Month: January 2008

Playing The Wrong Clip

by dday

I know the big story today is that a sleep-deprived Hillary Clinton, under the kind of pressure that really only people who have run for President understand, actually showed some emotion on the campaign trail. This set off an avalanche of snickering from the chattering class, to the extent that Bush might have to open up the Strategic Snickering Reserves before we run into a real shortage.

(By the way, John Edwards’ response was classless, and I’m a John Edwards supporter.)

But in a sane world, the real exchange that you’d be seeing all over the cable nets is this one where Hillary outs Chris Matthews as little more than a stalker.

During a question-and-answer session with reporters after the speech, Matthews asked Clinton how her plan to get out of Iraq is different from Obama’s. She started describing her plan. He interrupted to insist she distinguish it from her rival’s. Here’s how it went from there:

“Well, you guys can figure out the difference,” she said.

“No,” Matthews interrupted, “you tell us the difference.”

“I’m not on your show,” she retorted. “I’m trying to answer the question.”

“Please come on the show,” Matthews implored.

“I never understood why you’re obsessed with me,” she replied. “Honestly, I’ve never understood it.”

After the session was over, Clinton headed straight for Matthews and greeted him with a big, friendly smile, patted his cheek reassuringly and gave him a hug. She did not, so far could be heard, book a date on the show.

To his credit, Tweety actually did show the clip on his show today. After Hillary outed him, the plaintive wail of “I’m not obsessed” sounded to me like a guy who’s sewn his own Luke Skywalker in Bespin gear outfit saying he wasn’t obsessed with Star Wars. He looked like he was just kicked in the stomach.

Whatever happens to her campaign, I have to thank Hillary for this moment, which I’ll probably embed in about 200,000 blog posts over the next 20 years.

…Lest anyone think I’m somehow shilling for Hillary, I think her claiming Obama is somehow not trustworthy on choice despite a 100% choice record – and after staffers over the weekend called Obama too liberal; her hitting Obama for voting for bills that she also voted for; and her borrowing a page from the Giuliani playbook with some scare-mongering on terrorism, represent a campaign that is kind of flailing about. But her willingness to call out Chris Matthews this way is something I hope to see in whoever emerges as our candidate, given the tremendous amount of pushback they’re likely to get if they make any effort to enact a progressive agenda.

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10 Demerits

by digby

Jane at FDL reminds me of a revealing moment for John McCain in the Saturday debate:

The reason the kewl kidz on the bus love him so much is because he is a nasty, high school locker room smart ass. Always has been.

He’s also hiding behind the ample skirts of Roger Ailes. Ron Paul has a legitimate constituency in the GOP, which is both popular and bizarre, and which St John McCain the maverick war hero and the rest refuse to confront head-on. What a big bunch of babies these great GOP warriors are when the chips are down.

Update: The Frank Luntz focus group that Jane discusses in her post turns out to have been somewhat suspect. I’m shocked.

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Busharraf

by dday

Dick Cheney’s man in Islamabad on Benazir Bhutto’s death:

The night of the assassination, Musharraf believes Bhutto broke a basic rule of security in a crowded charged political rally: to be particularly careful when leaving.

“She should have just gone and moved fast, gone and waved, yes. But if you’re standing and — because you are vulnerable. You’re vulnerable and people are charging,” Musharraf says. “And all the film that you see, people are charging. Now, when people are there by the hundreds swarming around you, this man is one of them. Who can check these people at that stage?”

“And the mistake she made, if I understand you correctly, was stopping?” Logan asks.

“Yes. But then the mistake was not that,” Musharraf says. “I mean, God was kind — she went into the car in spite of the fact that she was waving and all that. She did go into the car. Now is the point. Why did she stand outside the car?”

“Why did she stand up in the hatch?” Logan asks.

“Entirely. Who’s to blame?” Musharraf replies.

Asked who is to blame, Musharraf says, “Only she.”

“So Benazir Bhutto, in your words, should bear some responsibility for what took place for her own death?” Logan asks.

“For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers,” Musharraf says.

“Don’t you think it will make her supporters crazy to hear you say that?” Logan asks.

“Well, I don’t think so. I mean, that’s the fact. She shouldn’t have stood up,” Musharraf says.

It’s all her fault, I guess, for getting in the way of that gunman’s bullet and that bomb. She clearly didn’t listen to her betters.

Why does this remind me of nothing so much as this?

