Hoos Left?: October 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The 2016 Campaign Starts Here

Who says bipartisanship is dead? Yesterday, New Jersey governor Chris Christie proved it wasn't. In the wake of devastation left by Hurricane Sandy, Christie took to the airwaves on all major networks, as well as CNN, MSNBC and - horror of horrors! - Fox News, just to wax more than lyrical, more to wax effusively lyrical regarding the President's handling of the Sandy crisis and, in particular, of the individual attention and co-operation the President gave to New Jersey and to Christie's ego, in particular.

Just watch something you'll never see again - a sitting Republican governor praising the President on Fox News.

OK, Christie's a politician, and so is the President, who has suspended his campaign in order to do the job he was elected to do. Now, maybe Christie is sincere. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt as he's a governor dealing with a crisis of nature in his beleagured state.

But cast your mind back to a couple of months ago, when Christie was the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention.

Rather than extolling the virtues of the man the GOPers had assembled formally to nominate, Christie spent half an hour extolling his own virtues - in anticipation of heading the ticket, himself, come 2016; and considering the current situation, this gives pause for thought.

Christie is no fool. He's a pretty astute politician able to communicate as effectively as the President. He would also know how bloody fed up people are with the extreme partisanship on display in Washington. Whilst I'm sure he was grateful for the President's support (and make no mistake, the President had an eye to what his approaching Christie would mean to undecided voters as well), Christie is cognizant of the fact that, in his ambitions for 2016, come that time, people will remember this moment, and they will see him as a guy who can work with the other side.

Whether he will or not, remains to be seen, but people will always remember that October 30, 2012, was actually when Chris Christie began his 2016 campaign for the Presidency.

Let the games begin.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Otherwise Known as the Republican Party

Just not as cute and funny in a weird way.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Voters See the Real Problem If the Media Refuses to Do So

First, the BBC starts Romney-pandering, talking about Mitt as if he were the Second Coming. Then pompous, conservative journalist and arbiter of the upper classes, Max Hastings, publishes an article in the British Right-Wing Daily Mail (otherwise known as The Daily Hate), which whines about how weak the President is, how he doesn't deserve to win and subtly gives the nod to Mitt, yet again. I'd expect this of the Mail, a publication which longs for the days when Britain was white and the working classes knew their places. It's Romney's sort of paper.

Then, I read Frank Bruni's column in The New York Times today.

Bruni is a gay man and a regular on the daily MSNBC program fronted by the insipid, often tongue-tied Alex Wagner.

Wagner pretends to be a political journalist. She's not even out of her twenties, is amazingly inarticulate, was inculcated with doctrine during her one and only former job, worshipping at the altar of Queen Ratfucker Omnipotent of MediaLand - she worked for The Huffington Post - and she's landed a cush job fronting a political discussion program daily on a cable news channel. In Europe, this woman wouldn't even be taken seriously. First, she'd have to learn to talk properly. Then, she'd have to learn to speak about elected leaders using their proper titles. She's one of the Professional Left harpies who cannot bring herself to refer to the President as President Obama.

Anyway, Bruni is a regular guest, so - once again - his article about the President's so-called squandered chances to race ahead and beat Mitt Romney hands down, doesn't surprise me.

You can read the article here, but he bleats on and on about the President's perceived advantages and yet returns to flog that old familiar dead horse, reckoning that the President lost this one by virtue of - yes - his performance in the first debate. Bruni whines:-

THE miracle ended at the first debate, in Denver, and the problem with that face-off went beyond Obama’s sleepwalking to the kinds of subsequent debates it forced on him. To shake off what happened, he had to turn truculent, and while that technically “won” him his second and third meetings with Romney, he lost something in the bargain. He undercut his high-minded, big-vision brand, whole stanzas of doggerel intruding on the poetry.

His “bayonets” line was clever all right, and plenty fair in its way, but it had a schoolyard nastiness to it, the same nastiness in one of his campaign’s most prominent ads, which showcases Romney’s off-key rendition of “America the Beautiful.” I wonder how that line, that ad and the overall atmospherics register with voters in the middle, some of whom are no doubt asking themselves where “hope and change” went and hid.

The main cause for this contest’s closeness is arguably Obama — and the ways in which he has disappointed, confused and alienated some of the voters who warmed and even thrilled to him four years ago. During his first term, he at times misjudged and mishandled his Republican opposition. As a communicator, he repeatedly failed to sell his policies clearly and forcefully enough.

