Month: December 2007

Memories

by digby

Where were you nine years ago? Read this by D-Day and I’ll bet you remember.

They have no limits. Remember that.

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Jon Benet Whiz Wit

by digby

Atrios points me to this WaPo dispatch from Iowa revealing that Dukakis lost the 88 election because he didn’t serve beers to real men the proper way and that our next president must be somebody we can eat a pizza with. As Atrios points out, these people actually think they are speaking for someone other that their own little cadre of journalistic misfits when they set forth these vapid observations as if they’re some sort of window into the the deepest desires of the voters.

I don’t know what goes on in the campaign buses and planes personally, but I’ve read a lot of accounts. And from what I can tell, the only thing anybody cares about is fun and food — what they eat, what the candidates ea, the symbolic value of their food choices and how they reflect on the candidate’s character and ability to govern.

Remember this, from Somerby?

Carlson goes on, at considerable length, about how Bush “bond[ed] with the goof-off in all of us” on that plane. Persistently, she portrays the press corps—and herself—as if they were feckless teen-agers. On the plane, “[Bush’s] inner child hovers near the surface,” she writes. And not only that; “Bush knows how to push the buttons of your high school insecurity.” But then, “a campaign is as close as an adult can get to duplicating college life.” Bush “wasn’t just any old breezy frat brother with mediocre grades…He was proud of it,” Carlson writes, approvingly. This seems to explain the press corps’ preference. “Gore elicited in us the childish urge to poke a stick in the eye of the smarty-pants,” she writes. “Bush elicited self-recognition.” Yes, those sentences actually appear in this book, and yes, they seem to be Carlson’s explanation of Gore’s lousy coverage. “It’s not hard to dislike Bush’s policies, which favor the strong over the weak,” she writes. “But it is hard to dislike Bush.”

Carlson spends little time on those Bush policies, “which favor the strong over the weak.” By contrast—as noted in Thursday’s HOWLER—she spends lots of time complaining that the Clintons would subject her to tedious policy chatter. It is perfectly clear that “the goof-off in Carlson” has little interest in such major tedium. In India, she falls asleep when Mrs. Clinton limns health care, and she can’t understand why Candidate Bill Clinton, in 1992, would talk to her about welfare reform. Talking to Bush is much more fun. “As he propped his rolled-up sleeves on the seat back in front of me, his body leaning into the conversation, he waggled his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx, mugging across the aisle,” she relates. You’ll probably think that we’re being unfair. Read this book and you’ll see that we aren’t.

No, Carlson spends little time on Bush’s policies, though it’s clear who she thinks they favor. For example, she briefly mentions Bush’s legislative approach after the 2002 elections. “After his big win in the midterm elections in 2002,” she writes, “Bush lurched further in the direction of protecting those who have against those who don’t.” But she spends much more time discussing the way Bush provided better food on his plane. Mmmm! “There were Dove bars and designer water on demand,” she recalls, “and a bathroom stocked like Martha Stewart’s guest suite. Dinner at seven featured lobster ravioli.” Apparently, Bush’s policies reflect the tastes of “those that have” even when dinner bells chime.

“a campaign is as close as an adult can get to duplicating college life”

Well, that certainly explains the obsession with how candidates drink their beer and eat their pizza. But it’s quite daft, nonetheless.

Jamison Foser has a good piece this week about what I call “Jon Benet journalism.” This is when the cable gasbags spend hours upon hours bemoaning the tawdriness and impropriety of some tabloid scandal caught on tape — while obsessively showing the footage on a loop over and over again. Purely in the interests of informing the public about how awful it all is, don’t you know. (“Pedophilia is terrible, terrible! Roll that tape of Jon Benet in that skimpy outfit in case any pedophiles out there might have missed it the first 5,762 times we showed it! Isn’t it just terrible what some people will do?”) His post is about how Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson have been relentlessly pushing these Obama drug and Islam stories under the guise of exposing how awful smears are.

