Political Theatre category archive

Via BartBlog.

Kyle Wingfield, writing at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, discusses the University of Iowa’s awarding of a scholarship based on skill at being a twit on twitter:

During the past several years, quality leadership has been lacking in too many aspects of American life. The people at the top have let us down. Rather than asking too much of them, I wonder if the problem is that we ask too little as we select them.

(snip)

Putting style or form above substance is rampant in our slogan-obsessed politics. Complain all you want about the vagueness and vacuity of “hope and change,” but Obama didn’t invent the bumper sticker.

Staying with politics, the problem may be not only how we select our leaders but how narrowly we cast the field.

He always wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up.

But he kept getting it wrong.

K Street twits.

Peter Bergman discusses the Republican fascination with enemies on EYKW.

It’s less than 12 minutes. Listen (NSFW).

He’s more optimistic than I.

The WARN interview. Just go read it.

An Exclusive Interview with “Whiteness,” Senior Adviser to the Tea Party GOP and Governor Rick Perry

Addendum, the Next Day:

Lawyers, Guns, and Money recalls when a court decreed that Finns were white:

John Svan was a Finnish immigrant to the United States. He came to this country sometime before 1882. But he was not considered white by the United States government. Why? He carried with him the blood of his “Mongolian” ancestors. This meant he could not become a citizen. Various laws were passed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, restricting US citizenship to those of the white and black races. These laws were intended to discriminate against Asians, but what about Finns. Were they white?

(snip)

This is from the 1908 court decision deciding that, in fact, Finns are white.

The excerpt from the 1908 court ruling is silly and sad at the same time.

Via Atrios.

Afterthought:

Over the years, there have been many attempts to prove the existence of “race” with “science.” Every one has been shown to be bunk.

“Race” does not exist.

But bigotry sure does.

Who is the latest heart-throb? Margaret Carlson handicaps the suitors at the Miami Herald. A nugget:

Perry’s being treated by George Will, William Kristol and other prominent conservatives as if he’s more than a passing fancy. Yet evidence from the past six months suggests that Republican love burns brightly and fades quickly.

There was that spring fling with Donald Trump, for example. Trump was in first place back in April in a Public Policy Polling survey, clocking in at 26 percent to Romney’s 15 percent, but he was a distant memory by the time Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann burst on the scene. While Sarah Palin played hard to get, Bachmann jumped into the race with both heels. Feisty, pretty, happy to let the United States default on its debt, she climbed from 6 percent to 14 percent in a month. By Aug. 13, the party activists who flock to the Iowa Straw Poll were sufficiently in love to give Bachmann a winning 29 percent of the vote in an eight-candidate field, knocking out Bachmann’s home-state competition, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

It is rather like one of those romance comic books, isn’t it.

There’s always someone new along the Appalachian Trail.

Read more »

Atrios:

Ultimately, that’s what all the “no labels,” “Unity08,” “We need a billionaire,” crap is about, imagining that there’s some sort of political Jesus out there who can implement my favored policies without worrying about the existing political institutions or the pesky voters.

Because “We’re already there” is not a reason to stay.

Because “We never admit a mistake” is not a reason to stay.

Because “It creates jobs for Blackwater Xe and Lockheed-Martin and Dupont” is not a reason to stay.

Because “We are accomplishing nothing and will accomplish nothing” is not a reason to stay.

Because “Mine is bigger than yours” is not a reason to stay.

Because “Youngsters need an opportunity to die for their country” is not a reason to stay.

Name me a reason to stay.

Support efforts to air this in Eric Cantor’s district.

Via C&L.

I see that Charles Krauthammer has a column about Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m not going to read it. I like to keep an open mind, at least on topics where I still have questions, but Krauthammer’s history of intellectual dishonesty and absolute wingnut hackery has taught me that, when he knocks on my mind’s door, to lock the damned door.

He’s not worth the effort, not even to know the latest wingnut fable.

Instead, if you wish to read about Dr. King, read the post I excerpt below written by a fellow who grew up black in the South. Here’s a snippet (emphasis in the original):

So anyway, I was having this argument with my father about Martin Luther King and how his message was too conservative compared to Malcolm X’s message. My father got really angry at me. It wasn’t that he disliked Malcolm X, but his point was that Malcolm X hadn’t accomplished anything as Dr. King had.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his “I have a dream speech.”

(snip)

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, “Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.”

H/T ABL.

The good old days weren’t, unless you are Ron Paul.

Dick Polman comments on the point-counterpoint of Paul’s calling for the end of FEMA in the midst of flooding and death from a tropical storm. A snippet:

What year would this guy prefer that we live in, 1900? When there were no federal warnings of looming natural disasters, when there was no federal help for the newly homeless?

Actually, the answer to those questions is, quite literally, yes.

Here’s Paul again, arguing last Friday that Washington should go back to the good ole days, when it played no role in disaster preparedness or response: “We should be like 1900. We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960. I live on the Gulf Coast. We deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.”

What’s wrong with those remarks? Pretty much everything – starting with the fact that Paul didn’t even bother to visit his congressional district after it was hammered in 2005 by Hurricane Ike. Most notably was Paul’s invocation of 1900, which happens to be the year when Galveston was decimated by a hurricane that killed upwards of 8000 people (as vividly rendered in the book Isaac’s Storm).

In Libertarian World, elegant theory trumps messy reality any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Tom Papantonio’s language in this disturbs me, not because of any profanity, but because of his use of words like “hick,” “rube,” and “bumpkin.”

As a country boy, I dislike those words and others like them, which are often used to dismiss persons because of their backgrounds, rather than engage them in discussion based on their knowledge and abilities. (That’s part of why I could never fully enjoy The Beverly Hillbillies, despite plot lines in which, just before the last commercial, the good-hearted rubes always bested the cold-hearted banker.*)

I have also found that belittling folks, however richly they may have earned it, does not win friends, but it may influence people–to hostility. Indeed, it’s likely to fire up Perry’s supporters, who are already feeling mighty aggrieved.

Nevertheless, I recommend attempting to disregard Papantonio’s intemperate language and to listen to the facts that his guest brings to the discussion. The substance starts about two minutes in:

Rick Perry is an empty boot.

______________________

*Yeah. Right.

Addendum, Comment Rescue Dept.:

Dick Destiny comments:

Late in the segment they start going on about cyberwar and Richard Clarke being a savior. Which makes ‘em a bit guilty of a bit of the same kind of alleged bad thinking they accuse Perry of.

Goodness, there’s enough to criticize Perry over without going off on Yellow Peril tangents.

He has a point.

I agree that the whole cyber-war stuff is hype designed to generate full employment for consultants.

I purposely lowered my BS filter because I could not resist the irony of Perry’s embracing one of the few companies that even the Bushies could not love.

Via The Commander Guy.

Priyamvada Gopal argues for a sense of perspective at the Guardian. A nugget:

But the real question is what political role such manufactured hysteria plays at a time when ordinary Americans are far more vulnerable to the damage being inflicted on them by their economic and political elites than to individual weather events. (Changing climate patterns are a different matter).

Put simply, millions more homes will have been lost to bank repossessions than have been damaged by Irene. The storm caused some flooding, but much greater degradation has been inflicted on the US coastline by last year’s BP oil spill. A few days without electricity is challenging, but the blow to clean energy prospects posed by the State Department’s recent approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to Texas coast is more worrying.

Mike Malloy tees off on the lies. It’s a bit extreme, but only a bit:

Via Contradict Me.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.