Political quotes of the moment

[Kai]

According to Thomas Friedman, President Obama has a narrative problem. I completely disagree. I think he has a characterization problem. No, a world-building problem. No, a continuity error problem. A dialogue problem? No, a description problem. A gameplay problem? A user interface problem? A design problem? I think there is a script on his page that is causing errors on this page. I think that a misprint on the RSVP page accidentally listed the event as the Tuesday after when it actually occurs. I think those black shoes clash with that navy suit.

Amusingly posted with the tag "metafiction will save democracy"

  Yeah, I liked that one.

[Cain]

I've been reading Doug Feith's book.  Why?  Because I wanted to see what "the stupidest fucking guy on the planet" had written in defense of himself.  Plus his utter sociopathy and disregard for his own actions is kind of amazing.  For example:

White House officials understandably preferred to declare affirmative messages about Iraq's future, rather than rehash the government's intelligence embarrassments. Even so, I thought it was a strategic error for the president to make no effort to defend the arguments that had motivated him before the war.

Shorter Doug Feith: "if only Bush had stuck to my lies about WMD and terrorists, instead talking about all this democracy crap, no-one would be protesting the war."  Seriously, this guy is a moron.

[Cain]

The Guardian and Times Literary Supplement writer, Steven Poole, on Melanie Phillips:

’Tis the season of goodwill and cheer to all — except, of course, to frothing hate-puppet “Melanie Phillips”. In a devastating recent post, “she” demonstrates the evils of “human rights culture”, on the grounds that:

    1) The ‘rights’ that that it claims are universal are nothing of the kind. Because they are balanced by competing rights they are highly contingent on the whims and prejudices of individual judges to decide which of them comes out on top.

The post is about Britain’s Human Rights Act, which makes the European Convention on Human Rights British law. So which rights in ECHR are, as “Melanie” says, “balanced by competing rights”? Let’s see. The rights announced by ECHR include:

   1. A right to life — this is, of course, balanced by my right to kill people.
   2. A right not to be tortured or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment — this one is balanced by the right of “Melanie Phillips” to continue writing “her” columns, even though they inflict inhuman and degrading treatment on their readers.
   3. A right not to be subject to slavery or forced labour — balanced by the right of “Melanie Phillips” to exist only as a fictionsuit entirely under the control of a mad satirist.
   4. A right to liberty and security of person — balanced by the government’s right to lock people up without trial and export them to foreign countries for torture.
   5. A right to a fair trial (see above).
   6. A right not to be punished for an act that was not a criminal offence at the time it was committed — perhaps this one is also “balanced” by the right to punish someone for an act that was never committed at all (see 4).

It’s an open-and-shut-case so far, isn’t it, readers? Only an idiot would think that a right not to be tortured or arbitrarily killed can possibly be called “universal”, ie applying in all circumstances.

[Iason Ouabache]

Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel accidentally said: the case is typical of the ACLU in that "anything that is anti-moral, anti-religious liberty, and anti-freedom, you can always find them on the other side." So Staver agrees that the ACLU is pro-moral, pro-religious liberty and pro-freedom. Thanks, Matt!

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=765588

[Cain]

Matt Taibbi

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/20/sarah-palin-wwe-star/

At the end of this decade what we call “politics” has devolved into a kind of ongoing, brainless soap opera about dueling cultural resentments and the really cool thing about it, if you’re a TV news producer or a talk radio host, is that you can build the next day’s news cycle meme around pretty much anything at all, no matter how irrelevant — like who’s wearing a flag lapel pin and who isn’t, who spent $150K worth of campaign funds on clothes and who didn’t, who wore a t-shirt calling someone a cunt and who didn’t, and who put a picture of a former Vice Presidential candidate in jogging shorts on his magazine cover (and who didn’t).

It doesn’t matter what the argument is about; what’s important is that once the argument starts, the two sides will automatically coalesce around the various instant-cocoa talking points and scream at each other until they’re blue in the face, or until the next argument starts

[Cain]

Matt Taibbi, again, explaining how the media works, in the form of haiku, to Teabagger morons:

Journos are pussies
Only attack when it’s safe
Lay off entrenched pols

In fact, the whole thing is worth reading for such wonderful sentences as:

What the people who are flipping out about the treatment of Palin should be asking themselves is what it means when it’s not just jerks like us but everybody piling on against Palin. For those of you who can’t connect the dots, I’ll tell you what it means. It means she’s been cut loose. It means that all five of the families have given the okay to this hit job, including even the mainstream Republican leaders. You teabaggers are in the process of being marginalized by your own ostensible party leaders in exactly the same way the anti-war crowd was abandoned by the Democratic party elders in the earlier part of this decade. Like the antiwar left, you have been deemed a threat to your own party’s “winnability.”

And do you know what that means? That means that just as the antiwar crowd spent years being painted by the national press as weepy, unpatriotic pussies whose enthusiastic support is toxic to any serious presidential aspirant, so too will all of you afternoon-radio ignoramuses who seem bent on spending the next three years kicking and screaming your way up the eternal asshole of white resentment now find yourself and your political champions painted as knee-jerk loonies whose rabid irrationality is undeserving of the political center. And yes, that’s me saying that, but I’ve always been saying that, not just about Palin but about George Bush and all your other moron-heroes.