Mark Penn used the word “cocaine” twice, a week ago — in response to Matthews’ prodding. Tucker Carlson has used it on his show nine times since then; Matthews has used it 12 times on Hardball. And the two have used the name “Hussein” in connection with Obama 11 times this week.

It’s hard to believe that this is “helping” either Obama or Clinton, which would seem to be the purpose. (His left-handed stuff about Hillary the Witch killing “baby Obama” in his crib is just unbelievable.)

On the other hand, Matthews nearly broke down and cried tonight at the horrible unfairness of the NY Times allegedly destroying Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy. ( I know. What can you say about someone who has absolutely no self-awareness?) Here’s Matthews just last month:

MATTHEWS: (angry) Michael, Michael, there’s a big difference between what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry. John Kerry got hit unfairly by the Swift Boats attacking his service to his country. They conflated his opposition to the war when he came back which we can all argue about, and his service to his country which is not really arguable. They trashed him.

But in terms of Al Gore, he’s the one who said he created the internet, he’s the one who put out the word that he’s the subject or the role model for Love Story, that he pointed the country’s attention to Love Canal. He stuck himself into that story.

And when Marty Peretz’s daughter wrote that story in Vanity Fair a couple of months ago, I’m sorry, she didn’t make the case. Gore got himself in those problem areas by vanity and showing off an trying to make himself cool. But John Kerry got unfair treatment. I think it’s a big difference guys.

Crowley: that may be so, but it’s not how many Democrats feel.

CM: Well, why would expect a partisan to think anything more than partisan? That’s what partisans think? Of course they think they were rooked. Everyone who loses an election thinks they were rooked and they blame it on the umpire.

Crowley: That’s the audience they’re speaking to.

CM: Yeah, well how about getting into the land of truth and understanding?

Oy. But Matthews isn’t alone, by a long shot. Foser’s post script at the end is amazing:

Last week, I noted that in October, Washington Post reporter Anne Kornblut telegraphed the coming media assault on Clinton during an appearance on Tucker. Here’s what she said at the time:

KORNBLUT: I have to say we in the media are spoiling for a fight. Usually we are biased in favor of a good tussle at about this point. … I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere between now and January 3, now that we know that’s when the Iowa caucuses are going to be, to see some kind of reverse, some kind of Obama surge or an Edwards surge. Something that is going to knock Hillary down a few pegs. Whether it’s a media creation, or something that actually happens on the ground. I would be shocked if there were nothing like that.

This week, Kornblut participated in an online discussion with Post readers, during which she was asked about that quote. Here’s how she responded:

KORNBLUT: I wish we were that powerful! Bottom line is, we’re not. I can assure you — what is happening on the ground in Iowa, where I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months, is happening at the level of average voters here, who pay extraordinary attention and make up their own minds (albeit with the help of paid advertising). All I meant then, and still believe, is that Democratic voters do not like easy coronations and never would have just decided Clinton is the nominee without casting a single ballot. Most races tighten at the end, as this one is. And pretty soon, we’ll know how it turns out.

That is pretty clearly not what Kornblut said in October.

No it is not. She either failed to comprehend what she had originally said (it was a direct quote) in which case she isn’t very bright, or she thinks that people will accept that kind of cheap spin, which says a lot about her journalism.

The fact is that her original comments are not an unusual sentiment, as Foser documented in his original piece:

Gloria Borger: “We take people to the top of the mountain and then once we get them to the top of the mountain, it’s our job to knock them down.” [9/10/06] Brian Williams: “[I]t does seem true over the years that the news media almost reserve the right to build up and tear down and change their minds and like an underdog.” [9/21/00] Howard Fineman: “We want a race, I suppose. If we have a bias of any kind, it’s that we like to see a contest, and we like to see it down the end if we can. And I think that’s partly the psychology at play here.” [9/21/00]

Do you suppose they were all misspeaking or is that simply an obvious observation that even fools like those three can grasp it? Of course this is what the media does. Campaigns are entertainment to them, “the closest they get to being in college” again, hanging out with nerds and BMOC’s and drinking beer and eating pizza. They aren’t serious people but they are far more powerful that a lot of people give them credit for. Between the Kewl Kidz on the bus and the raving lunatic gasbags like Matthews, they shape the way these races are perceived and between their congenital immaturity and the willingness to be courted with Dove bars and juicy gossip, our politics suffer greatly for it. And over time, the country internalizes these stupid adolescent assessments of the candidates and we get stuck with an imbecile like George W. Bush because he kidded around on the campaign plane and gave them cute nicknames.

