Political Theatre category archive

Via Job’s Anger.

Shorter Shaun Mullen: You can bank on it.

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*With apologies to Mickey Spillane.

David’s primary source is here.

I was recently at a gathering which is aggressively a-political. In the years I’ve been associated with this group, politics has come up as many times as I have thumbs.

This time, one of the attendees started to talk to me about the mid-term elections (I think this person leans right, but I also know that he is not insane).

I cut him off, quickly, but not sharply, saying, “I don’t predict.”

But Shaun Mullen sometimes does.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Professors James Bailey and D. Christopher Keys explore why the idea of “running the government like a business” so regularly fails, often spectacularly. They cite three reasons; here’s one:

Second, unlike running a business, a model of leadership based on meeting the interests of a small list of stakeholders, policy leadership involves building a coalition of often competing interests while serving the needs of a large number of constituents.

We are watching today what happens when a President decides to appeal to just one group of stakeholders, the Red Hats, and it’s not pretty.

Afterthought:

The overriding factor that unites the reasons the authors cite is one often ignored by those who would “run the government like a business” and is quite simple. Government is not a business.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., explores an oxymoron.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Dr. Grant Hilary Brenner explores “The Three Core Traits of Conspiracy Theorists.”

Warning: He ain’t the best writer in the world, but this is still worth a read.

Shaun Mullen has the intelligence reports.

Ellie Mystal looks back at President George the Worst’s nomination of Harriet Miers to Supreme Court and has second thoughts about his opposing her confirmation. A snippet:

Now I think that I was wrong (about opposing Harriet Miers–ed.). Not about her jurisprudence, but about my distaste for her “qualifications.” Looking at it through the lens of Kavanaugh, Harriet Miers clears the very low bar of having never been accused of trying to rape somebody. She also didn’t go on Fox News or write self-serving op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, trying to drum up Republican-base support for her nomination. I don’t find any accusations that she lied under oath to Congress. I don’t find any accusations that she drunkenly got into a bar fight, or grew aggressive after losing a game of dice.

Also, too.

Jay Bookman considers the recent New York Times reporting on Donald Trump’s ersatz business acumen. A snippet:

He (Trump–ed.) is not a wildly successful business genius; he just played one on TV. And as revealed in extensive business records of the Trump family, it was his father Fred who made the fortune; Donald made the myth.

Via Juanita Jean.

As Barney Frank once said, “‘Moderate’ Republicans are the ones who aren’t there when you need them.”

Afterthought:

For some reason, this feels more like a coup than an appointment.

Remember, experiments fail, even noble ones.