What’s different now is who else is saying it. You had these people eating out of the palms of your hands (remember what it was like in the Dixie Chicks days?). Now they’re all drawing horns and Groucho mustaches on your heroes, and rapidly transitioning you from your previous political kingmaking role in the real world to a new role as a giant captive entertainment demographic that exists solely to be manipulated for ratings and ad revenue. What you should be asking yourself is why this is happening to you. Even I don’t know the answer to that question, but honestly, I don’t really care. All I know is that I find it extremely funny.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/23/yes-sarah-there-is-a-media-conspiracy/

[LMNO]

I think I'm falling in love with Matt Tabbi.

There was some pundit on NPR yesterday who predicted Obama would be fucked in 2012 because he's pissed off both the wingnuts and the moonbats, and we might see an amazing mix of the marginalized joining together to oust him.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think I'm falling in love with Matt Tabbi.

There was some pundit on NPR yesterday who predicted Obama would be fucked in 2012 because he's pissed off both the wingnuts and the moonbats, and we might see an amazing mix of the marginalized joining together to oust him.

Mr Tabbi is shaping up quite nicely for the crown of Gonzo journalism.

And what's happening to Obama is the same thing that happens to everyone who tries to please everybody.

[Iason Ouabache]

There was some pundit on NPR yesterday who predicted Obama would be fucked in 2012 because he's pissed off both the wingnuts and the moonbats, and we might see an amazing mix of the marginalized joining together to oust him.

Not gonna happen. The Republicans have moved too far to the right and are actively kicking out anyone with half a brain. They've alienated every single moderate and don't have any star power left. Huckabee, Romney and Palin aren't going to win in an election against Obama.

And seriously, who are the Moonbats going to vote for instead of Obama? Nader??? They talk a big game but they'll fall in line when the time comes.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

There was some pundit on NPR yesterday who predicted Obama would be fucked in 2012 because he's pissed off both the wingnuts and the moonbats, and we might see an amazing mix of the marginalized joining together to oust him.

Not gonna happen. The Republicans have moved too far to the right and are actively kicking out anyone with half a brain. They've alienated every single moderate and don't have any star power left. Huckabee, Romney and Palin aren't going to win in an election against Obama.

And seriously, who are the Moonbats going to vote for instead of Obama? Nader??? They talk a big game but they'll fall in line when the time comes.

They are now instituting a "purity pledge", which anyone who wants election funding will have to take.



I'll post a link tonight.

[Cain]

The problem will more likely come in 2016*, by which time the GOP will...well, probably have still purged everyone, since the Movement is now master, but will likely have better narrative and media presence, and maybe even a couple of rising stars, at the same time everyone will be tired of Obama's shit and the Democratic Congress basically signing off on every law designed to run the country into the ground.

That is where thing's get interesting, once the Democrats manage to de-legitimize themselves.  Will people turn back to the GOP then?  It's a possibility that can't be ruled out.  Third parties will likely gain something, but the idea that the ONLY VALID CHOICES EVAR are the GOP or Dems are so hardwired into the media and current political landscape the only people I can see benefitting from a Democratic collapse would be the Republicans.

*Or wont, because the earth blows up

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The problem will more likely come in 2016*, by which time the GOP will...well, probably have still purged everyone, since the Movement is now master, but will likely have better narrative and media presence, and maybe even a couple of rising stars, at the same time everyone will be tired of Obama's shit and the Democratic Congress basically signing off on every law designed to run the country into the ground.

That is where thing's get interesting, once the Democrats manage to de-legitimize themselves.  Will people turn back to the GOP then?  It's a possibility that can't be ruled out.  Third parties will likely gain something, but the idea that the ONLY VALID CHOICES EVAR are the GOP or Dems are so hardwired into the media and current political landscape the only people I can see benefitting from a Democratic collapse would be the Republicans.

*Or wont, because the earth blows up

Duverger's Law.  No exceptions.  Ask Pat Robertson and Ralph Nader about that.

[Cain]

Hurrah for first past the post!

But yeah.  Basically, once the Democrats fuck up bad (and they will, in fact, they already have, but you know and I know and Matt Taibbi knows the media isn't very smart, and also only attacks when it can sense weakness) then BAM! Teabaggers will be deciding whether to negotiate with Iran or drop tac-nukes on it.

Hurrah!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Hurrah for first past the post!

But yeah.  Basically, once the Democrats fuck up bad (and they will, in fact, they already have, but you know and I know and Matt Taibbi knows the media isn't very smart, and also only attacks when it can sense weakness) then BAM! Teabaggers will be deciding whether to negotiate with Iran or drop tac-nukes on it.

Hurrah!

I think I'm gonna love the next decade even more than this one.

[Cain]

I can't keep track of how many books Cass Sunstein has written. Fortunately, they all follow the same format: trendy poindexter sociology, partial understanding of real social phenomena, lots of concern trolling and a solipsistic elision of the role his class plays in the creation of perverse incentives, double binds, pyrrhic antipathy, etc. There's no mystery to the tin foil hat hysterics of the wingnuts. They live in a society in which the Sunsteins have limitless opportunity to indulge their passive aggression and misanthropic control freaking. The wingnuts' opportunities to vent are highly circumscribed, by their own vicious collectivism, and by a society arranged for the comfort of banksters and double-domed, extravagantly credentialed concern trolls. Things like the teabagging and birth certificate tantrums are all they've got. If the big shot pwogs were really worried, they could try addressing some of the material concerns and insecurities that drive and attract people to the cretinous outbursts. The hard core is probably implacable but the impact of their behavior would fade into a minor freak show in a country less dedicated to violent managerialism, stupid authoritarian mind games and kleptocracy. There'd be fewer Sunstein books, too, but I'm sure we'd find a way to go about our daily tasks.