Yeah, uh-huh, you see, the fault that this race is so maddeningly close is all Obama's fault. This is the Professional Left conditioning, grooming and preparing their sheeple for the event of the President losing this race, directing them where to apportion the blame. Ne'mind that it was the media, including their own sweet pure selves who yearned for, longed for and therefore created this uncertain contest. It was to their advantage (read "ratings") to have a close contest. The last one was the novelty - hey, we elected the black guy. Now give him something to fight for, but get in there early and push the meme about the President's inability to communicate, how he misjudged the Republicans yadda-yadda-yadda. Nothing is ever mentioned or no responsibility claimed for the Professional Left's part in pushing dissatisfaction with the President not being able to walk on political water. They are as guilty as Fox News in deliberate misinformation, as evidenced by Hastings, in his diatribe, gleefully reporting that many Democrats are dissatisfied with the President and almost want him to lose. At least, at the end of his scribe, Bruni reluctantly admits that he still expects the President to win this thing - no thanks to Bruni or his ilk.

And the first debate is going to be hammered home into the sheeples' brains. It's beyond my ken how seemingly intelligent people of the media eschew content and concentrate on a style which, effectively, said nothing? What was it Jefferson said about a responsible press informing the public?

Still, it's good to see some pushback, especially amongst the people who've taken time on the Times website to set Bruni straight about a few things ... like his fallacious argument in total.

Like CS from Maryland:-

I agree with you, but you have failed to point out two key facts. First, the election of Obama brought out the extreme racist and other right wing elements in this country. For four years they have spun their lies and tapped into the deep seated racism that many white Americans don't even acknowledge within themselves. Second, people have short memories. Second, after four or five years of home value loss, people lose faith, feel threatened, and discouraged. People forget or don't care that George Bush caused this mess -- they only remember the obstructionists in the Congress. Most fail to associate the obstructionists with one party or the other. Obama has not claimed the spotlight and forthrightly stood up to the Republican's. Further, his party has not done so either. The first debate captured this and it highlighted Obama's meekness. Sometimes it seems like Americans are just voting for the other guy because Obama has not inspired them as they thought he would. It seems like many Americans don't care what kind of leader they get, they just want a leader. To many Obama seems weak. I ask myself everyday this question: WHY would anyone chop off their foot when the blister is starting to heal? I hope you are right and Obama wins. AND if he wins, his leadership will be inspiring.

Or Carole Sherman from the important state of Florida:-

I too feel this article fell short of showing not only his achievements, but his character and his steadfast and unwavering commitment to the American people and their lack of the same steafast and unwavering commitment to him. I personally voted for him in 2008 and I am voting for him again in 2012. His is my POTUS and should (God forbide) win this election he will never be my POTUS and if I am lucky enough to see the next election I will hold him to a higher standard than he held Obama, because he is promising to be a much higher standard. I will then hold (Romney) to his promises or start a petition for his impeachment or file a class action suit for breech of contract .

Then the wonderful Sonia from Seattle. Go, Sonia!

The magic is gone? There never was any magic. Just a hard working, honest, intelligent thoughtful guy who wants to help this country. You make no actual arguments supported by facts just broad conclusions drawn from (in my opinion, incorrect) observations. You give no actual examples showing how he has made all the mistakes you claim he has made; you say that Obama "alienated his voters' with giving any actual example how. (this theme of unsubstantiated castigation of Obama reminds me of someone else...).

You say that America is not actually racist enough for it to matter when the AP just came out with a poll showing that the exact opposite is actually true. He didn't do well on the first debate and I think the reason is because he is a decent human being who was actually amazed at the blatant lies and ridiculous things coming out of Romney's mouth. He seems like he doesn't want to be President sometimes because he is a caring, thoughtful, intelligent person who really thinks through what he is doing and he probably doesn't want to be President sometimes. Do you want him to love and embrace the slander and lies and racism that he is dealing with on a daily basis along with, oh yeah, running the most powerful country in the world? The people that really want to be managers (or politicians) are not the people that you actually want as your manager, or representative. He probably doesn't want to be president every day and that is actually a good thing.

JohnLB from Texas, no less, socks it to Bruni:-

Let's remember that about a third of us thought Obama won the first debate. I came to that conclusion from reading the transcript and listening to it on podcast. Take away the visuals and Romney's empty rhetoric and sudden re-emergence as Moderate Mitt were laughable. Be that as it may, I am wondering why ostensible supporters of Obama at the NYT are writing these woeful columns (see Dowd). Do they know something we don't know? Because their own poll expert says Obama has a 70% chance of winning still, and in fact seems to be solidifying his lead, not losing it.

Nothing like the truth thrown back in the face of the naysayers, of which Bruni and his female cohort, Alex Wagner, are leading lights.

Or how about Dagmar20 from LA, telling it like it is? Are you listening, Mr Bruni?

What's really remarkable about this campaign is how superficial the commentary has been, from the Right and the Left. Why don't you really analyze what both candidates are offering the voters, for instance, Romney's 5 point plan, $5 trillion in cuts, without saying what tax deductions he will eliminate. Or, how Obama plans on dealing with the opposition in the House and Senate if he is re-elected.

Is that too hard for journalists these days, you know, fact checking, researching, reporting?

How about JHM from McCain's Arizona:-

Race isn't an issue?