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?’ “

“What was her answer?” I wonder.

“Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.”

Man, do these authoritarians have a lot in common. I guess this is why we just sent Pakistan 18 new F-16s.

Also, in addition to the coldness and the cruelty, neither of them can find Osama bin Laden.

(By the way, don’t be surprised if Fourthbranch takes advantage of the chaos to get the CIA into Waziristan. I don’t know if this is because of legacy or a 2008 strategy or what, but it’s about 7 years too late.)

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By The Time They Got To Wankstock

by digby

Following up on D-Day’s post below, may I just reiterate how predictable it is that the Bloomer Wankstock has now decided to insist that the candidates “renounce partisan bickering“? D-day wonders what that means:

If the Democrats want to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making $200,000 or more, and the Republicans don’t want any expiration, is the bipartisan position letting the tax cuts expire for those making (infinity-$200,000)/2?

Actually, that’s not it at all. “Partisan bickering” means the Democrats proposing to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Period. You see, it’s divisive for Democrats to even hint that the Republicans have been on the wrong track. We need to move on from that kind of partisan ugliness and “get something done” which is actually get nothing done.

What the Bloomberg discussions and the calls for bipartisanship are all about is to narrow the range of options for the Democratic nominee. That’s part of what I was illustrating with the David Boren sketch of yesterday.

Look, the real agenda here is to cut the heart out of the economic populist pitch that’s shown to be very popular among the grassroots in both parties thus far. The standard bearers of that pitch may not make it to the finish line, but there’s a strong possibility that their effect will be felt in the coming campaign. In 1992, health care and the deficit became the defining issues of the campaign not because Bill Clinton came into the campaign running on them but because a fluke health care campaign by Senator Harris Wofford was taken up by Bob Kerrey and others in the primaries — and the deficit was flogged as the greatest threat to western civilization by a bipartisan group of “centrists” called the Concord Coalition — and a little nutcase named Ross Perot.

As they did then, the villagers, plutocrats and the aristocrats have to put a stop to any populist/progressive policies as quickly as possible. They substitute progressive policies with calls for “fiscal responsibility” and knee-cap populist sentiment with these cries for “centrist solutions.” One tried and true method is to set up a situation where conciliation is supposedly the take away message from the voters and then blame the change agents when the other side plays the victim. The Republicans are very good at staging the hissy kabuki, which will, as usual, twist the Democrats into pretzels as they try to battle it back. (I have seen nothing from any candidate that indicates they have the skill to change that particular dynamic.)

They bank on the fact that people will understand that since the Republicans spent the country into oblivion and the wars without end must be funded or the boogeymen will kill them in their in their beds, we just can’t afford new programs when the nation needs to “sacrifice.” (Yes, now they will ask for sacrifice…)

And about those tax cuts, Krugman nails it this morning:

The November election will take place against that background of economic distress, which ought to be good news for candidates running on a platform of change.

But the opponents of change, those who want to keep the Bush legacy intact, are not without resources. In fact, they’ve already made their standard pivot when things turn bad — the pivot from hype to fear. And in case you haven’t noticed, they’re very, very good at the fear thing.

You see, for 30 years American politics has been dominated by a political movement practicing Robin-Hood-in-reverse, giving unto those that hath while taking from those who don’t. And one secret of that long domination has been a remarkable flexibility in economic debate. The policies never change — but the arguments for these policies turn on a dime.

When the economy is doing reasonably well, the debate is dominated by hype — by the claim that America’s prosperity is truly wondrous, and that conservative economic policies deserve all the credit.

But when things turn down, there is a seamless transition from “It’s morning in America! Hurray for tax cuts!” to “The economy is slumping! Raising taxes would be a disaster!”

It’s “divisive” you see, to question such things. But we must deal with the deficit, which in beltway CW means spending cuts. (William Cohen called the deficit “fiscal child abuse” today at Wankstock.)

The compromise, if there is one, will be no new taxes and no new programs. Voila: the status quo.

And it isn’t just domestic policy. The very “serious” foreign policy clerisy is terribly worried about divisiveness too. Here’s Michael O’Hanlon offering his special brand of village wisdom in the WSJ this morning:

[T]here are nonetheless two problems with Mr. Obama’s Iraq views that call into doubt his ability to build a truly inclusive American political movement. First, he seems contemptuous of the motivations of those who supported the war. While showing proper respect for the heroic efforts of our troops, he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place — even as he has called for a more civil and respectful political debate.

[…]

Politically, Republicans will surely try to paint any policy of rapid, complete withdrawal as Democratic defeatism. Mr. Obama needs to think hard about whether his uplifting message of hope is really bulletproof enough to withstand these charges — and about whether his Iraq views truly reflect the non-ideological, nonpartisan wisdom of the American people that he seeks to lead.

The CW is emerging on all fronts. The conservative political establishment is obviously very worried about a rejection of the status quo of earthquake proportions.

I do not believe that it is impossible to beat it back, but we have to be clear eyed about the forces that are being gathered to defeat this. They will not go quietly, and once a Democrat is in office, they will use all of their formidable powers to keep them constricted within a narrow range of acceptable policy options.

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. I’ve long extolled the virtue and necessity of inspiration and participation in politics and real democratic mandate would be a powerful weapon. But real change isn’t going to be simple and it isn’t going to be easy, no matter how big a mandate for a strong progressive agenda the Democrats are able to achieve. This is a massive ship we’re trying to turn and while it’s necessary to have a talented captain at the helm, it takes more than that to counter momentum. We’re just beginning to see the movement that’s necessary to change course.

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3 Days of Peace, Love and Bipartisanship

by dday

Today begins the event history will record as Wankstock, where old men and older men from all over the country will get together at the University of Oklahoma and sing in the manner of the old Joni Mitchell song, “and we got to get ourselves, back to the center!”

They’re coming to demand unity, which I’ve always found as the best way to unify any groups of people with differences, by demanding it. Their grievances are legion; they want bipartisanship, although there isn’t really an agenda to embrace. If the Democrats want to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making $200,000 or more, and the Republicans don’t want any expiration, is the bipartisan position letting the tax cuts expire for those making (infinity-$200,000)/2? It’s unclear.

And now that voters in Iowa selected candidates in both parties who at least talk about bringing the country together, now the Wank Brigade is coming to demand specific proposals. Let’s break down how ridiculous this is. You can spend an entire week around the clock and not read all of the white papers that the three top Democratic candidates have issued. You can spend 10 seconds on the actual proposals that this Wank Brigade is standing behind.

And if you want to take a look at Michael Bloomberg’s actual record, you’d find a “bipartisan” that is really nothing more than a bland technocrat whose positions don’t differ radically from any other mainstream candidate, though the Wank Brigade that’s built up behind him is more “centrist” in the sense that they want to maintain the status quo and the power elite at all costs.

So if you’re interested in moving the country forward in a not-moving-the-country-forward direction, if you have flowers in your hair and a lack of vituperation in your heart, get yourself to Norman and be among your people, experience the best wankers this country has to offer. Be part of Wankstock.

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Bill Kristol Could Use A Nanny

by tristero

As expected, Billy’s column is pure propaganda and nothing else. It makes a useful contrast to Krugman’s, which the Times in its wisdom is running on the same day.

Kristol treats his readers like stupid, impulsive children that need to be told what to think. Y’don’t bother explaining anything – after all, how do you reason with an infant? Here’s Billy’s lede:

Thank you, Senator Obama. You’ve defeated Senator Clinton in Iowa. It looks as if you’re about to beat her in New Hampshire. There will be no Clinton Restoration. A nation turns its grateful eyes to you.

True, there are facts. I’ll bet you didn’t know Obama won the Iowa caucus. And you surely didn’t know Obama was leading in New Hampshire. So, like the patient nanny he thinks he is, Billy tells you all about it! And like a good nanny, he also tells you how to feel about it – worshipful gratitude to our savior, Senator Obama (which of course he will take back momentarily – logic and consistency are not Billy’s strong suit).

Now here’s Krugman’s opener:

The unemployment report on Friday was brutally bad. Unemployment rose in December, while job creation was minimal — and it’s highly likely, for technical reasons, that the job number will be revised down, showing an actual decline in employment.

Slightly different, eh? We’re not told we should feel bad about the unemployment report. We’re told it is bad, an assertion based on Krugman’s implicit claim to authority, a claim for which he has numerous credentials. But since this is a conclusion based on fact, you can, if you care to, double check and if you dispute the analysis of the facts, you can argue over it (and in fact, Krugman invites you to, helpfully linking to charts on his blog, which itself has links to the underlying data). Oh yes, Krugman spares us the details of the technical reasons as to why it’s even worse than it looks, but not because we’re too immature to understand it. Rather he doesn’t want to obscure the major point with academic and unnecessary complications as to why the “brutally bad” report cannot be explained away as mere opinion – if there’s a mistake, Krugman’s saying, it’s in underestimating the brutality of the badness. And if you don’t believe him, fine. You can look it up.

This stark difference in tone carries through both pieces. Kristol merely whines like an unruly child:

We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch! Clearly, Kristol needs a stricter nanny.

Krugman, however, explains and analyzes. He assumes we’ve outgrown both nannies and stern daddies, but can reason for ourselves:

It’s the latest piece of bad news about an economy in which the employment situation has actually been deteriorating for the past year. It’s no longer possible to hope that the effects of the housing slump will remain “contained,” as one of 2007’s buzzwords had it. The levees have been breached, and the repercussions of the housing crisis are spreading across the economy as a whole.

It’s not certain, even now, that we’ll have a formal recession, although given the news on Friday you have to say that the odds are that we will. But what is clear is that 2008 will be a troubled year for the U.S. economy — and that as a result, the overall economic record of the Bush years will have been dreary at best: two and a half years of slumping employment, three and a half years of good but not great growth, and two more years of renewed economic distress.

Of course, Krugman draws a conclusion, that the Bush years are “dreary” and immediately backs it up with a summary of data. And notice how the data are summarized. He doesn’t try to pump up the adjectives – there were, he allows, 3 1/2 years of “good but not great growth” – and that’s just one of the hedges he uses to make us understand the nuances in the analysis.

Kristol? It’s all black and white.

I’m going to skip over Kristol’s most idiotic point… heh-heh, just kidding.

Kristol compares the Huckabee persona with Bush’s:

After the last two elections, featuring the well-born George Bush and Al Gore and John Kerry, Americans — even Republicans! — are ready for a likable regular guy.

Well, one thing you can’t accuse Republicans of is not being really “with it,” as the kids say. They’re positively postmodern! Here’s Peggy Noonan:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He’s normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He’s not exotic. But if there’s a fire on the block, he’ll run out and help. He’ll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, “Where’s Sally?”

He’s responsible. He’s not an intellectual.

Why shee – it, Peggy-dear, it sure sounds like good ol’ George would be right glad to set down on the porch, chew the fat with that right Reverend Huckabee over a meal of fried squirrel and grits. I don’t hear nothin’ about him bein well-born – and got-DAMN, what kind of lily-livered New York brie gobbler talks about folks bein’ “well-born?” Where I come from, they’re jes’ called “rich.”

Speaking of New York brie gobblers -because we all know what those particular well-borns are -, that brings up the most striking thing about Kristol’s column, namely its self-hate. Funny, isn’t it? Here’s the NY Times displaying its self-hate by hiring a columnist that wants to arrest his bosses. And Kristol passes it forward by penning a love letter to a fundamentalist Christian that wants to take back the country “for Christ,” as Huckabee put it, thereby consigning Billy and his co-religionists to second-rate status in the Christian States of America.

That’s right, Huckabee no hearts Jews. In addition to his numerous playing of the Christ card – truly loathsome even if you’re Christian – Huckabee’s been taken to task by the Anti-Defamation league for his use of the term “Holocaust” in a fashion that politicizes and trivializes its meaning for Jews.

And then there’s Huckabee’s embrace of one Pastor Hagee, who has written

“It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day….
How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for His chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings He had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come…. it rises from the judgment of God uppon his rebellious chosen people.” ( “Jerusalem Countdown: A Prelude To War”, paperback edition, pages 92 and 93 )

That’s right, folks. Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves, sez Hagee. Here’s some more of Hagee’s anti-Semitism:

‘ “Our whole purpose is to hasten the end times”, he said, “The Bible says Jews will be brought to jealousy when they see Christians and Jewish believers together as one — they’ll want to be a part of that. That’s going to signal Jesus’ return.” ‘

Jews and others who don’t accept Jesus, he added matter-of-factly, “are toast.”

Jews who don’t accept Jesus are toast. I have a pretty strong stomach, but after I read that I thought I was going to be sick. ****Not Huckabee:

Taking a break from the Iowa campaign trail, Huckabee delivered a Christmas season sermon at Cornerstone [Hagee’s church] about Christ’s birth and embraced Hagee, calling him “one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.”

Oh, Hagee also hates Catholics. A lot. And he, like Huckabee, is all fehrklemmt about Israel because – well, it’s kinda hard to explain, but it’s part of this nutty idea that the sooner all the Jews return to Israel, the sooner the Apocalypse which means the return of Christ to Earth.

Oh, but Huckabee supports Israel! Uh, huh, the way Mel Gibson says he loves Jews. He prays for them all the time.

Michael Huckabee. Just a regular guy, eh Billy Kristol? Your average hail fellow well met, the kind of guy who embraces anti-Semites, sides with the rapist instead of his victims, lies through his teeth on everything, and whose only qualification for president is that he’s slept with no other woman but his wife – and that’s hardly a qualification.

Seriously, Billy, you really must hate yourself and your fellow Jews to fluff for this sleazeball. Have you considered psychoanalysis? Or at least a better nanny?

****This was misatrributed to Hagee. In fact it was spoken by Bill McCartney, co-founder of Promise Keepers. I deeply regret the error. Thank you, Bruce, from Talk To Action for catching my mistake.

Culture ‘O Life

by digby

I’m finally getting around to watching the Republicans debate from yesterday and listened to all of them (except for Ron Paul) enthusiastically sign on to the Bush Doctrine and war without end against the islamofasciterrorists and anybody else who looks at America sideways.

And then the candidates, including the three out of six who are wealthy cancer survivors, all agreed that we have the best health care system in the world, people should buy their own policies and if someone doesn’t do that, he shouldn’t be allowed to be a free rider.

We also need to round up and jail the criminal illegals and put the rest of them at the back of the line.

Vote Republican: We’ll cull the herd.

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Partisan Bickering

by digby

Via the Sideshow and C&L

More about partisan bickering here, here and here.

Update: I’m getting tired of constantly being accused by Obama supporters of trying to hurt him if I write anything about the foibles of bipartisanship. I’m not crazy about his stump speech on the subject, but it’s not really about that.

I’m actually trying to help all the candidates, by shining a light on how the villagers seize the political agenda with their tiresome insistence on “unity” and bipartisanship as the highest of political virtues. I’m trying to give readers a bit of perspective on what we’re up against. This is about Broderella and the sell-out Bush dogs and the VRWC and how they manipulate things to keep the status quo. It’s analysis, not advocacy.

Yes, it’s possible that Obama (or Edwards or Clinton) will lead the way to change the dynamics, but change is not all about one person. It’s about a whole bunch of moving parts — the media, the parties, the constitution (which was designed to slow down precipitous change), the well funded and highly developed conservative movement. Money, power, ego, bureaucratic torpor are huge forces, and while I don’t expect the candidates to talk about this in detail in town meetings, it seems to me that the rest of us should.

I believe that in order to change the way things are done, you have to move institutions as well as move people’s hearts and minds. I happen to believe that takes partisanship — which also includes progressive infrastructure, grassroots support and a long term strategy.

My critique is about the inherently conservative political establishment, which is actively working, right now, to distort the campaign and box in the new Democratic president to keep him or her from being able to enact progressive policies. It’s what they do.

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Compromising Blowhards

by digby

So, I hear that Bush dog Democrat Dan Boren of Oklahoma is supporting Huckabee’s regressive fair tax. I can’t say that surprises me. Being a vacuous blowhard evidently runs in that family.

Just in case anyone’s forgotten or are too young to remember –the former Democratic senator from Oklahoma and current Unity 08 poobah, David Boren, is an egomaniac who stabbed Bill Clinton in the back repeatedly when he was trying to pass his economic plan in 1993. (As did Bob Kerrey and Sam Nunn, among others.) After months of kissing Boren’s ass and treating him like the perfumed prince he believes he is, Boren went on “Face The Nation” and announced that he just couldn’t support his president.

He had already insisted on getting rid of the proposed BTU tax and wanted a “compromise” that would have dropped all the new taxes on the wealthy and make up the money by capping Medicare and Medicaid and getting rid of Clinton’s planned EITC for the poor. He, like Bob Kerrey and many others, were obsessed with “fixing” social security and other “entitlements” in order to cure the deficit.

But there was one thing he believed in more than anything else:

From The Agenda:

Gore asked, what did Boren want changed in the plan in order to secure his vote?

Like a little list? Boren asked.

Yeah, Gore said.

Boren said he didn’t have little list. Raising the gas tax a nickel or cutting it a nickel or anything like that wouldn’t do it, he said. He had given his list to Moynihan like everybody else in the Finance Committee. It was over and done with, and Boren likened himself to a free agent in baseball. “I have the luxury of standing back here and looking at this,” Boren said. His test would be simple: Would it work? If not, it didn’t serve the national interest.

Gore said he was optimistic for the first time.

Boren shot back. “There’s nothing you can do for me or to me that will influence my decision on this matter.” he added. “I’m going to make it on the basis of what I think is right or wrong.”

Nobody responded for a moment. Clinton then stepped in. Why didn’t Boren think it was in the national interest? he asked.

It wasn’t bipartisan, Boren answered. To be successful in this country it had been demonstrated over and over, an effort had to be bipartisan, Clinton had even said so himself, Boren pointed out. Even most optimists, Boren said, thought they were still not even halfway there.

No Republican voted for the plan. Clinton knew that he would never get any Republicans to vote for a plan to raise taxes on the wealthy after the handful who had done so in 1990 were burned at the stake by the conservative movement. But sure, they would have voted for a “compromise” that raised no taxes, dropped all investment in infrastructure, any help for the poor and capped spending on the sick to cure the deficit. That’s bipartisanship, village-style.

Bob Kerrey eventually agreed to vote for the plan making it a 50-50 tie — which Al Gore broke, passing the plan. (It passed by one vote in the House, as well.)

Right after the vote Kerrey went on the Senate floor said:

“My heart aches with the conclusion that I will vote yes for a bill which challenges Americans too little.

“President Clinton, if you’re watching now, as I suspect you are, I tell you this: I could not and should not cast a vote that brings down the presidency…

“Get back on the high road, Mr President,”Kerrey proclaimed. Taxing the wealthy was simply “political revenge,” he said. “Our fiscal problems exist because of rapid, un controlled growth in the programs that primarily benefit the middle class.” Clinton needed to return to the theme of shared sacrifice, he said, and should have said no to the deals and compromises.

And then he went back on his word to Clinton that he wouldn’t demand a bipartisan commission to study how to cut all those middle class “entitlements.”

David Broder loves David Boren and Bob Kerrey and thinks the country is best served by rabid conservative ideologues and preening Democratic narcissists who lay down for Republicans and fight their own president every step of the way if he wants to enact any kind of progressive legislation. That’s called “getting things done.”

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Remaking The Blogosphere In Their Own Image

by tristero

There is only one possible reason why Time provides this idiot with an opportunity to blog. And that is to provide other Time pundits with conveniently stark proof that the blogosphere is as vapid and ignorable as they wish it was. Heck, they needn’t even venture beyond their own firewall!

Memo to Time’s Publishers: If you wanna understand the attraction of the blogosphere, but you’re too scared to wander down into the nidorous depths of the Internets, you don’t even have to look at any blogs! Just read Paul Krugman.

Briefly, Krugman writes for a print outlet called The New York Times, which once had a stellar reputation but has since been tainted by scandal and unskeptical regurgitation of government propaganda. Recently, on its op-ed page, the Times pioneered a new innovation in self-destructiveness. They hired a new pundit named William Kristol who has but two qualifications: (1) he wants the government to investigate, muzzle, and further suborn the Times; (2) he’s always wrong about everything.

Paul Krugman is everything Kristol and your own Scherer are not. By actually writing intelligent, useful, essays based in reality, Krugman, along with a clutch of brilliant reporters who have broken a series of important stories, represents the best of what the Times once aspired to be. And what inspires some of the finest writing out here amongst the Google.

h/t to Duncan, who ruined my Sunday morning when I made the mistake of clicking on his link to Scherer’s post.

Update: from digby (sorry to intrude.)

Fineman should sue for plagiarism. Remember this?

You knew Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in high school. At least I did. They were candidates in the student senate election. She was the worthy but puffed-up Miss Perfect, all poodle skirts and multicolored binders clutched to her chest. He was the lanky, mysterious transfer student—from Hawaii by way of Indonesia no less—who Knew Things and was way too cool to carry more than one book at a time. Who would be leader of the pack?

Presidential elections are high school writ large, of course, and that is especially true when, as now, much of the early nomination race is based in the U.S. Capitol. It is even more the case when the party in question, and here we are talking about the Democrats, is not sharply divided ideologically. They have a good chance in ’08 to oust the fading prep/jock/ROTC/Up With People alliance.

Lance Mannion took care of him here.