Everybody has to stay very vigilant to this because the playing field in this puerile game is tilted toward the kind of men these boys and girls apparently wanted to date or wanted to be in high school — the macho, manly kind who all grew up to be Republicans.

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Hissy Kabuki On Training Wheels

by digby

Greg Sargent has a little light sarcastic post up about the Democratic campaigns calling each other out for being negative. Because we are in primary season and everyone has lost their minds (nothing special — it happens every four years) a bunch of people took him literally and he had to come back and explain that he was just yanking the campaigns’ chains a little bit:

Late Update: I feel almost embarrassed to add this, but this post was intended as a joke — as a spoof of the fact that the campaigns are all attacking each other relentlessly for attacking. This whole effort by all the campaigns to portray everyone but themselves as the real attacker seems to me misguided — primaries should have conflict in them; they should be animated by aggressive disagreements.

I actually think this is wrong. The art of the hissy fit lies in your ability to bring the entire media over to the fainting couch over even the most absurd allegations of impropriety and insensitivity. Pearl clutching and hankie wringing have become extremely important hardball political tactics, as hard as that is to believe. It’s especially effective if you can do it over somethings you yourself have brought into the public square.

The best example of this is the Cheneys leading the whole GOP in an extended wail that John Kerry had the insensitivity to bring up the fact that their daughter was a lesbian in a debate question about gay rights — even though their daughter was out of the closet, lived with her lover and everyone knew she was gay. Lynne herself took to the stump the next day proclaiming “this is not a good man” as if John Kerry had smeared her daughter by telling the truth. It was very effective. Kerry,as usual, was left sputtering.

Another good one also involved John Kerry — the badly delivered “joke” about the troops. It was clear to any sentient being that he wasn’t smearing the troops, but the hissy fit was so effective that it actually persuaded him not to run again.

The all time great example was the impeachment of a President over a blowjob, in a town where wide stance Senators routinely procure them in bathrooms and train stations and most of the press corps is schtupping each other in some sort of twisted game of round robin. As the political leadership and media mavens lined up to condemn the president it was all they could do to keep their shit-eating smirks from showing.

This is a patented technique designed to tie opponents in knots. Faux outrage and phony sanctimony are now required political skills like speaking and persuading others to your vision. Primaries give the candidates a chance to practice on each other what’s going to be practiced on them by the true Hissy Kabuki Masters — Republicans. Better to know now how they handle it.

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The Permanent Revolution

by digby

I have a new post over at CAF today discussing why the Republicans are so willing to jump off the cliff with their dangerously unpopular president. Hint: they win even when they lose.

And here’s a little something I found over at the Leadership Institute website, where they train all those fresh faced conservatives we see cheering Ann Coulter at the CPAC convention every year. Did you know that liberals and progressives are all socialists?

We are:

What Socialists Really Think About Economics

* Profit Comes From Evil Greed

* Socialists must get all your property

* Tax all income at 100%

* Support big government. No new tax cuts.

* Only government creates wealth

* Bureaucrats spend your money better than you do

* To elect more socialists, destroy the economy

* Government jobs good; private employers bad

* “Something for nothing” fools almost everyone

* Why work when you can loot those who do?

* Socialism has never been tried

What Socialists Really Think About Your Family And Our American Culture

* Traditional morality is always bad

* Do what feels good now. Make taxpayers pay the bill

* Break all family ties

* Make God illegal

* Masculine is bad; feminine is also bad

* Kill it. Why give your baby to a moral couple?

What Socialists Really Think About Liberty

* Solve all problems. Give the Left all power.

* Stamp out liberty. It’s unfair.