Go visit western Pennsylvania, Frank. Where you will see an Obama sign hardly anywhere.
When I asked my brother-in-law, who's a big Obama supporter, why this is so, he said, "Aw, come on, you know better to ask me that. It's because he's not white, Dummy!"
This is only anecdotal "evidence," I admit. But one that, I'm utterly convinced, which has caused this coming election to become so close.

Larry Figdill, from my neck of the woods, Virgina, gives Bruni a lesson in good Virginian common sense:-

Opinion pieces like this discourage his potential supporters. Thanks a lot.

Or Red from Pennsylvania, who draws an analogy with Fifties' man Romney and another Fifties icon:-

Whenever I hear Mitt Romney speak I can not stop thinking about Eddie Haskell, the polite but smarmy friend of Wally and Beaver on the "Leave it to Beaver" show back in the 1950's & 60's. He charmed Mrs. Cleaver and snookered most adults, but Eddie always thought those parents were "chumps" because they bought his line of bologna hook, line and sinker.

Romney is just one more slick huckster rich guy, out to fleece the poor fools that buy his line of foolishness. As P. T. Barnum remarked: "There is a sucker born every minute!"

Let's go international with Dan in Berlin, no less:-

Your assessments of Obama's shortcomings and why he should be trouncing Romney but isn't, are based on the mimicking hyperbole of GOP/Fox talking heads.

Look at what terms you use: "the One" and his "magic". Those labels were used repeatedly to make fun of Obama by comparing unrealistic attributes to him when his policy prescriptions did not engender enough success. If he's "the One" and has "magic", then everything he tries should succeed spectacularly.

You say that changing demographics should work in Obama's favor, whereas I'd argue that's what scares the daylights out of the GOP's base. That is also where your minimization of the role of race fails. Sununu knew exactly the right dog-whistle. You're naïve if you think that race does not influence middle/lower middle income white men. Only 39% of them chose Obama in 2008.

Romney is the guy those white men hoped they'd become. They, of course, didn't, and doubly resent being challenged or zinged by a black, wealthy, Ivy League lawyer. Obama's people know this dynamic, which is why Obama might awkwardly hold himself back. And those white men, hard hit economically, are looking for any reason to not choose the black guy.

The other mistake you make is to say that the electorate does not blame Obama for the economic downturn, but then leave out that they've been told daily that he's made it worse, further stoking resentment.

Throughout this plethora of comments, the majority of which decidedly hand Bruni his ass, one reason comes punching back through all the author's flawed rhetoric and whining about the President's so-called inadequacies. Many commenters eloquently and politely nail the reason behind the country (and the Left as well as the Right) seemingl going against the President (subtly pushed that way by the well-meaning media) - or as Betti from New York succinctly says:-

It's because he's black. Period. End of story.

That's really the way it is and has been for the past four years - always easier to blame the black guy, or anyone who's different in any way. You'd think Frank Bruni, a gay man, would appreciate this, or maybe he's hoping for some sort of epiphany on the part of Mitt Romney and his ilk regarding the repeal of DOMA and granting the gay community full civil rights.

Well, hope floats.

Still, it heartens me that so many people recognise the untold damage done to this Presidency by the media, and I hope, whoever wins, that we hold the Fourth Estate accountable for the mischief they've caused.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Naked Truth

I remember when the verbal brickbats started being thrown at President Obama - very shortly after his Inauguration in 2009. Surprisingly, the first shots didn't come from the Right, as so many people reckoned they would, but from the Left. The Huffington Post, fronted by a woman who is the biggest moral fraud of modern times, someone who - along with Rupert Murdoch - has ruined the face of modern journalism and media journalism, at least in the United States.

When people speak of deporting undesireable immigrants, start at the top and trickle down with Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington, each of whom came to these shores from their native countries by way of Britain and each of whom are reviled in that country.

Says a lot for us that we still take the shit Britain dishes.

I suppose as the Left criticized the President, that gave leeway to the Right to criticize him even more. It wasn't hard to see what, exactly, was behind the Tea Party's motivation - good old-fashioned racism: Sometimes covert and cleverly disguised under accusations of socialism, foreign and unAmerican; sometimes more overt, with pictures of the White House lawn being turned into a watermelon patch or ugly jibes likening the First Lady to a gorilla.

But the racism of the Left (and it was there) took the shape of patronising comments - sighs about how "weak" the President was, how he needed "backbone" or how his feet had to be "held to the fire." Far too many so-called Progressive pundits fell into "white massa" mode - from Cenk Uygur and Keith Olbermann's lengthy essays "telling the President what he should do" to Rachel Maddow's white privileged pretend Oval Office address as President Obama to Michael Moore's and Bill Maher's despicable remark about thinking they voted for the black man and having the white man show up.

Then came the piece de resistance in 2010, when talk show host Ed Schultz got the hump with Robert Gibbs's call-out of the Professional Left's whingeing and whining and urged Progressives not to vote in the mid-terms. That worked out so well, didn't it? And then came Chris Matthews's celebrated interview with Alex Witt last year where he accused the Obamas of not being grateful enough for the privilege of living in the White House.

