Political Theatre category archive
Moderation . . . (Updated) 4
. . . is for labor disputes.
Not for dealing with with fanatics.
Addendum:
Steve has more.
Of course, moderate Republicans are a dead breed. They died when Jerry Ford and Ev Dirksen and folks like them left positions of power (We won’t mention the sad fate of Nelson Rockefeller, who, unlike David Vitter, didn’t have to pay for it, and, unlike Larry Craig, didn’t search for it under restroom walls).
What we have left are great masses of the citizenry who think that the Republican Party of their youth still exists, while what they have is a party taken over by NeoCons and other Fanatics.
Oh, my God, when will this nightmare end?
The Candidates Debate 0
Harry Shearer moderates the first ever Silent Debate:
Words fail them.
And me.
(Actually, it’s better than the non-silent debates, is it not?)
Airports 0
I’ve spent a lot of time in airports. I’ve spent so much time in PHL that I can tell you the names of the best restaurants in the different terminals.
There’s a queue for the loo. And it’s just sad:
It’s because they want to see the stall made famous by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest in a sex sting.
“It’s become a tourist attraction,” said Karen Evans, information specialist at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. “People are taking pictures.”
Addicted to Oil 0
Harry Shearer:
Now, what was that war about, again?
Bush Lies (Updated) 1
And that surprises us how?
From Factcheck dot org. Follow the link for facts, ’cause you ain’t goin’ to get facts from the Current Federal Administration:
- He said “36 nations … have troops on the ground in Iraq.” In fact, his own State Department puts the number at 25.
- He said “ordinary life†was returning to Baghdad. Perhaps. In fact, news reports describe the city as starkly segregated with Shiites and Sunnis living in separate neighborhoods, which are walled off from one another with huge concrete barricades.
- He said Baqubah in Diyala province was “cleared.” But the Washington Post quotes a State Department official as saying the security situation there was not stable.
- He said that “the Iraqi Army is becoming more capable,†which may be true. But the Iraqi defense minister says it’ll be 2012 before the army will be even 60 percent capable of protecting the nation from external threats.
Addendum, 9/15/2007:
Dan Froomkin stops the spinning on the morning after:
In the alternate universe that President Bush occupies, he gave a smashing speech last night.
Over there, the people of Iraq need our help to save them from the al Qaeda terrorists who intend to overthrow their brave and united government on the way to attacking America. It’s a battle of good versus evil. We have 36 countries fighting alongside us. And the fight is going very well indeed. Ordinary life is returning to Baghdad.
A few more things about Bush’s universe: There, the president can make things true simply by solemnly pronouncing them from the Oval Office. He can reach out to his critics just by saying he is doing so. And people believe him.
But over here in the real world, things are different.
Iraq is mostly ruled by armed gangs, not a central government. American troops are dying in the crossfire as the country continues to violently disintegrate along ethnic and sectarian lines. We’re in it pretty much alone. There’s no end in sight. And the real al Qaeda is regrouping in Pakistan.
I Hear from One of My Elected Representatives 0
About a week ago, I faxed a letter to my elected representatives incongruously assembled.
I have received my first reply.
It appears he’s gone for the Bushie bait hook, line, and stinker. Below is the bulk of the letter:
Running the Government like a Business 0
A Republican business, that is. Yep, we’ve been enronned:
“It means we really can’t put any faith in the numbers they use,” said Ross Rubenstein, who teaches public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School.
(snip)
Failing an audit in any other venue could have dire consequences , a public company’s stock could plummet, state and local governments could see bond and credit ratings sink. But for the federal government, effects are less direct because the U.S. Treasury is a guaranteed funding source.
For some reason, I doubt that Halliburton is losing any sleep over this story.
Moral Dilemna 1
I’m not going to excerpt anything. Just please go read this post.
And think what happens we allow liars to take control.
Why Is “Liberal” a Dirty Word? 2
E. J. Dionne ventures a theory:
(snip)
But reading Brown is also a reminder of where Hofstadter may have misled the very liberal movement to which he was devoted. There was, first, his emphasis on American populists as embodying a “deeply ingrained provincialism” (Brown’s term) whose revolt was as much a reaction to the rise of the cosmopolitan big city as to economic injustices.
(snip)
The late Christopher Lasch, one of Hofstadter’s students and an admiring critic, noted that by conducting “political criticism in psychiatric categories,” Hofstadter and his intellectual allies excused themselves “from the difficult work of judgment and argumentation.”
Lasch added archly: “Instead of arguing with opponents, they simply dismissed them on psychiatric grounds.”
I trained as a historian. (It was wonderful prepartion for my current career supporting high-tech enterprise level computer software, but that’s another story.) Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is one of the best works of history I have ever read.
I also read the works of Daniel Bell and visited Bob Jones U. as part of a research project I did (it was scary).
I think Mr. Dionne has a point–by putting down the opposition, rather than engaging it, U. S. political liberals have done a disservice to themselves, to their country, and to the opposition.
But, know what? I’ve never heard of one of them degenerate Liberals having a peeing statue at a birthday party.