* Everything not compulsory must be prohibited

* Re-write history or stop teaching it

* Keep campuses conservative-free zones

* In the media, any conservatives are too many

* No free speech for conservatives

* Only groups have rights

* Give up your guns. We want you defenseless.

* Pay the union boss or we’ll crack your skull

* Save the environment. Kill off all the people.

* Destroy all non-government education

* Teachers unions — more important than teaching kids

* When judges give us what we want, forget the laws and the Constitution

What Socialists Really Think About The Future Of America In The World

* America causes all world problems

* Eliminate patriotism

* Bring on world government

* Next time, Marxist-Leninists will get it right

They sure have our number, don’t they?

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Like Christmas Morn

by digby

What a great Hullabaloo Holiday. Thank you all, especially the Mensches Who Saved Christmas, Atrios and John Amato, for putting out the call. I am exceedingly grateful.

If you ever get the urge to toss a little tip my way, or set up an automatic tip, you can always hit the buttons at left. I truly appreciate each and every one. It greatly contributes to my ability to keep doing this.

Who knows how much longer any of us are going to have the freedom to speak our minds and converse freely on the internet? We are living in very strange days, in a nation of ever encroaching authoritarianism, where things like this are happening in America right now:

During the last twenty-four hours I have probably experienced the greatest humiliation to which I have ever been subjected. During these last twenty-four hours I have been handcuffed and chained, denied the chance to sleep, been without food and drink and been confined to a place without anyone knowing my whereabouts, imprisoned. Now I am beginning to try to understand all this, rest and review the events which began as innocently as possible.

Last Sunday I and a few other girls began our trip to New York. We were going to shop and enjoy the Christmas spirit. We made ourselves comfortable on first class, drank white wine and looked forward to go shopping, eat good food and enjoy life. When we landed at JFK airport the traditional clearance process began.

We were screened and went on to passport control. As I waited for them to finish examining my passport I heard an official say that there was something which needed to be looked at more closely and I was directed to the work station of Homeland Security. There I was told that according to their records I had overstayed my visa by 3 weeks in 1995. For this reason I would not be admitted to the country and would be sent home on the next flight. I looked at the official in disbelief and told him that I had in fact visited New York after the trip in 1995 without encountering any difficulties. A detailed interrogation session ensued.

[…]

I was exhausted, tired and hungry. I didn’t understand the officials’ conduct, for they were treating me like a very dangerous criminal. Soon thereafter I was removed from the cubicle and two armed guards placed me up against a wall. A chain was fastened around my waist and I was handcuffed to the chain. Then my legs were placed in chains. I asked for permission to make a telephone call but they refused. So secured, I was taken from the airport terminal in full sight of everybody. I have seldom felt so bad, so humiliated and all because I had taken a longer vacation than allowed under the law.

They would not tell me where they were taking me. The trip took close to one hour and although I couldn’t see clearly outside the vehicle I knew that we had crossed over into New Jersey. We ended up in front of a jail. I could hardly believe that this was happening. Was I really about to be jailed? I was led inside in the chains and there yet another interrogation session ensued. I was fingerprinted once again and photographed. I was made to undergo a medical examnination, I was searched and then I was placed in a jail cell. I was asked absurd questions such as: When did you have your last period? What do you believe in? Have you ever tried to commit suicide?

I was completely exhausted, tired and cold. Fourteen hours after I had landed I had something to eat and drink for the first time. I was given porridge and bread. But it did not help much. I was afraid and the attitude of all who handled me was abysmal to say the least. They did not speak to me as much as snap at me. Once again I asked to make a telephone call and this time the answer was positive. I was relieved but the relief was short-lived. For the telephone was setup for collect calls only and it was not possible to make overseas calls. The jailguard held my cell phone in his hand. I explained to him that I could not make a call from the jail telephone and asked to be allowed to make one call from my own phone. That was out of the question. I spent the next 9 hours in a small, dirty cell. The only thing in there was a narrow steel board which extended out from the wall, a sink and toilet. I wish I never experience again in my life the feeling of confinement and helplessness which I experienced there.