Now, in the final two weeks of a messy election campaign, the Professional Left stepped in, panicking, right after the first debate, and showed that their shallowness was just as overwhelming as that of most average Americans: they chose style over content in that debate, when Mitt Romney bellow-weathered and bullied his way through the evening saying nothing and drowning out the President's factual response. The Queen Mother of kitchen sink Progressives, sad-eyed Joan Walsh, who infamously and inadvertantly admitted last year that she resented black people assuming they were part of the President's base, moved in for the Clintonista kill.

The media made this election. They surmised early on that Romney, like John McCain before him, enjoyed tepid Republican support. Even the choice of ~~Eddie Munster~~ Paul Ryan, the Ayn Randian darling of the Right, who's sucked the government's tit since adolescence but doesn't want anyone else to do so, didn't bolster Mitt's popularity with the tribe. But the media wanted a compelling, neck-and-neck race to offset the historic triumph last time of the nation's first African American President.

So, thanks to the media's consistent overkill of points taken out of context and deliberate misinformation, we have a race to close to call - and because of this, race is entering into the race.

From John Sununu's deplorable summation of Colin Powell's support of the President being based on the colour of both men's skin to Sarah Palin's horrifying "shuck and jive" remarks, more and more race and racism is being openly brought into the campaign dynamic by the Republican party as a scare tactic aimed at low information white working class voters. Fear of the other. Fear of the black man, or any minority, taking over.

For people being fooled by Mitt's so-called moderation, please note that it wasn't until 1978, that the Mormon church even allowed African Americans to venture inside their churches. Until then, the Mormon belief was that black people were descendents of Cain (as in "Cain who killed Abel"). Cain was marked by God for having killed his brother, and the Mormon belief is that that mark was black skin. So, black people were marked as substandard and sinister from the getgo in the Mormon church.

It's not just about race either that the Mormons (and Mitt Romney's core beliefs) bear scrutinising. The Mormons led the clarion call in the 1970s against the Equal Rights Amendment. They are against serious further education for women and abhor any woman who achieves this and operates proficiently in a male-dominated world. Women are for big love and big families. Now think again about Mitt's flip-flopping on abortion and women's health and Miss Ann's speech addressing all the Stepford Wives.

This is what I've always said was at the core of everything that's been stacked against this President for the past four years - by Right and by Left: the simple matter of race and racism.

Isn't it time we all got over ourselves? Because the thought of Mitt's mob taking the White House and Capitol Hill is fucking scary, people.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

No Sound from Sister Sarah

Ann Coulter tweets the following about Mitt Romney's performance in the last debate:-

It's obvious that "the retard" is a less-than-oblique reference to President Obama, as well as being a direct insult and a highly offensive word used to describe mentally challenged people.

Remember back during the healthcare debates in late 2009, when the Left's own Ann Coulter, Jane Hamsher, deliberately misquoted Rahm Emmanuel's assessment of Hamsher's suggestion that Progressives primary any Democratic Congressional candidate who opposed the infamous public option?

Emmanuel, rather brusquely, dismissed that action as being "retarded." OK, it wasn't a nice word to use, but he was describing and action. Instead, by the time Rahm's words tripped over Hamsher's toxic lips, the then-White House Chief-of-Staff had called all Progressives "retards."

This, of course, prompted tart tweets and Facebook lectures from none other than Sarah Palin, herself the mother of a child with Downs' Syndrome. As such, even though it was a misquote, one can understand her reaction, and justifiably so.

Yet, here's a blonde, white woman(?) from Connecticut, who's just written a snarling book on racism, discovering a new euphemism to use against the President. In the waning days of his re-election campaign, for Coulter and her ilk, the President has now become "the retard." This does not change the fact that the word, itself, is highly charged and as abysmally pejorative and mean for mentally challenged folk as the n-word is for African Americans.

But reaction from Mrs Palin?

Only this:-

I wonder why.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Real Time with Bill Maher - October 12 2012 & October 19 2012

The one with the convicted felon and Ann the Man Coulter.

Eddie Munster reference - so I'm not the only one who thinks that widdle Lyin' Wyin' looks like the monster child.

Ann Coulter ... man in drag. Why does Maher bother?

Brian Schweitzer and Ben Affleck handing felon Issa his ass.

Issa isn't happy. Petulant. His anger is because he is en passant blanc and he's afraid.

My source only provided the first half hour of this episode. Here's the latest:-

John Fund and Boris Blowhard are douchebags. Neither of them even honoured Goldie Taylor by looking at her as she addressed them. Sexist and RACIST.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

What You'll Find in Willard's Binders Full of Women

Mommy Dearest

The Undead Daughter of Dracula

Peggy LooneyNoonan

Caribou Barbie

Bride of Newtenstein

A grifting single mother

Batshit Bachmann

A(m)an Coulter

Requisite Mean Bitch

Ageing Miss America

Token Black Chic who wants to be white

Queen Ratfucker Omnipotent of Medialand

Impressive, isn't it?

