Political Theatre category archive

The Republican Party is resisting teabaggers’ attempts to turn the Republican National Convention into a celebration of Ron Paul. Daniel Ruth, recognizing that it’s the Republican, not the Libertarian, National Convention, is bemused:

Tea party organizers have complained the RNC is attempting the undermine plans for the Ron Paul-apalooza at the Florida State Fairgrounds. This is certainly a fitting site. Yes, you’re absolutely right, the temptation to go all barnyard here is almost too much to resist. But let’s press on.

(snip)

What seems lost on the tea party revelers, who love to claim a firm grasp of American history, is that the whole idea behind a presidential nominating convention is to officially nominate the party’s presidential candidate. Honest! It’s not about tossing hosannas at the chap who garnered less support than Pete Rose on a Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.

Why are they at the Republican National Convention?

One more time: Most Libertarians are Republicans who are ashamed to admit it (and justly so, one might add).

I had a 2-S and was damned glad I did. I remember sophomore year sitting in a dark dorm room with several of my friends listening to the first modern draft lottery on the radio. We all wanted to know our numbers.

Mine was 349. I could relax for the first time since I registered (somewhere I still have my card).

No one wants to die for a lie, and that’s what the Vietnamese War was, a Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie.

Not the first, certainly not the last, just another of many.

The old lie; the young die.

Chauncey Devega ruminates on a study that suggest racism runs even into the canine realm. A nugget:

Nevertheless, I remain fascinated by one aspect of (Michael; follow the link for the citation–ed.) Tesler’s research:

Even presidential pets were viewed through the same lens. Tesler showed 1,000 YouGov respondents a picture of a Portuguese water dog and asked how favorably they felt toward it. Half saw the dog introduced as Bo Obama, and half as Ted Kennedy’s dog, Splash. (Both political dogs are the same breed, but the picture was of Obama’s.) Those with negative feelings toward blacks thought less of Obama’s dog.

I love dogs. Tesler’s finding that white racial resentment extends to Bo, a canine, is a sign of how damaging white racism is to those who afflicted with it. The social science suggests that the activation of white racial animus and hostility is a halo effect which extends to anyone associated with President Obama.

I understand the methodology and argument: But yet, I am still left asking how can you dislike a dog based only on his owner?

Racism runs deep in American history and consciousness (and unconsciousness), far deeper that most white folks are willing to acknowledge, let alone confront. Read the rest.

Aside:

That, in addition to the clear writing and sound scholarship, is one reason I’m so happy to have discovered Mr. Devega’s blog; it gives me a chance to look at me with a different mirror.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

AKA, them what has, keeps.

Rex Huppke sounds the alarm.

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but I have uncovered something terrifying.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago may be more than just an innocent monument to opulence. I have reason to believe that under the leadership of a former British spy, the mirrored skyscraper is being used to breed a race of warrior rhinoceroses that Donald Trump will use to take over the world.

I know this is hard to believe, but you must listen to me. I have done the research and found conclusive evidence that Trump Tower is a Trojan horse, and I’m prepared to tell the story that the Trump-stream media do not want you to hear.

Follow the link. I can’t think of a wisecrack that does his logic justice.

Margeret Carlson wonders why Mitt the Flip, professional pol, flips off his time as governor of Massachusetts.

Imagine if Harry Truman had run as a haberdasher, or Jimmy Carter as a peanut farmer. The only successful candidate to run as a businessman — it was all he had — was Herbert Hoover. Look where that got us. The last candidate to run with a pointer and a whiteboard was Ross Perot. Enough said.

Read the rest, in which she discusses what the Flipper doesn’t: his record as a governor.

On the Media considers why the disconnect between US reporting and international reporting on the Drone Wars, particularly the lack of domestic coverage of civilian deaths (emphasis added).

According to an article in The New York Times last week, the Obama administration treats “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants”. Brooke talks to Chris Woods, reporter for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who has been working with reporters on the ground to confirm and put names to civilian casualties of drone strikes, about the discrepancies between his reporting and the reports of the US government.

I love the “if I hit you, you must be guilty” reasoning.

Follow the link to read the transcript or listen to the story.

At Asia Times, Nick Turse looks to the future Drone Wars. A nugget:

In some ways, of course, the future is now. When the first Terminator movie was released in 1984, its HKs seemed as futuristic as its time-traveling cyborg title-character. Nearly three decades later, we’re living in an age in which armed robots do regularly surveil, track, and kill people. But instead of a self-aware computer network known as Skynet, it’s the American president or his intelligence officials and military officers who determine the human targets to be terminated by unmanned hunter-killer craft.

Sally Kalson examines the recent kerfuffle over Joe Ricketts (grandowner of the Chicago Cubs, may they dwell forever in the cellar that they have made their own) and yet another attempt by the Republican Party to stir up racial animosity. She considers the duplicitous role of PACs. A nugget:

This arrangement (anonymous PACs–ed.) makes it possible for politicians to work both sides, denouncing sleazy tactics while benefitting from them. Now that there are no limits on political spending independent of campaigns, wealthy donors can exert more influence than ever on the political process. As the rejected plan noted, voters “still aren’t ready to hate this president.” So “how to inflame their questions on his character and competency, while allowing themselves to still somewhat ‘like’ the man becomes the challenge.”

Stephen Colbert analyzes Mitt the Flip’s outreach efforts and enumerates the groups to which he must reach out:

PoliticalProf has some thoughts. A snippet:

I know, I know: you’re thinking politicians lie as a defect of character. They lie because they’re liars. So why bother to discuss it?

I want to suggest that there’s a different, more persuasive account for why politicians lie: They lie because we make them lie. They lie because when they lie, we reward—meaning vote for—them. And when they don’t lie, we punish them—by voting for the other candidate—who, of course, lied to us.

My point can be made in a single, dramatic example, although I am sure that many will resist. In his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance address in 1984, Walter Mondale famously said: “Let’s tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”

Walter Mondale went on to lose to Ronald Reagan in the greatest electoral college defeat of all time, 525-13. After his reelection, Ronald Reagan raised taxes multiple times, including a massive shift in tax burden from corporations to individuals as a consequence of the 1986 tax reform act.

Read the rest.

Thom wonders whether the Iowa Republican platform, which, among other things, call for teaching creationism in public schools, presages the national one and why the loonies seem to be in charge.

Gamy gaming.

Enthusiasts boast of their (drones–ed>) surgical accuracy and exhaustive surveillance, operated by all-seeing technicians from thousands of miles away in Nevada.

But that’s a computer-game fantasy of clinical war. Since 2004, between 2,464 and 3,145 people are reported to have been killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan, of whom up to 828 were civilians (535 under Obama) and 175 children. Some Pakistani estimates put the civilian death toll much higher – plausibly, given the tendency to claim as “militants” victims later demonstrated to be nothing of the sort.

Do the arithmetic: batting somewnere between .263 and .336 at getting the wrong persons. That average gets you batting at the top of the order in the bigs.

Dick Polman thinks he’s figured out Mitt the Flip’s attraction to the Donald.

He advances several theories, then settles on this:

Remember, Romney spent the primary season trying in vain to unite the base behind his candidacy. He still apparently lives in fear that the most unhinged folks on the Republican right will stay home on election day, having convinced themselves that he’s too sensible to vote for. Which is why Romney has tried on occasion to show that he too can be unhinged. It’s pander politics 101.

Click to read the rest.

(For folks too young to understand “Agnew.”)