I was hugely relieved when, at last, I was told that I was to be taken to the airport, that is to say until I was again handcuffed and chained.Then I could take no more and broke down and cried. I begged them at least to leave out the leg chains but my request was ignored. When we arrived at the airport, another jail guard took pity on me and removed the leg chains. Even so I was led through a full airport terminal handcuffed and escorted by armed men. I felt terrible. On seeing this, people must think that there goes a very dangerous criminal…

She should be grateful she wasn’t waterboarded to find out what she “knew.”

That’s America 2007. And there are many, many Americans who will say that that treatment is warranted because she had once been an “illegal” who overstayed her visa by three weeks back in 1995. This is a young, blond English speaking Icelandic woman. What do you suppose would have happened if she were Mexican?

We have work to do.

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It’s A Wonderful Life

by digby

It seems like only yesterday that Atrios convinced me to “get a blog, dammit” and I started this little venture. But it wasn’t. It was five years and more than 5,000 posts ago. Hard to believe.

A lot has happened since then, to progressive politics, to the netroots and to me. This year in particular was a milestone for yours truly. I left my secure bunker in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica and revealed myself publicly. For an anxiety sufferer and devoted recluse, it was one of the most difficult things I’ve done in a very long time. But, it was also amazingly gratifying to accept an award on behalf of the progressive blogoshere and personally meet so many people whom I’d already known as close friends and allies online. It’s good to be human.

I went on to meet hundreds of readers and fellow bloggers at Yearly Kos. I joined my great pals at FDL, Crooks and Liars and Down With Tyranny as a member of the progressive PAC, Blue America. I was invited to contribute to my friend Rick Perlstein’s new blog for Campaign For America’s Future, The Big Con, dissecting and discussing the conservative movement. And I began work on a couple of longer form projects that should see fruition in this coming year.

And here on Hullabaloo, along with many of you, I watched and wrote and read and talked about politics and culture pretty much 24/7. I had the support of my talented friends tristero and poputonian when they have time and the inclination. And one of my oldest friends in the world, the addicted cinephile Dennis Hartley, writes the weekly movie reviews that give me a few hours off every Saturday Night. It’s been a very full year.

So, as I have the last couple of years, I am once again appealing to my readers at Christmastime to throw a couple of coins in the old tip jars over there at left, to help support this little venture. The blogosphere is changing, becoming much more sophisticated and much more innovative. It has to. I’m a dinosaur in many ways, still plugging along on my own, writing on a random daily schedule and basically following my bliss. It’s not necessarily the smart move, but it’s the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done and I’m loathe to change it. Perhaps, for a while, there’s still a place for the (almost) lone blogger like me to keep doing this the old fashioned way.

I greatly value the freedom and independence that voluntary direct support from readers offers. It’s an unusual model, but it works quite well for some, including me. So, if you like what I’m doing here, and if you have your credit cards out doing some last minute online shopping today, perhaps you could send a little stocking stuffer my way, via paypal, snail or amazon, all of which are available on the left column over there.

And thanks, everybody, it’s been a great ride.

But fasten your seatbelts — this next year is going to be a doozy.

cheers — digby

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Hardwired

by digby

The Campaign for America’s Future released an in-depth study today about the unprecedented obstructionism of the current congress that would, in a sane world, make the media start writing a different storyline:

WASHINGTON—The Republican Senate minority today filibustered an omnibus budget bill, setting a modern-day record for blocking the most legislation during a congressional session. A new report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future details the 62 times conservatives have used the filibuster to block legislation (or force modification of bills) in the first session of the 110th Congress. In just the first year of this two-year Congress, their use of the filibuster in the Senate topped the previous record, reached during the entire 107th Congress.

The new report outlines every bill filibustered, vetoed or threatened to be vetoed by President Bush. Conservatives filibustered bills to end the occupation of Iraq, provide soldiers in Iraq rest time equal to their deployments, support renewable energy and grant residents of the District of Columbia representation in Congress. Today’s record-breaker involved a $516 billion budget package passed by the House to fund the federal government in 2008. The conservative minority demanded $20 billion additional funding for the war and opposed House language to bring troops home, and threatened a filibuster to prevent the bill from getting an up or down vote.