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

An Insult to Our Gender

The odious Michelle Malkin tweets:-

‏@michellemalkin

.@EvaLongoria Do you even know what US Preventive Services Task Force & IPAB are? Stop thinking w/ your #ladyparts ==>http://is.gd/CqbCWk

This is what embarrasses me, as an American living abroad, about our political media. Let me be brutally honest. This woman is a snide, nasty, mean girl - the calibre of bullying bitch you would see in some exclusive sorority, holding court in some high school someplace. That's about her speed, intellectually.

Yet in the United States, she's esteemed as a political analyst and commentator and graces discussion panels on shows like ABC's This Week.

Were she British, this woman wouldn't even get a leg in the door of a BBC political discussion programme, and that goes double for her cohort Ann Coulter. Politely speaking, they would be considered screeching, insulting, ill-informed jokes. The way their prototype, Arianna Huffington, was, before she was so unceremoniously drummed out of the UK.

The worst thing about her tweet is how clever she thinks she is, sweetly insulting Eva Longoria in a brazenly sexist way, the only way a true bitch would do - the only way any woman would, if she thinks herself so far superior in any and every way to the sister plebs beneath her.

There's no misunderstanding of this message, euphemistic as it is. Any woman who refers to another woman as a c***, even by euphemistic implication, is a bigger one, herself, and an insult to our gender.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

PM Carpenter and Commentators Nicely Tell Joan Walsh & Co to STFU

In the aftermath of the first debate with the embarrassing meltdown of the so-called Professional Left, it's nice that PM Carpenter calls out the stupidity of the pessimism promulgated by some of the biggest mouths on the Left. You can read his assessment here.

I'm glad he referred to these mouths as the Left's fire brigade, because firebaggers they are and will ever remain. For many, we know their antecedents lie in Republican neoconservatism (Ed Schultz, Cenk Uygur, Arianna Huffington) or disgruntled Clintonism (Walsh).

Walsh and Schultz are particularly bad - the former for prissily proclaiming that Democrats should only actively campaign for local candidates instead of working to get the President re-elected and the latter for actually telling Democrats not to vote in the 2010 Mid-Terms.

Furthermore, Walsh's own inherent racism and white privilege have been glaringly exposed in her Twitter wars with African American bloggers and various other sorts of pernicious behaviour, which earned her the ultimate smack-down from Melissa Harris-Perry for arrogantly citing Harris-Perry as her token black friend.

However, the regular readers of Carpenter's blog are to be congratulated for calling out Walsh's and Schultz's bad behaviour and underestimating of the President, which - in and of itself - is tantamount to disresepect.

Take Japa21, for example:-

Instead of moaning about how Obama needs to fire up the base - and have they seen the rallies lately, the base looks pretty fired up - perhaps they should be firing up the base themselves.

Talk not only about would happen in case of a Romney win, but also what the "base" stands to lose that Obama has already accomplished and what he can accomplish that will never happen if Obama doesn't win.

I am sick and tired of all those who sit on the sidelines as if it is all on Obama's shoulders. Literally, not figuratively, they make me sick.

Or eveingeorgia:-

Ed is particularly sickening. He is an instigator, not a supporter, and I do not trust him. (I will never forget how he actually told people not to vote back in 2010.) And now he's all riled up about voter suppression? Puh-leez.

Or Turgidson:-

People like Eugene Robinson, who I do like quite a bit, and Joan Walsh (less so), who want Obama to succeed and have a platform to reach people, should be helping make the case at this critical juncture rather than going all emo about Obama having a bad night.

My conservative relatives whine and argue with me about he dominance of the so-called Liberal media. As long as discouraging corporate numpties like Ed Schultz and Joan Walsh have a platform, the Right will never be out of power; but - being part of the one per-cent - Schultz and Walsh will certainly thrive.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Real Time with Bill Maher: Ratfucking Edition - October 5, 2010

Monologue:

Bill reveals how shallow he is - defining style but ignoring content. Did he not listen to what the President said and what Romney didn't say? Or was he just overwhelmed by Romney's bully tactics?

Too much Romney love and too much impression with Romney. Bill knows jackshit, and can't let something go without a racist tinge.

Frank Luntz knows his shit. Shame the Democrats don't have anyone so savvy with words, and did Bill "I'm-not-a-Democrat" Maher just identify himself as one?

Panel: Two conservatives and a bimbo.

I take that last bit back. Washington nails it. She listened to the President and knew he had content, where Romney talked loud and animatedly and said nothing. Bill's the pussy here, following the Republican talking points. Herd follower.

Washington isn't taking any of Maher's bullshit, and Will Cain is a fucking teabagger.

Good editorial, because the economy is not tanking.

Real Time with Bill Maher Catch-up 14 September 2012

Let the inconsistency begin ...

