Political Theatre category archive
To a Tea 0
Daniel Ruth doesn’t like the blend. A nugget:
If only Sen. Ted Cruz, R-I Feel Petty, Oh So Petty, had been paying attention.
(snip)
Are there lessons to be learned from Washington’s answer to “Hee-Haw on the Potomac”? Sure, beginning perhaps with the notion that civic illiteracy, especially among many elected officials, is at epidemic proportions.
Read the rest.
Oh, do please read the rest.
The Palin Indicator 0
Lawrence O’Donnell’s opening line is priceless.
Watch the Fun(ding) Begin 0
Skirmish ended. Likely more to come.
Let the circular firing squad commence firing.
Afterthought:
While it lasts, savor the confusion of your enemies. Then gird your grid for the next one.
Because “true believers” never give up, for they think they don’t have anything to lose (even when they do).
Both Sides Not 0
Thom and Tommy Christopher explore the weird world of “both sides do it” and find that there’s no biz like show biz.
Im-pounded 0
If you wish to move pets or animals from one country to another, strict quarantine rules apply to prevent the spread of disease.
In one of the odder side-effects of the Republican refusal to govern in good faith, AKA the “shutdown,” here’s a family pet stuck in Republican limbo.
Backfire 2
Dick Polman dissects the Republican backpedaling from the decision by Senator Cruz-missile and his teabags to blow up the economy over the Affordable Care Act. It doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for the geniuses behind it.
A snippet:
(snip)
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of politics – a minority of a minority in one legislative chamber can’t outfight a president who handily won re-election – knew that the GOP would wind up the loser in a shutdown showdown. Indeed, the smartest conservatives knew it, and warned against it.
Instead, the saboteurs are currently looking for something, anything, that might pass muster with President Obama and help extricate them from their ill-fated drive around the ideological cul de sac.Expect the teabaggers to portray themselves as martyrs willing to nobly sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Heaven forbid they be seen as power-hungry hacks who think governance is a video game in which it’s okay to sacrifice the general welfare for hit-points.
Republican Wedgery 0
PoliticalProf attempts to make sense of the Republican fixation on the Affordable Care Act and concludes that it’s not about the issue; it’s about the wedge.
A small nugget:
Pro-life abortion politics is one such issue. As a practical matter, abortion, as an issue, is fraught with an array of emotions, perceptions of rights, and beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. It is possible, and indeed quite common, for individual voters to hold an array of what might be termed “liberal” political positions — pro-labor, pro-environment, in favor of increasing taxes on the better off — while holding a “pro-life” position on abortion at the same time. No voter is perfectly ideologically consistent.
Read the rest.
It makes more sense than any other attempt I’ve seen to explain the Republicans’ willingness to shoot the economy to get their way.
Susie Sampson’s Sister Surpasses Silliness 0
Succeeding the silliness (surpassingly silly sillyness), she sounds serious for a short-lived second. Owm!
Dogged Dogmaticism 0
Eugene Robinson:
God bless Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., for at least being honest. “We’re not going to be disrespected,” he told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
Read the rest.
Image via BartCop.