“In just one session, a minority in Congress has prevented a mind-blowing 62 pieces of legislation from going to the floor for an up or down vote,” said Campaign for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey. “Our report shows how over and over again, the uncompromising minority has thwarted the will of majorities in Congress and of the American people, holding the Senate floor hostage to a radical right-wing agenda.”

Sixty votes are needed to invoke cloture and end a filibuster. The 62nd cloture vote of the session is more than any single session of Congress since at least 1973, the earliest year cloture votes are available online from the Senate. Republicans are on pace to force 134 cloture votes to cut off a filibuster, according to the Campaign for America’s Future analysis, more than double the historical average of the last 35 years.

Eric Lotke, Campaign for America’s Future research director and lead author of the new report, calls the obstruction a “deliberate strategy.” He observes that the congressional Republicans block legislation, then blame the Democrats for getting nothing done. “It’s like mugging the postman and then complaining that the mail isn’t delivered on time.”

(Emphasis is mine.)

Perlstein adds:

What’s stunning to me, speaking as a historian, is how something epochally different has begun happening in American politics, not in secret but in plain sight—they’ve been bragging about it for months!—and the media deigns not to notice.

Well, it would require them to question the prevailing conventional wisdom and explain complicated matters to their readers and viewers. They don’t see that as their job, which is to entertain the Village. This story just isn’t sexy or easy.

Right now the press is confused so they are just pulling old story lines off the shelf and squeezing current events into them. The fact that they bear no relationship to what’s actually going on — or are trivial distractions at a time when real and interesting political events are being ignored–has no bearing on anything. Kewl Kidz just want to have fun. This story isn’t fun. And that’s the problem.

If the shoe were on the other foot the Republicans would be staging wildly entertaining daily hissy fits featuring howling denunciations of the Democrats with such patented whines as “these are not good people.” The press would be covering this as a terrible political loss for the Democrats who are failing to heed the will of the voters. But that is not to say the same thing would work for the Dems. If they behaved similarly, the line would be that only pathetic whiners complain about not being able to get the job done — real men never complain, never explain, they just Do It. Clearly, the Democrats are weak and feminine. America doesn’t like losers.

See how that works? The Republicans can call for the smelling salts over and over again, tremulously appearing before the cameras to protest the horror of some liberal group using “political hate speech” or failing to acknowledge that “elections have consequences” and the press immediately jumps on the bandwagon decrying the terrible degradation of our political discourse. Democrats do the same thing and they are accused of whining.

So, something like this record number of filibusters is seen as a sign that the prevailing Village wisdom still applies: Republicans are still stronger, better and more successful. They are getting the job done, which, by strict partisan measures, they are. The press respects Republicans when they do this.

These story lines must be changed, and it isn’t easy. They are nearly hardwired at this point. The village is an insular little place and political reporters are obviously in an endless feedback loop of musty old conventions and tired knee jerk assumptions. (Just spend a day watching the cable gasbags blathering with campaign reporters and each other for hours on end if you don’t believe me.)

I would love to see this filibuster story get some traction. It’s quite amazing and the fine folks at CAF did a great job in compiling all the pertinent info. It will be an important historical document. But unless somebody can wrap it in a sexy story featuring Bill Clinton and Oprah surging somewhere into something, it’s unlikely it’s going to catch. The DC media just don’t know how to think about something so confusing as Republicans thwarting the will of the people and blaming the other side for it.

Right now on CNN, the entirely corrupt GOP is being successfully portrayed as standing in the way of the usual Democratic pork and reckless spending. That’s an approved storyline the Village media understands.

Update: I have removed the image of the stomping elephant. However, you can find it here at RoadblockRepublicans.com, along with many other interesting bits of information regarding the obstructionist GOP.

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My Face Is In Hot Scones

by digby

We all know by now that “don’t tase me bro” has become the catch phrase of the year, but The Phoenix has generously gathered all the year’s catch phrases so we tremendously uncool types will know what the hell the kids are talking about — and so we can acutely embarrass them by actually trying to use them in front of their friends.