Bill has distinctly changed his tone. Nineteen-minute mark when he references Reagan cutting and running in Lebanon in the 1980s. Heretofore, he always remarked on that as being sensible in reference to US involvement in Afghanistan and a criticism of the President's policy there. Now, it's a sign of weekness. Watch this space for the show two weeks from this date.

Zanny Minton Beddoes promulgating a myth: Obama never once promised a V-shaped recovery. Instead, in December 2008, one month before his Inauguration, he told the world that it would take 10 years for the US to be back to what it considered normal - i.e., a full recovery. Many other plebs and I remember this. Why can't the media, or at least, the Professional Left?

Bob Costas has been nipped and tucked.

Good editorial ... Money is America's God.

Overtime:-

Ep. 259: September 14, 2012 - Overtime

Friday, October 12, 2012

How the Big Lie Gets Started

So Fox News are pushing the ~~conspiracy theory~~ lie that Joe Biden was drunk at last night's Vice-Presidential debate.

Wonder who started that porky pie ...

Well ...

Why, mercy me! It's the Porky Pie, himself - Sean Hannity - aided and abetted by the patron saint of turtles, Mitch McConnell. So Fox picked up the tissue of lies and ran with it.

I have a Mormon cousin who's converted in the past four years from fervent Obama supporter into a rabid Romney raver. Where she formerly watched MSNBC, she now swears by Fox. Maybe she'd like to see how a Big Lie starts.

Goebbels would be proud of Sean.

MSNBC Should Be Ashamed ...

I haven't yet had time to check in on the sequel to MSNBC's epic fail from last week, but I leave you with the assessment of the "Lean Forward" liberal/progressive network's performance in the wake of the first Presidential debate from last week, courtesy of Kevin Drum of Mother Jones.

You can read the entire article here, but I find it interesting that Drum and I are entirely in sync with each other about who should cop the blame in the event that the President be defeated in November:-

Here's how things would have gone if liberals had their fair share of hacks. Obviously Obama wasn't at his best on Wednesday. But when the debate was over that wouldn't have mattered. Conservatives would have started crowing about how well Romney did. Liberals would have acknowledged that Obama should have confronted Romney's deceptions more forcefully, but otherwise would have insisted that Obama was more collected and presidential sounding than the hyperactive Romney and clearly mopped the floor with him on a substantive basis. News reporters would then have simply reported the debate normally: Romney said X, Obama said Y, and both sides thought their guy did great. By the next day it would barely be a continuing topic of conversation, and by Friday the new jobs numbers would have buried it completely.

Instead, liberals went batshit crazy. I didn't watch any commentary immediately after the debate because I wanted to write down my own reactions first, and my initial sense was that Obama did a little bit worse than Romney. But after I hit the Publish button and turned on the TV, I learned differently. As near as I could tell, the entire MSNBC crew was ready to commit ritual suicide right there on live TV, Howard Beale style. Ditto for all their guests, including grizzled pols like Ed Rendell who should have known better. It wasn't just that Obama did poorly, he had delivered the worst debate performance since Clarence Darrow left William Jennings Bryan a smoking husk at the end of Inherit the Wind. And it wasn't even just that. It was a personal affront, a betrayal of everything they thought was great about Obama. And, needless to say, it put Obama's entire second term in jeopardy and made Romney the instant front runner.

For a moment, ignore the fact that these talkers had a stronger reaction than I did. That's why God made lots of different kinds of people: so that we could all have different opinions about stuff. What's amazing is that, as near as I can tell, hardly any liberal pundits held back. Aside from paid campaign workers, no more than a handful decided to pretend that Obama had done well because, hey, that's how the game is played, folks. Those refs aren't going to work themselves, after all. Instead it was a nearly universal feeding frenzy.

You don't normally see the temperamental difference between liberals and conservatives so dramatically on display. Most conservatives simply wouldn't have been willing to slag their guy so badly. Liberals, by contrast, almost seemed to enjoy wallowing in recriminations. It was practically an Olympic tournament to see who could act the most agonized. As a friend just emailed me a few minutes ago, "I can't tell you how many liberals I've had to talk off the ledge today."

In the end, I doubt this will make a big difference. The polls were always going to tighten up a bit after the huge post-convention, post-47% runup for Obama, so I don't attribute as much of his recent poll decline to the debates as most people do. Obama has plenty of time to come back, and the fundamentals — his incumbency, the economy, and Romney's stiffness as a candidate — still suggest a modest Obama win in November. But if I'm wrong, and this doesmake a big difference, it will be 100% attributable to the hack gap. Without that, Obama's debate performance would barely have registered. This was a completely avoidable debacle.

If there is a Democratic loss in November, I hope we all remember to thank the likes of Messrs Matthews, Schultz and Maher accordingly.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Southern Strategy Mormon-Style

Yes, Mitt Romney did refer to the President as "boy." And, yes, Miss Ann and Marse Josh did refer to him and his followers both as a child, in the singular, and as obstinate children.

