Political Theatre category archive

Daniel Ellsberg speaks:

Leonard Pitts, Jr., on the Republican Party’s vaunted attempts to “rebrand” itself:

Because you know what you call a pig with lipstick on? A pig with lipstick on.

Read the rest.

Dick Polman contemplates Republican “rebranding.” A nugget.

It’s tough to see how the GOP can “rebrand” itself as a kinder, friendlier party if it saddles itself anew with Senate candidates who can’t win outside their conservative House cocoons. Rove is busy trolling for donors who share his concerns. Some of them are speaking out. Veteran GOPer Fred Malek told Politico, “We are tired of losing.” Minnesota mogul Stan Hubbard fumed about the “nut cases,” like Indiana’s Mourdock, who sealed his defeat last fall when he described rape-related pregnancies as God’s will. Malek and Hubbard are planning to help Rove, who vows to conduct opposition research against candidates who lean too far rightward.

You can revise the labels and logos all you want.

It’s what’s in the can that counts.

And what’s in the can is pernicious.

Via Mr. Feastingonroadkill.

Here’s another take:

Mike explains that the “no labels” movement arose because persons are embarrassed to be labeled “Republicans,” but that the stupid will continue with a new label.

Via ABL.

Very large disappearing twits.

The House of the Republi-can.

Dick Polman sums it up in a column on immigration:

Ah yes, the Republican House – the Bermuda Triangle of lawmaking, where common sense often vanishes without a trace.

Best headline yet on Fox not picking up Palin’s option.

In a sensible column about the senseless who-shot-john over Beyonce’s rendition of the national anthem at the Inauguration, Tony Norman embeds this nugget:

In his seminal 1961 work “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America,” the late historian and theorist Daniel J. Boorstin coined a term that described perfectly the postmodern synthesis of politics and the entertainment-friendly choreographing of reality. Boorstin called these non-spontaneous moments that were supposed to look spontaneous “pseudo-events,” because they were elaborate simulations of real things projected onto a larger canvas. These events are tailor-made for broad dissemination in what Boorstin called an “age of contrivance.”

Sounds like a book worth reading.

Belle Rose remembers another American political party that tried to hang on to power by rigging the election laws. A nugget:

When parties fall out of step with the will of people, desperation sets in as politicians try to hold on to power. As is happening today with Republicans, it also happened in the late 1790s and early 1800s as Federalists felt power slipping through their fingers. James Madison words to Thomas Jefferson about Federalists could just as well be written about today’s GOP: “The horrors which they evidently feel at the approach of the electoral epoch are a sufficient warning of the desperate game by which they will be apt to characterize the interval.”

Jefferson was fully aware of the Federalist’s strategy, writing to his daughter, Patsy: “Our opponents perceive the decay of their power. Still they are pressing it, and trying to pass laws to keep themselves in power.”

We know how well that worked.

Uniform twits twitting uniformly.

The U.S. Army hosted an online chat today via its official @USArmy Twitter account to talk about the role of social media in the organization, and how the Army employs tools like Twitter to tell its story.

More uniformity at the link.

A little bit better and looking more like a trend.

Applications for unemployment insurance payments decreased by 5,000 to 330,000 in the week ended Jan. 19, the fewest since the same week in 2008, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. Economists forecast 355,000 claims, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

(snip)

The number of people who continue to collect jobless benefits fell by 71,000 to 3.16 million in the week ended Jan. 12, the fewest since July 2008. The continuing claims figure does not include workers receiving extended benefits from the federal government.
Extended Benefits

Those who’ve exhausted their traditional benefits and now are collecting emergency and extended payments decreased by 365,600 to 1.69 million in the week ended Jan. 5. These figures may also be distorted because of the holidays, the Labor Department spokesman said.

Jon Stewart lampoons our lightweight media, simultaneously contrasting Fox News’s cartoon Obama with the real man through masterful juxtaposition.

Via TPM.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

David Brooks edition.

Read more »