The surprising thing to me is that quite a few of them are political or tangentially political. Here’s an example:

CATCH PHRASE “My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo.”
ORIGINAL CONTEXT Mitt Romney’s absurdist punch line during the GOP candidates’ debate scored a direct hit on the brainstem of the Republican base: approval rumbled through the seats like flatulence, and soft pink hands flew together in eager applause. If anything, the line was too good: so smoothly did it breach the bounds of sanity, one was left wondering why the Mormonator chose to stop there. Double Guantánamo? Why not triple it? Why not quadruple it? Why not build a waterboard the size of New Hampshire and float it out into the Gulf of Mexico? Why not clip electrodes to the gonads of every man in America right now, today, just in case? Doesn’t anybody round here have any vision, for Christ’s sake?
USE IN EVERYDAY LIFE AS a vote for monstrous excess. A variation on “go for broke.”
EXAMPLE “I’m really glad you agreed to get high with me tonight, Roger. But what do you think we should use: this big pile of cocaine or these bags of heroin?”
“My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo.”

Maybe McCain should have responded to Romney’s insane ramblings with “don’t tase me bro” or “I’m feeling very vulnerable right now” and take a stab at the youth vote. (I actually think he got the best one-liner of the campaign off so far which wasn’t “I was tied up at the time,” but rather the set-up — “I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event.” Made me laugh, and I can’t stand the guy.)

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Dazed And Confused

by digby

Eric Boehlert writes a typically insightful column today about the increasingly egregious campaign coverage. He notes something that I think is particularly odd about this year’s press:

[N]ot only has the press shifted into hyper-horserace mode where tactics reign, but lots of media players can’t even do the horserace stuff right. Bloomberg’s Al Hunt displayed that nicely with a recent tactics-only campaign column where he mangled a key fact in order to prop up his favorite narrative.

Actually, I don’t think ‘horserace’ accurately describes the type of campaign coverage from this cycle. What we’re seeing flourish this time on the trail is something else entirely. It’s coverage that’s often saddled with inane trivia about tactics and delivered with a faux breathlessness, in a way that traditional horserace coverage never was.

It’s true. This coverage is downright bizarre. I suspect this is because it’s a wide open race on both sides this time so they aren’t getting a clean horserace narrative fed to them by the Village elders.

I was contemplating this today as I watched out of the corner of my eye the MSNBC “super-Tuesday” political coverage drone on and on about trivialities, they were ignoring one of the most fascinating horserace stories of the campaign so far, and treating another one like it was business as usual when it is actually a political shift.

The first story, of course, is this Ron Paul thing. Chris Cilizza in the Washington Post at least wonders about it, which is more than anybody else does except in the most superficial way:

It started out as a lark.

Signs touting Rep. Ron Paul’s seemingly quixotic presidential campaign began popping up on the sides of roads. A “Ron Paul for President” bumper sticker would be spotted during the morning or evening commute.

Then came the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames. The number — and volume — of the Paul supporters turned them into the talk of the political world on that blazing hot day in August. Some reporters gathered at the event openly wondered whether Paul would shock the world by finishing in the top three of the Straw Poll. When he didn’t — he placed fifth — the buzz (at least among media types) died down. Paul’s campaign seemed all talk and no action.

That all changed on Nov. 5. In commemoration of Guy Fawkes’ attempted assassination of King James I, the Paul network organized a fundraising bomb — for lack of a better word. More than $4 million was collected online in roughly 24 hours, a stunning achievement for any candidate but especially someone with Paul’s seemingly long-shot odds at the nomination.

Even then, however, it was easy to write Paul off. Other fringe candidates had been able to collect several million dollars form their efforts. Paul fit somewhat easily into the model of other perennial candidates like Lyndon LaRouche.

No more. Paul collected more than $6 million in a single day earlier this week (Dec. 16 — the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, natch). Paul campaign officials say that he will top $18 million raised between Sept. 1 and Dec 31, a total that will put him first or very close to the top of the fundraising chase.