I come from the South, where years ago - back in the 1850s, you know, the times to which the Republican Party want us all to return - "enlightened" Southern slaveowners tended to see their slaves as "children" who needed patient instruction (and occasionally a beating).

Now, I've just returned from a visit home. I have a cousin, who converted to Mormonism and whose husband is a Mormon bishop. Four years ago, they voted for the President and watched MSNBC. Now they're fully paid-up Mittbots and devotees of Fox. Four years ago, they were pissed that Bush's tax cuts only got them 300 dollars - plus, it was fashionable to vote for the cool black guy.

But, according to them, for some reason, he didn't deliver. What, I don't know. But I did hear my cousin refer to the First Lady, derogatorily, as "the black woman," and I did hear her preface a conversation with the phrase "I'm not racist, but ..." (which means that she is); and then I remembered, when she converted, back in 1976, at the age of twenty, when she got into a screaming row with her older sister, who was engaged to a black man. The argument was about why and how Mormons refused to give African Americans full membership in their church - something about the mark of Cain.

It's obvious that this deviant form of campaigning is not only meant to enrage the Left and the Democratic Party, but it's also meant to cast the Romney family as poor, pitiful victims, willfully using euphemistic words with a double-edged meaning, so they can hide behind the obvious innocence and accuse Miss Ann and her young'uns of being mean, horrible racists - and no one wants to be tagged (as in Tagg Romney) a racist. It's a dare. Accuse the sainted, morally pure Romneys of racism, and the GOPers will rush to their defence, along with all the white working and middle-class closet racists in tow.

I can live with the fact that Mitt Romney's belief is that the President's melanin really is significant of the mark of Cain; what I can't live with is someone in the White House who bears the mark of Bain.

Two Irishmen Step Onto a Stage, a Third Creams His Knickers

Two Irishmen step onto a stage - one Liberal, one Conservative - both filled to the brim with blarney, political and otherwise.

One lies, one gaffes.

A noted political commentator, himself of Irish extraction and from the Left, elevates his hero to near-deified proportions.

Charles Pierce writes:-

One of the oddest reactions to the president's feather-in-the-gales-of-pure-bullshit performance last week is the notion among a number of very smart liberal humans that he doesn't want to be president anymore and, way out on the fringe, the corollary that his debate demeanor was the rhetorical equivalent of Eddie Cicotte of the Chicago White Sox hitting the first Cincinnati batter he faced in the 1919 World Series. I'm not good enough at trans-area-code psychology to agree with this conclusion, although I do admit that the president should be a little more juiced than this about the prospect of deflating Willard Romney just for the sheer fun of it, since Romney is so obviously a bag of hot air that they should string him up and float him through Manhattan this Thanksgiving.

However, you know who really likes his job, and would like very much to keep it because he likes it so much?

Joe Biden, that's who.

Joe Biden is not riven with self-doubt. Joe Biden is not exhausted by the hurly-burly of politics. Joe Biden is not burdened by the weight of events and laid low by the constant battle against know-nothing obstructionism. Joe Biden is not going to take the stage tonight and find himself wishing he were anywhere else. I mean, god be good to him, as my gran' used to say, but Joe Biden actually likes all these silly performance pieces in which we insist he be engaged in order to stay vice-president. He revels in them. He would do ten of them a day, if he could. When I consider Joe Biden, and I look at the enthusiasm with which he throws himself into the various cataracts and torrents of hogwash that constitute our politics these days, I find myself looking at him the way I look at people who sky-dive or drive in demolition derbies. I have no idea why they do what they do, and I have absolutely no intention of doing it myself, ever, but, goddamn, do those people look like they're having fun.

So tonight, when Biden takes the stage to debate Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, it is very unlikely that the debate will hinge on whether either man really wants to be there. Biden eats these kinds of things on toast, and Ryan is as ambitious as Satan.

As much as I agree with the rest of this article, I do disagree with Pierce's downplay of the President's character, even subtly pushing the notion that the President doesn't want the job anymore. I mean, is there anyone else who'd like to surmise that he wants to "throw" this election for whatever reason?

Pierce is a Clintonista, just like his bumchum Joan Walsh. Nothing Barack Obama could ever do would sit right with them, so they'll just hunker down and wait until 2016 when Hillary's phoenix rises again. But just hark unto the tone of this missive - Pierce is positively orgasmic at the thought of two Irishmen in the thick of the equivalent of a barroom brawl. All that's missing is the brogues and the Guinness.

However, Pierce (and Walsh) shouldn't underestimate the President's desire or his abilities, and if Pierce had really really really wanted to do so, he's certainly intelligent enough to have recognised and to have imparted in this piece that the President said a lot of things and Romney said a lot of nothing, just bullied and talked louder all around.

But then, I guess Obama, who's got Irish blood, himself, just isn't Irish enough for Charles Pierce.

I wonder why?

Lazy Liberals

If Barack Obama wins a second term, it won't be because of the so-called liberal media, especially not those inhabiting the realms of MSNBC, and certainly not the high-profile, show business contributor fundit Bill Maher (who consistently continues to undermine the President).

If, however, the President loses, many of us who have given him unflinching support, will know that a fair bit of the blame for his loss will lie at the feet of the Professional Left.

A week after the first debate, where the President spoke softly and said a lot and Mitt Romney spoke loudly and said nothing and Jim Lehrer totally lost control of the debate, minions of the Professional Left are still obsessing about the President's performance to the point of throwing him under the political bus, running up the white flag and declaring defeat.

Bill Maher's Twitter feed was totally disgusting in its disrespect for this President, including his latest contribution:-

As someone replying to that Tweet said, calling the President of the United States a "gaffing doofus" is totally uncool; still there are sheeple who live,. breathe and believe the gumpf which spews from the mouths of people like Maher, Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews. Who doesn't remember the Alex Witt interview with Chris Matthews ten months ago, which ended with Matthews proclaiming grandly that both the President and the First Lady were singularly ungrateful for the "privilege" of living in the White House.

Racist much?

People who cleave closely to the words of these commentators need to reactivate their critical thinking gene. Many of these people doing the criticizing are ex-neocons, themselves (Ed Schultz, Markos Moulitsas, Cenk Uygur) or neocons who have been ratfucking the gullible Left since time out of mind (Arianna Huffington), wives of high-profiled Ayn Randists (Andrea Mitchell) or "Liberals" who are on record for having voted for Republicans in the past (Chris Matthews, Bill Maher). I'm not even sure Maher can be called a Liberal or a Progressive, for that matter, being a staunch adherent for the death penalty; and both Maher and the ineffectual sorority sister masquerading as a political pundit, Alex Wagner, don't even have the common decency to refer to the President by his elected title.

However, Charles Blow's New York Times column today calls bullshit on all the panicking naysayers of the Left, deeming their behaviour as being akin to "Premature Desperation."

I can understand a certain amount of unease in the Obama-supporting public in general, but within the left-leaning press it’s inexcusable. Only the laziest political commentators could look at the current state of play and see doom for Obama. In fact, the panic among professional liberal pundits is a bit like screaming fire in a theater showing a Michael Moore documentary. Cut it out and grow up!

While the profession is still obsessing about the last debate and Obama’s stumbles, Mitt Romney is strutting around with his bad math pitching himself as a born-again moderate. He is selling vast tax cuts on the vaguest of specifics. It’s like one of those childhood lullabies that sounds good until you realize what it’s actually saying: that the bough breaks and the baby falls.

Also as part of the new “moderate Mitt” offensive, Romney told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday that

There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.

What kind of wishy-washy, sidewinder statement is that? Do you even know what a simple, declarative statement is Mr. Romney? Did no one teach you that at your fancy boarding school?

Not only is the statement squishy, but, based on Romney’s previously stated positions, it’s a lie. As Planned Parenthood Action Fund pointed out:

Let’s be clear: Mitt Romney wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, end federal funding for Planned Parenthood’s preventive services, end insurance coverage for birth control, and repeal health protections for women.

Romney changes positions the way a pop diva changes outfits. There is no way to know what he actually believes. That is not the mark of an honest man. That should be the focus of all of our attention and consternation. Obama’s debate performance was disappointing, but Romney’s allergy to the truth could prove disastrous.

The best cure for a bad debate performance is another debate, and the vice-presidential debate is Thursday night. So let’s get ahold of ourselves. Hysteria is uncalled for and unseemly.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan come from the elite school of thought which believes the poor, the unemployed and low income earners are inherently lazy and think themselves entitled to be mollycoddled by nanny-state government,

Really, the lazy people are those who allow themselves to be caught in a welter of deliberate misinformation and panic-ridden messages propagated by the political media on both the Right and the Left who deliberately infuse minds unable to grasp the mettle of critical thinking with opinion cleverly disguised as fact.

Like Mitt Romney, they lie; and as self-proclaimed voices of the Left, they do the President no favours whatsoever and haven't done since January 21, 2009. They parse every word and nuance every breath issued from his body. They, and they alone, are responsible for the 2010 Mid-Term defeats, by sowing discord, discontent and dissatisfaction amongst the low-information levels of the Left. On occasion, some (Schultz, Maher and Michael Moore) have even encouraged people not to vote. On the eve of the Mid-Terms, Huffington, Queen Mother of ratfuckers, trolled the nation purring confidently that the President wasn't that "into" the Middle Class, and please, don't start me on Joan Walsh's white privilege.

As Blow concludes:-

This means that voters and pundits must take the long view and not a short one. Winning an individual battle is good, but winning the war is the goal. Resist the urge to panic when you’re down and to celebrate when you are up.

I would add to that yet another piece of advice: Grow the fuck up and learn to think critically.