Political Theatre category archive

Matt Taibbi invites his readers to rewrite a Thomas Friedman column in one paragraph.

The results are–well, just see for yourselves.

Daniel Ruth on the Generals–he doesn’t say anything new, but it’s a fun read.

Nothing spoils a perfectly delightful scandal involving power, lust and ambition more than the intrusion of seriousness.

Long after the cameras are folded up in front of the Declasse Doyenne’s underwater mansion on Bayshore Boulevard, we are still left to wonder just how did David Petraeus and John Allen find themselves transformed in the time it takes to unsnap a bra or hit the send button from bold, visionary military figures to General Halftrack chasing Miss Buxley around?

Then there’s this:

PoliticalProf argues that focusing on a demographic explanation for the Republican Party’s losses in the recent election misses the point, unless the reason for the demographic disparity is taken into account. A nugget.

But this demographic analysis lets Republicans off the hook far too easily. It implies that if they change their public face — e.g., run candidates like Marco Rubio for office — they will fix the demographic gap. Toss in some candidates who are female and, well, Shan-gri-la apparently awaits!

What this argument misses, of course, is the answer to the question, “why”? Why have so many different groups of people abandoned a party that, twice in the last 40 years, set all time records for electoral college margins of victory.

(snip)

The plain answer is: the leaders of the Republican Party have squandered the party’s advantages by appealing to the worst, basest instincts of a small segment of the electorate . . . .

PoliticalProf lays out the sequence of events of the Petraeus scandal (follow the link for the enumeration) and concludes:

You know what’s not in this story? Any allegation or coverage of potential professional wrongdoing on Petraeus’ part (e.g., leaked information, emails, breaches of security, etc.).

Watch any soap opera you’ve ever seen. Nighttime or daytime. This is the standard story. it perhaps does not deserve quite so much detail.

I think a run-of-the-mill scandal has been complicated by the dashing of the press’s veneration of Petraeus and wingnuts’ desperate desire to make everything about President Obama; this clip illustrates both, although the blogger’s comments about it address only one of those items.

It probably also doesn’t hurt that it’s giving reporters an excuse to go all tabloid.

I think I’ll go watch some F-Troop reruns.

Chauncey Devega offers comfort to the huddled masses of fearful white voters dreading the imminent Obamapocalyse.

A nugget.

The Right-wing media failed you. They lied and told you that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide. They cooked up stories about voter fraud and rigged polls that were biased against Republicans. The Right-wing media machine betrayed you—their audience.

If I were white, a conservative, and listened to the Right wing media, I would be scared and upset too. I would feel confused. How could so many people lie to me? It just isn’t fair! It must be some type of conspiracy.

I do not have a ready answer. But I do want to help you feel better. Because I am your friend, I am going to let you in on a secret that Fox News and the Republican Party will not share with you. Are you ready?

White people run America.

Via TPM.

Citizens Benighted, reductio ad auto:

Thom discusses Texas Republicans’ attempt to ban teachers from teaching “critical thinking” skills.

Why oh why would Republicans be against facts and analytical thinki–oh, never mind.

Via C&L.

Keep reminding yourself:

I’m not stubborn, I’m steadfast.

I’m not mean, I’m realistic.

I’m not self-serving, I’m fair and balanced.

I’m not unscientific, I’m in touch with higher truths.

More pundit self-talk at the link.

John Scalzi has a few words for old angry white men who are stunned that Mitt the Flip’s Etch no longer Sketches:

Second, stop believing that the problem was that Romney didn’t sell the message. He sold it just fine. So did Paul Ryan. So did the GOP candidates you favor. So did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads funded by SuperPACs. The problem isn’t the selling of the message. The problem is the message. Everyone else got the message. They just said “thanks, no,” to it.

More words for old angry white men at the link.

Hate is a popular product, but I guess it don’t always sell.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Jonathan Schell writes in the Beirut Daily Star. A nugget:

The same disregard for reality has been the hallmark not only of the Republican campaign but of the entire Republican Party in recent times. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a report in October showing that the national unemployment rate remained “essentially unchanged” at 7.9 percent, Republican operatives sought to discredit the highly respected BLS. When polls showed that Romney was falling behind President Barack Obama, they sought to discredit the polls. When the non-partisan Congressional Research Service reported that a Republican tax plan would do nothing to foster economic growth, Republican Senators muscled the CRS into withdrawing its report.

These refusals to accept matters of plain fact reflect a still wider pattern. Increasingly, the Republican Party, once a fairly normal political party, has granted itself a license to live in an alternate reality . . . .

Read the rest.

Tom Tomorrow brings it alive with pictures:

Dr. Dan tries to figure it out.

PoliticalProf passes on suggestions for improving the polling process.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., adds yet another article to the pile of paper (and electrons) on what the GOP must do to recover from the late Presidential debacle.

Frankly, I don’t think they are going to do anything other than more of the same. They have embraced a strategy of hate and fear for more than two decades: hate and fear of black and brown folks, lesbian and gay folks, non-male folks, poor folks, foreign folks, non-Fundamentalist folks.

When you embrace hate and fear for personal and political gain, hate and fear embrace you right back.

The current Republican Party has no soul left to sell. It is souled out.

I’ll cite one sentence in Pitts’s column; follow the link for the rest:

All that said, the biggest question here is not whether the GOP can transform itself, but whether it can even try. At this point, the Republicans are less a traditional political party than what disenchanted former GOP staffer Mike Lofgren has called an “apocalyptic cult.”

The Tampa Bay Times’s John Romano looks back on the campaign and separates the message from the medium. A snippet (emphasis in the original):

What Republican strategist Karl Rove said about the president’s victory:

“He succeeded by suppressing the vote.”

What I heard:

“Will someone please tell the Koch brothers there are no &%$#*!@ refunds?”

What Gov. Rick Scott said about six-hour lines for early voting in South Florida:

“What I’m trying to do is improve the way government works.”

What I heard:

“Let them eat cake.”

Read the rest. You need a chuckle.

The Booman does the math.

Who knew that math does irony?

I looked around and couldn’t find a larger version with clearer type, though I’m sure it’s out there somewhere on the innerwebs. If your browser has a good zoom feature (mine does), you should be able to enlarge them enough to read the legends.

But, even without reading the legends, this picture is indeed worth.

It shows that the Civil War continues apace, Appomattox to the contrary notwithstanding.

Via Delaware Liberal, which has additional interesting maps.

Local blogger Vivian J. Paige, responding to a post by a friend of hers (post linked at her site), discusses the Republican Party’s stance on not white people.

The Republican Party doesn’t have a black problem; they have a non-white problem.

Anyone who is not white is dismissed as a potential Republican voter. Voter ID laws that have passed in a number of states weren’t targeted just at black folk, but all minorities. Harsher stances on immigration weren’t targeted at black folk at all.

She’s quite correct, you know. The odious Southern strategy, created by the Republican Party, has consumed its creators.

Read the rest. It’s worth your while.