The Fix is often baffled about politics but rarely totally stumped. Ron Paul’s financial prowess is, however, an example of a development that we just can’t figure out.

So, we’re turning to you — The Fix community. For today’s Wag the Blog question, we want to know what you think (or believe) is behind the amount of money that Paul has collected. Is it a validation of Paul’s “out of Iraq now” position? A sign of widespread dissatisfaction with the two-party system? Or are we over-analyzing it?

Paul campaign officials say that he will top $18 million raised between Sept. 1 and Dec 31, a total that will put him first or very close to the top of the fundraising chase.

Something is going on there and it would seem to me that reporters besides Cilizza would be curious about it. (And that editors would actually put a reporter or two on it.)

The other story they aren’t properly covering is Huckabee. When was the last time a Republican burst out of nowhere like this? It just doesn’t happen. And yet they are just reporting the back and forth as if he wasn’t a joke just a month ago. Earlier I watched some combination of gasbags talk about how Huckabee will automatically win South Carolina because it’s a socially conservative state. That may be true, but the South Carolina primary was conceived by Lee Atwater as “the firewall” for the specific purpose of stopping insurgent candidates early. If Huckabee wins it, it would be quite a shift and it must say something about the current state of the Republican party.

I’m sure there’s much more, and it’s not fair to say that all the political media is ignoring some of these unusual stories. (The newspapers are doing it to some extent.) But the political cable shows are just dismal and the rest aren’t much better. They all seem discombobulated and confused, slighly dizzy over the idea that nobody knows what’s going to happen until the voters tell them.

My God, how did it come to that?

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The United Christian States Of America

by digby

Steve Benen does a nice analysis of the controversial new Huckabee ad, here. It seems this really is the first time any candidate has actually mentioned “Christ” in a political ad, so I guess it’s something of a milestone. But if I had to guess, it’s not going to be the last. Why would it?

In 2000, George W. Bush pretty much clinched the nomination when we saw the dim little light in his head slowly start to flicker as he figured out that “Christ” was the right answer to the question of who was his favorite political philosopher.

Just this week our elected congresspersons passed this legislation 372-9:

RESOLUTION
Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian
faith.

Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans
and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated
annually by Christians throughout the United
States and the world;

Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in
the United States, making Christianity the religion of
over three-fourths of the American population;

Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians
throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion
in the world and the religion of about one-third of
the world population;

Whereas Christians identify themselves as those who believe
in the salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice
of their savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
and who, out of gratitude for the gift of salvation, commit
themselves to living their lives in accordance with the
teachings of the Holy Bible;

Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly
to the development of western civilization;

Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional
republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds
much in its history that points observers back to its roots
in Christianity;

Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American
Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the
birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;

Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition
of God’s redemption, mercy, and Grace; and

Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the
United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas
as a time to serve others: Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;
(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;
(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;
(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;
(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and
(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

When you have a huge bipartisan majority feeling it’s politically appropriate (necessary?) to put something like number four above into the congressional record, why would evoking the name of Christ in political commercials be anything but appropriate also?

Get used to it folks. And it won’t be just the Republicans. The Democrats are preaching like crazy out on the stump too. It’s the new reality.

This will never end by secularists (whether religious or not) objecting, so there’s no point in even trying. This blatant use of religious symbolism and rhetoric will only stop when the sectarian wars make it necessary. We’ve had a little taste of what can happen when the religious wars break out with the (so far) mild skirmishes between Huckabee and Romney. It won’t be the last of it. While Christianity certainly played an historical role in the development of western civilization, its role in sectarian religious wars is also undisputed.

I’m afraid we are going to have to see that played out in ugly fashion before this explicit religious proselytizing masquerading as politics will fade back to the more generally soothing bromides like “may God bless the United States of America” with which nobody except the most vociferous absolutists have a problem.

In the meantime, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that if these candidates are all going to run as the second coming that they be able to heal the sick with a universal health care plan and turn the deficit into a surplus.

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