary Clinton is, there’s no question about that. But, look, make no mistake about it, he’s a talented, dynamic politician and, and a, and a good senator, and I think he would make a fine president…”
Rule of Law(less) 0
And this surprises us–not.
“This is political,” Iglesias recalls Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton telling him shortly after he was ousted. “If I were you, I’d just go quietly.”
Iglesias, a former U.S. attorney in New Mexico, is one of nine federal prosecutors whose firings triggered a yearlong controversy at the Justice Department and led to the resignations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and 11 other Justice Department officials.
“Stick Your Right Arm in, Stick Your Right Leg in, You Don’t Have a Left Leg” 0
Dick Polman looks at the Bush-McCain mating ritual:
The Rose Garden pictures cried out for cartoon captions. For instance…
McCain’s inner thoughts: “This guy is presiding over a $3-trillion war, record-high budget deficits, record-high oil prices, and a record-low dollar when pegged against the euro, and two-thirds of the American people – including the the independents who will decide the election – think he’s a buffoon. But if I hide him in a closet, the nutty conservatives will go ballistic on me. So I’m stuck with him.”
Bush’s inner thoughts: “He was a pain in the butt who got in my way eight years ago, which is why we had to falsely smear him with rumors that he’d fathered a black baby out of wedlock, and a host of other things I knew nothing about. I still don’t totally trust him, because he’s not always a loyal Bushie. But he’s the nominee, so I’m stuck with him.”
Meanwhile, Josh Marshall looks at the company McCain keeps, company that would be right at home in Sussex County, Delaware:
And the Demon Princess prowls the lobbies.
What’s That Again? 0
Balloon Juice on do-overs.
How To Get Enronned 1
Have people with experience run the government like a business:
“We need a businessman as president.” Or, “We’re at war. We need a military man as president.” Or, “We need the candidate with the most experience.”
That would make Robert Byrd No. 1 on any list. He’s been in the Senate since 1959. I shudder to think of the centrists who in 2000 thought that gravel-voiced Dick Cheney’s experience (in Congress and the Ford and George H. W. Bush administrations) gave the ticket of Bush-Cheney an edge in their minds.
Donald Rumsfeld (Nixon administration, Ford administration, Reagan administration, four terms in Congress): Now, there was experience. Not to mention, he was a businessman. Who better?
What we have with the current administration is specialization run amok. We have businessmen, experienced hands, who say they know how to run government. And, well, they don’t. I see the evils of specialization inherent in a war that was framed as protecting Americans from terrorists but became a war to “spread freedom.” Now it reverts to a war against terrorists. And who can oppose that?
Rule of the Lawless 0
It was a long day yesterday Dick Polman Dan Froomkin parses the Current Federal Administration’s arguments for indemnifying the telecoms against their failure to obey the law.
And concludes they are pretty much a steaming pile of covering the Current Federal Administration’s anatomy:
On Fairness
Bush on Thursday argued that the telecommunications companies shouldn’t be punished for patriotically carrying out legal orders. And he characterized the lawsuits as being the product of “class-action plaintiffs attorneys, [who] you know — I don’t want to try to get inside their head; I suspect they see, you know, a financial gravy train.”
The Washington Post put Bush’s claim in context on Friday: “Two nonprofit groups are overseeing [the five coordinated, class-action lawsuits pending against the phone companies]: the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.” The Post also noted that “substantial damages would be awarded only if courts rule that they participated in illegal surveillance affecting millions of people, not just communications involving terrorism suspects overseas.”
(snip)
As a result, the telecom lawsuits are the only remaining avenue the public has — at least until the next administration to find out what was done in their name. And immunity would be the final touch to the administration’s stone wall.
On Secrecy
(snip)
“‘I think the administration would be very loath for folks to realize that ordinary people were being surveilled,’ said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which brought the lead lawsuit, against AT&T.”
Given Bush’s track record at trying to keep information that would embarrass him from the public, it’s reasonable to suspect that the administration’s main goal here is not to keep the program secret from terrorists — but to keep it secret from us.
On Future Cooperation
Bush has been particularly insistent that failure to grant retroactive immunity would have grave consequences going forward.
(snip)
But the telecoms can’t possibly be worried about prospective immunity for following lawful orders — that’s already part of the agreed-upon legislation.
So are they actually telling the government: Unless you get us off the hook for billions in potential damages based on our past actions, we won’t follow the law — or we’ll do so, but only kicking and screaming. That doesn’t sound like a legitimate reason to help them out. In fact, it sounds like extortion.
Or are they simply saying that without retroactive immunity, they’ll feel a greater need to be absolutely sure that what they’re doing is legal? If that’s the case, that sounds like a good thing. Any company being asked to do something by the government that they have plausible reason to believe is illegal should push back. Otherwise, there are no checks and balances at work. We call that a police state.
Another possibility, I suppose, is that the telecoms are balking about doing things that we don’t even know about — and are worried that they could be sued once we find out.
At any rate, none of these points argue for retroactive immunity
Susie has more on what passes for intelligence in the Current Federal Administration.
The Right Wing Smear Machine Is Warming Up 0
Dick Polman in today’s local rag. The entire column is worth the five minutes it takes to read it:
Consider, for instance, the Pledge of Allegiance flap. A mystery e-mail has been making the rounds, featuring a Time magazine photo that shows Obama at an Iowa event last September with his fingers entwined at waist level, supposedly during the recitation of the pledge. The e-mail stated: “He refused to not only put his hand on his heart during the pledge, but refused to say the pledge . . . how in hell can a man like this expect to be our next Commander-in-Chief?”
This, in turn, is sparking outrage on the right. The other day, commentator Linda Chavez huffed: “You can’t imagine conservatives refusing to fly the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance.” Georgia Republican congressman Jack Kingston declared on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher the other night that “the guy would not say the Pledge of Allegiance . . . that is disturbing to Americans.” Therefore, Kingston asked, with respect to Obama and his spouse: “Where do they stand on America?”
But the e-mail is a lie, and these people are perpetuating the lie. It turns out – and this was reported long ago – that the photo was snapped during the playing of the national anthem, not during the pledge. (By the way, it’s amusing that conservatives are so hung up about the pledge, given its actual pedigree. It was authored in 1892 by a prominent American socialist, Francis Bellamy, who lectured widely on the evils of capitalism and conceived the pledge as a socialist credo, especially the words “with liberty and justice for all.”)
Equally specious is the outcry about Obama’s decision not to fly the flag on his suit jacket. William Kristol brought it up again in his Feb. 25 New York Times column. As he sees it, Obama is insulting everybody who chooses to wear a flag pin. Kingston, the congressman, was on MSNBC a few nights ago, stirring the pot, saying that “everybody wears them,” yet “here’s a guy that doesn’t want to do it.”
This all began last October, after a TV reporter in Iowa filed a report that Obama was pinless. It turned out Obama had been pinless for years, ever since the start of the Iraq war. On the stump in Iowa, he explained why: “You start noticing people wearing a flag pin, but not acting very patriotic. Not voting to provide veterans with the resources they need. . . . I’m less concerned about what you’re wearing on your lapel than what’s in your heart.”
In other words, Obama was insisting that true patriotism should be about substance, not symbols. At least he articulated a reason. As I well recall, while watching a Republican presidential debate last autumn, seven of the eight candidates did not wear flag pins. I just cruised John McCain’s campaign Web site. In the official photos, he is not wearing a flag pin. Then I looked at Kingston again on MSNBC, the guy who says that “everybody” wears the pin. He isn’t wearing one, either.
St. John of the Lobbies 0
Talking Points Memo: