The Commentariat -- January 7, 2013
My column for the New York Times eXaminer, posted late yesterday, is on Ross Douthat's fantasy column, "Boehner, American Hero." Anyone who thinks I might be agreeing with Douthat -- Welcome to Reality Chex!
Obama 2.0
Michael Schwirtz of the New York Times: "President Obama has selected a former Nebraska senator, Chuck Hagel, as his next defense secretary, a White House official said Sunday, turning to a prominent Republican to lead the Pentagon as it faces of the challenge of winding down the war in Afghanistan and possible reductions in military spending. But the nomination, which the White House official said would occur on Monday, has already encountered stiff opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike because of Mr. Hagel's views on Israel and Iran, and his comments about an ambassador who is gay." CW: if you didn't see Glenn Greenwald & Michael Moore on Hagel's nomination, they're linked in yesterday's Commentariat & are definitely worth your reading. ...
... ** Rosie Gray & Zeke Miller of BuzzFeed: "President Barack Obama's decision to nominate former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense Monday will shatter a fake consensus on American policy toward Iran and challenge what have increasingly become limits of Washington conversation about Israel." ...
... Peter Beinert of Newsweek has a long piece on Hagel & Middle East policy which Gray & Miller mention but don't link. "Obama's foreign policy -- while often operationally skillful -- has left unchallenged many of the assumptions made 'mainstream' by George W. Bush.... Unlike John Kerry, whose political caution has smoothed the way for a virtually uncontested secretary-of-state nomination, Hagel says in public what others only say in private." ...
... Ben Ambruster of Think Progress: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday attacked former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, reportedly President Obama's choice as the next Defense Secretary, calling him a 'controversial pick' and suggesting that Hagel is out of the mainstream.... [Graham] claimed Hagel is 'very antagonistic toward the state of Israel' (again, not saying how) and complained that Hagel said 'you should directly negotiate with Iran' (we're not sure why this is a bad thing." CW: Senators don't usually treat their former colleagues -- especially ones of the same party -- with such disdain. ...
... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "Maybe Graham isn't clear that we aren't nominating Chuck Hagel to be Israel's Secretary of Defense, but our own. That's how messed up this situation has become with us as Israel's client state. Senators can make completely asinine statements like the one above, and no one even flinches. Then, if you point out the overwhelming influence of the Israel lobby in the United States congress, you get tarred and feathered as an anti-Semite. And then they'll deny there is an Israel lobby." ...
... At the end of the day, Republicans will support a decorated war hero who was their colleague for 12 years and has critical experience on veterans' issues. It would be hard to explain a no vote just because he bucked his party on Iraq, a war most Americans think was a disaster. -- Anonymous White House Official
While we have expressed concerns in the past, we trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the President's lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel -- on strategic cooperation, missile defense programs, and leading the world against Iran's nuclear program. -- National Jewish Democratic Council (via Greg Sargent)
Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "The administration said early Monday that the president also would nominate counterterrorism adviser John Brennan as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
He Said. Sam Baker of The Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Sunday said Republicans will demand steep spending cuts during the next round of budget negotiations. McConnell, in an interview with ABC's 'This Week,' said President Obama had won all he's going to get on taxes in last week's agreement to extend the Bush-era tax rates for most taxpayers."...
... She Said. Mike Lillis of The Hill: "Pushing back against the Republicans' deficit-reduction strategy, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this weekend that more tax revenues -- not just spending cuts -- must be a part of Congress's effort to rein in deficits." With video. ...
... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: "... neither party's approach to deficit reduction is truly balanced: Each side is actually leaning more heavily on spending cuts. But Obama would rely on those cuts a lot less than the Republicans would.... Most sensible budget observers, even more conservative ones determined to enact substantial budget cuts, believe taxes must rise even more -- because the population is getting older and the government has, quite rightly, assumed so much responsibility for health and retirement benefits." ...
... Will Saletan of Slate: "Mitch McConnell ... wants Democrats to cut a lot of federal spending without raising any more taxes. Unfortunately, his party just lost the presidential election, failed to capture the Senate, and doesn't have enough support in polls or the business community to shut down the government or refuse to raise the national debt ceiling, which would trigger a default and another credit downgrade. So what does McConnell offer in lieu of clout? A lot of bluffing." CW: read the whole post -- except the last graf. Saletan has been captured by deficit hawks. Pardon by conspiracy theory, but I am beginning to think Pete Peterson, et al., are buying off pundits one-by-one, till there will be no one left to say "Whoa"! Yo, Pete, ya forgot me.
E. J. Dionne: "Will the establishment, including business leaders and middle-of-the-road journalistic opinion, stand by silently as one side in the coming argument risks cratering the economy in an effort to reverse the verdict of the 2012 election? Yes, I am talking about using the debt ceiling as a political tool, something that was never done until the disaster of 2011.... When it comes to health-care cost projections, there is so much we don't know that it is truly foolish to make decisions now for, say, 2040."
Paul Krugman on the continuing economic doldrums: "It's tempting to argue that the economic failures of recent years prove that economists don't have the answers. But the truth is actually worse: in reality, standard economics offered good answers, but political leaders -- and all too many economists -- chose to forget or ignore what they should have known.... We've just experienced a colossal failure of economic policy -- and far too many of those responsible for that failure both retain power and refuse to learn from experience."
Speaking of Krugman, my close personal friend Danny Glover sent along this petition urging President Obama to appoint Krugman as Treasury Secretary. It ain't gonna happen, of course, but wouldn't it be fun to see Krugman face off against Sen. Orrin Hatch & other yahoos on the Senate Finance Committee? ...
... Krugman: "By my reckoning..., an administration job, no matter how senior, would actually reduce my influence, leaving me unable to say publicly what I really think and all too probably finding myself unable to make headway in internal debates.... I'm flattered -- but I think I should stay in my current position as Mr. Outside, an annoying if sympathetic voice they can't ignore."
... "Mint that Coin." Krugman says John Boehner's face should go on that trillion-dollar platinum deficit coin, "Because without him and his colleagues, this wouldn't be necessary."
Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "A [measly, weasely] $10 billion settlement to resolve claims of foreclosure abuses by 14 major lenders is expected to be announced as early as Monday, several people with knowledge of the discussions said on Sunday."
David Kocieniewski of the New York Times: "The expansion of [a] tax break once intended to help farmers [to corporate giants] illustrates the challenges ahead and how special interests have learned to use the tax code to maximum effect."
Eileen Sullivan of the AP: "In Connecticut and Colorado, scenes of the most deadly U.S. mass shootings in 2012, people were less enthusiastic about buying new guns at the end of the year than in most other states, according to an Associated Press analysis of new FBI data. The biggest surges in background checks for people who want to carry or buy guns occurred in states in the South and West. The latest government figures reflect huge increases across the U.S. in the number of background checks for gun sales and permits to carry guns at the end of the year." ...
... Meanwhile NRA Senators Are on the Job. Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Lawmakers kept up the renewed debate over the nation's gun laws Sunday, with the Senate's leading Republican, [Mitch McConnell] arguing that the matter must wait until pressing fiscal issues are addressed in Congress and one Senate Democrat [-- Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota --] warning against 'extreme' restrictions on guns."
** Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "... next month, [against the backdrop of Republicans’ systematic attempts to disenfranchise Democrats,] the Supreme Court will take up a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most effective law of its kind in the history of the United States. A century after the Civil War, the act, in abolishing many forms of discrimination employed by the Southern states, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, finally turned the legal right for African-Americans in those states to vote into an actual right to vote. Bipartisan congressional majorities have reauthorized the law four times, most recently in 2006. (It passed the House overwhelmingly and the Senate unanimously, and was signed into law by George W. Bush.) ... The Roberts Court, and especially the Chief Justice, has shown a marked animosity toward the Voting Rights Act.... It would be a sad irony if the Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act because it regulates too much in too many places, when the truth is that it regulates too little in too few."
Jonathan Strong of Roll Call: "A concerted effort to unseat Speaker John A. Boehner was under way the day of his re-election to the position, but participants called it off 30 minutes before the House floor vote.... A group of disaffected conservatives had agreed to vote against the Ohio lawmaker if they could get at least 25 members to join the effort. But one member, whose identity could not be verified, rescinded his or her participation the morning of the vote, leaving the group one person short of its self-imposed 25-member threshold." ...
... Boehner speaks to Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal. Short version: everything is Obama's fault. Via Margaret Hartmann of New York magazine.
NEW. Charles Pierce pens (or rather, keys) a lovely takedown of nearly every Sunday pundit -- from Maureen Dowd to Carly Fiorina (not much diff, BTW). He sees Heidi Heitkamp as the new Joe Lieberman. We really needed another Joe Lieberman. Thanks to MAG for the link.
Andy Borowitz: "Just hours after being sworn in at the U.S. Capitol, the freshman class of House Republicans said that they were disappointed that they failed to shut down the government on their first day in office." CW: this is satire, but as with all this Washington, it is often difficult to tell what is joke & what is fact. Borowitz probably would not have had to look hard to find a real freshman Congressman who was disappointed at not shutting down the government -- yet.
Our Friend from Kabul. Kevin Sieff of the Washington Post: "When Afghan President Hamid Karzai visits Washington this week, he’ll bring with him a list of complaints he has enumerated for months in public speeches, including accusations that the United States has fomented corruption in Afghanistan and continues to violate the country's sovereignty."
Happy Birthday, Dick! CW: Since there was such enthusiasm for the news that we are celebrating the centennial of Richard Nixon's birth this year, allow me to regale you with the latest from Brandon Lowrey of Reuters: "At a ceremony commemorating the late U.S. President Richard M. Nixon's 100th birthday, politicians, a military official and Nixon's eldest daughter on Sunday remembered him as an underappreciated president and a foreign policy genius.... During Sunday's ceremony, the Watergate scandal was not mentioned."
Right Wing World
Alex Pareene of Salon: "As Rick Perlstein explained in the Baffler, some of the largest conservative media organs are essentially massive email lists of suckers rented to snake oil salesmen. The con isn't limited to a couple of newsletters and websites: The most prominent conservative organizations in the nation are primarily dedicated to separating conservatives from their money.... In addition to paying Dick Armey $400,000 a year for 20 years to stay away, FreedomWorks also apparently spent more than a million dollars paying Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to say nice things about FreedomWorks, in order to convince listeners to send FreedomWorks money that FreedomWorks would then give to Limbaugh and Beck.... The fact that there is a lot of money to be made in acting like Michele Bachmann is part of why the House seems poised to blow up the U.S. economy."
News Ledes
Ada Louise Huxtable. The caption on the pillow beside her: "Ada Louise Huxtable already doesn't like it," from a New Yorker cartoon described in the NYT obituary. Photo via Lee Rosenbaum.New York Times: "Ada Louise Huxtable, who pioneered modern architectural criticism in the pages of The New York Times, celebrating buildings that respected human dignity and civic history -- and memorably scalding those that did not -- died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 91."
CNN: in the opening day today of the preliminary hearing for James Holmes, Aurora, Colorado, police Officer Justin Grizzle testified about the scene he encountered at the theater & his taking victims to the hospital in his police cruiser. Detective Matthew Ingui also testified.
Aqua Buddha, Jr. Newsweek: "Sen. Rand Paul’s 19-year-old son has been arrested for underage drinking. William Hilton Paul was arrested Saturday at North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport following a flight from Kentucky. It is not clear if he was drinking on the plane or on the ground, but he was charged with disorderly conduct at an airport, being intoxicated and disruptive, and consuming alcohol underage." Thanks to a friend for the link.
New York Times: "Bank of America agreed on Monday to pay more than $10 billion to Fannie Mae to settle claims over troubled mortgages that soured during the housing crash, mostly loans issued by the bank's Countrywide Financial subsidiary. Separately, federal regulators reached an $8.5 billion settlement on Monday to resolve claims of foreclosure abuses that included flawed paperwork used in foreclosures and bungled loan modifications by 10 major lenders...."
AP: "Google's executive chairman is starting a visit to North Korea that has prompted controversy and fascination. Eric Schmidt of Google arrived Monday in a country considered to have the world's most restrictive Internet policies. He is part of a delegation that includes former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson." ...
... Reuters Update: "Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt began a controversial private mission to North Korea on Monday that will include an effort to secure the release of an imprisoned American.... Richardson's efforts to seek the release of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American tour guide who was detained last year will mark the latest in a series of high-profile visits over the years to free Americans detained by Pyongyang."
Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will resume her official duties on Monday, five days after being released from a hospital for treatment of a blood clot, the State Department said on Sunday."
AP: "Nearly six months after a bloody rampage in a Colorado movie theater left 12 people dead, prosecutors will go to court Monday to outline their case against the suspect, James Holmes." CW: the mugshot of Holmes, which accompanies the story, could not be creepier.
Reuters: "Pope Benedict on Monday urged the international community to end what he called the endless slaughter in Syria before the entire country became 'a field of ruins.' He made the appeal in particularly strong terms during a yearly "state of the world" address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican."
AP: "China's government is working on reforms to its system of imprisoning people in labor camps without trial, a senior judicial official said Tuesday. The comments were the firmest indication that after years of debate the government is preparing to revise but not abolish the system -- known as 're-education through labor' -- that critics say tramples civil rights and is prone to abuse."
AP: "President Barack Obama has returned to Washington after a winter vacation in Hawaii that was interrupted by the 'fiscal cliff' crisis. Obama arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Sunday morning after an overnight flight."
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Reader Comments (24)
Swiftly I signed the petition to encourage Obama to appoint Krugman as the treasury guy knowing full well it will probably not be heeded. What an awful shame that the Cassandras of our world go unheeded, like those that keep telling us that climate change is REAL and we best stop dicking around about it. But hey, why worry about climate change when various and sundry have more pressing problems like getting more money into the coffers of organizations like Freedom Works in order for those in charge to get more money and the fact that this kind of scam works and they have the freedom to implement it then their organization's name is apt, indeed.
Trickus Dickus.
For those of us who lived through the Imperial Presidency (remember those crazy uniforms he demanded the White House guards wear? They looked like costumes for the royal retinue from the Prisoner of Zenda) and for whom Watergate, the Cambodia bombings, "I AM the president", the Saturday Night Massacre, the Southern Strategy, and the results of his work for HUAC are still fresh as this morning’s razor burn, the commemoration of his centennial elicits two reactions (at least from me).
First, 100 years? Great. What time is the bowl game tonight? Second, Nixon, for all his peccadilloes (if that’s what you can call them) wouldn’t be elected dog catcher in a red state today, never mind president. Hell, he probably wouldn’t be looked at twice as a Democratic presidential candidate. This is how far we’ve been dragged to the brink by the knuckledraggers and a supine, regurgitative, stenographic MSM. And the pull is still in effect.
Just think of it. In spite of all the bad shit, Nixon signed the Clean Air Act. He created the E fucking PA! He imposed price controls to halt economic chaos. Two of his three SCOTUS appointees were reliable liberal votes. One of them wrote the court’s majority opinion in Roe v Wade, fer crissakes.
When the court heard a case involving the rights of gay men to exist and have sex life without being executed or banished to a desert island, this same judge, Harry Blackmun, confronted the lame excuse that homosexuality was a terrible thing because, well, everyone has always said so, with a startlingly clear bit of simple logic: "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.” Too bad no one can get this rationale across to Nino Scalia. Finally, Nixon went to China. Red China. He shook hands with Mao. Yeah, that Mao. AND he did (finally) end our undeclared war in Southeast Asia.
By the most moderate Republican standards (an oxymoron I know…but there are so many other morons on the right, surely there’s room for another one), Nixon, today, would be considered a commie-loving, capitalist-hating socialist, and tree-hugging baby killer.
So the Nixon Centennial reminds me not just of the paranoid megalomaniac who darkened the White House linen from the breakup of the Beatles to the early days of disco but of how vicious demagogues have used Nixon’s nascent connection of religious fundamentalism and right-wing paranoia and resentment to construct an alternate universe of hatred, lies, intellectual dishonesty, and the all powerful Mammon to redirect and redesign the nation in their own terrifying image.
And strangely enough, the guy who made it all possible wouldn’t even get in the front door today. You can say what you want about Nixon; he was a prick but he wasn't an idiot. Now he’d have to go hat in hand to the idiots in order to even get a hearing.
Sock it to me?
About Hamid Karzai's complaints.....
Karzai harping on corruption is like Boehner insisting he would be the most popular guy in his caucus if it weren't for Republicans. Knowing full well that the US created this arrogant prick, Karzai still sets my teeth on edge every time I see him. I suspect any support he has comes from his specific Pashtun clan and all that US money he spreads around. I sincerely hope when we finally exit stage left from Afghanistan, he won't end up in the ultra luxurious US protection and relocation program for "Asswipes in Undeveloped Countries that We Installed."
Marie, your article on Douthat is wonderful ~ how could anyone think that you agree with him? Yikes!
@PDPepe, I also immediately signed the petition to appoint Krugman, who is the only voice of reason on economics. I hope the petition receives the 20,000 it is seeking.
@Akhilleus, finally a clarity about Nixon that has alluded me for years. Yes, I cheered the day he resigned BUT his accomplishments are also worthy of praise. And, you are correct: "Now he’d have to go hat in hand to the idiots in order to even get a hearing."
@Akhilleus. Thanks for that fine, brief appraisal of Tricky Dick's presidency. I once made a comment that Obama was about as left-wing as Richard Nixon & a later commenter corrected me, saying Nixon was to the left to Obama. I think the other commenter was correct. However, I'm wondering if not having to run for re-election might help bring him a little closer to his liberal roots & put him back in Nixon range. We'll find out.
Marie
The Krugman petition is important in as much as its sends a message that many of us want a pivot away from the current foolish groupthink economic policies. I hope it gets many signatures so that message is loud.
The Nixon legacy needs to stand on what he was - the leader of a gang of liers and break-in artists and two-bit dirty tricksters.
I say mint an even dozen of the 12 T coins, or make it a baker's dozen and be done with the debt limit! Each would have a different face of the power elite who run amoke inside the beltway. Boehner, Ryan, McConnel, Cantor, Norquist, Newt, etc. Each to be "circulated" as needed.
Hagel is an arrow-straight shooter and deserves to be confirmed.
Marie,
"...put him back in Nixon range."
Holy Mother! If that isn't a hair raising commentary on how bad things have gotten.
"Well, he's not so bad. If he moves a bit back to his roots he'll only be as bad as Atilla the Hun."
Oh happy day.
Just watching headlines appear: Earlier this morning, in the NYTimes (10:13 am) it was "Bank of America to Pay $10 Billion on Loan Claims" and now at 10:53 am, it's breaking News that "Banks Reach $8.5 Billion settlement with Regulators on foreclosure Abuses" Headline only, no follow-up story yet. What? Does this mean a $1.5 billion reduction for a mere pittance of a 'fine/penalty'? Next we'll be giving them money! Oh, wait. Right! We did that.
This past week, I got on a video-watching tear that included: "Arbitrage", "Margin Call", "Inside Job", and finally "Too Big to Fail" (which I had read). "Too Big To Fail" portrays Paulson, Geithner, etc.n in their 'heroic' efforts to stem the demise in 2008. If the films weren't incensing enough for me...I read (per Cowichan's urging), Matt Tabbi's article in Rolling Stone. More fury! More P.O'ed than ever.
Now come today's headlines. Oh yeah! Business as usual for the big banks. Slappa-ona-de-wrista. Sigh!
In alignment with Marie's excellent NYeXaminer article on Douthat, more comes from Charles Pierce today: "...then there Ross Cardinal Douthat, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese Of Shambala, who assesses the recent fiscal unpleasantness in the Congress, and thanks God, with Whom he shares a Twitter account, for the strong and steady leadership of...John Boehner."
For more: Daily Politics Blog - Charles P. Pierce - Political Blogging - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/#ixzz2HJAZfINb
Diane,
My thinking (ie, hope) is that Karzai, when his days of nepotism, support for drug thugs, backbiting, two-faced dealings, self promotion, and diplomatic snake oil sales are over that he may end up like similar self aggrandized heads of state, Mussolini and Nicolae Ceausescu. A rope or a hail of bullets seem to be the golden parachute these days for puppets and dictators. Hopefully Assad will be mounting the scaffold directly behind him.
On the list of the absurd we need to add the comment from the National Jewish Democratic Council about Chuck Hagel as Sec. of Defense. Hello! The entire responsibility of the any person working for the POTUS is to carry out the orders of the boss. Oh yes, maybe the boss is sending a message by appointing Hagel but if he appointed Netanyahu he would still have to follow the bosses orders.
I'm sorry, am I being to obviously logical.
Akhilleus
Yes. Likewise, I hope that Karzai's countryman are quicker than the rescue helicopter. I really hate that stupid hat/crown he wears too.
Re: Check'er out it's cloth coat; Nice job on Dick; Ak; and I quote;
"You can say what you want about Nixon; he was a prick but he wasn't an idiot." Dick was a thinking dick. (see stats and facts on mens cognitive organ in a brief published here a month or so ago by Ms. Madison)
I loved the palace guard uniforms, reminded me of the Marx Bros. movie that I can't come up with the name of. "To war..."
The list of Dick's accomplishments is impressive for any president. So is his list of underhanded, illegal, and paranoiac actions.
Here's my rub with Dick, and you covered it in your penultimate paragraph. Dick and his advisors devised the divide and conquer Southern Strategy.
In my opinion we are living with the legacy of "Tricky Dick win at any cost" style of national discourse and politics. One of the results being mostly only crooks or thieves run for office. Another is the great mistrust in America today. Both on the left and on the right we the people lose out on productive ideas and policies because of the lack of trust in believing any good comes from the 'other side'.
Finally; Dick had a vicious need to get back at those who crossed him. Our current president seem void of that trait, or hides it well.
I wonder if Obama will show us a little bit of "I'm the president", in the next couple of years?
@JJG. Agree on all counts. One thing I should have written re: Nixon v. Obama, to be fair to Obama, was that Nixon was working with Democratic Congresses, so he hadda kinda do more liberal stuff, whereas Obama has been hamstrung -- even in the first two years -- by an impenetrable line of crazed naysayers in tricorns, bolstered by a rear guard decked out in tinfoil hats. (Isn't it odd Republicans have such a thing for costumes? Remember Chief Justice Renquist with his "HMS Pinafore" robes?)
That reminds me -- I watched "Downtown Abbey" last night & was struck by the fact that much of the plot centered on the fact those ultra-rich Englishmen who dressed for dinner every night had only one suit of each style. Wouldn't you think they would have backups for when the incompetent/conniving help burned holes in their dinnah jackets?
Marie
JJG,
Hey, you read my mind. My initial impulse was to connect the Nixon Royal House Garb with the uniforms in Duck Soup, the Marx Bros movie you're thinking of "...to war, to war, Freedonia's going to war" and "We got guns, they got guns, all god's chillun got guns"...
The Nixon genome sequence would likely have had every other gene linked by the resentment gene, alternating on the strand with a couple of variations of the dirty tricks gene and the win-no-matter-what gene. He really set the GOP agenda for winning at all costs. He felt, like so many right-wingers (Joe McCarthy, anyone?), that they know what's best for the country and it doesn't matter what those stupid voters want. If left to their own devices, they might even ask for terrible things like healthcare and fairness in the tax code and disastrous shit like that. Thus the gravitational pull of dirty tricks leading, like noxious effluence flowing into the sewers, to the modern GOP's favorite sports, Gaming the System, and Stealing Elections. It doesn't matter if it's wrong. Like ol' Trickus himself used to say, "When the president does it, it's not illegal."
This is why the current crop of idiots feels they can lie, cheat, and steal with impunity because they're doing it for the good of the country and for FREEDOM, by Jiminy!
"LOOK! There's Obama cutting himself a blank check, the rat bastard! He'll use all that money to TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY and give them to illegal aliens to murder us!!"
...and like that.
All courtesy of Milhous.
And Marx. (Groucho, that is...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyeKYQdYISg
Watch this and see if you can tell the difference between this and a meeting of the Bush War Cabinet.
Akhilleus
I really think you are piling on ( would you buy a used car from this man/) Trickus Dickus. Although, many of the seeds of the corruption you describe were planted in his administration, they didn't come to flower until Sir Ronald of fantasy land came to office.
Much courage also emerged from that era. Such as Sam Irvins relentless persuit of the Watergate trials and the Attorney Generals refusal to violate his oath of office and resign instead.
The tapes have revealed what a foul mouthed anti-semite he was, more damning, they show what a duplicious , two faced scoundrel Henry Kissinger really was.
Sock it to ME? Damn near forgot Laugh In, thanks for the reminder .
Speaking of more dicks I think this missed Marie's compendium of holiday hilarity. One of those so bad, it's good...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg
Roger,
I'm not sure about the piling on.
I fully agree that Saint Ronald of Reagan nurtured Nixon's Garden of Evil, but the Tricky One planted the seeds. Of course he wasn't the only one active in political skullduggery, but his success, and the idea of a dirty tricks squad must certainly have made the ganglia twitch among right-wing operatives who saw that, although Nixon's gang were largely bumbling crooks, the plans they came up with (character assassination, break-ins to steal information, sending up any number of untrue test balloons to poison the water, etc), if employed by more sophisticated political criminals, could really do some damage.
Reagan put those guys into power but they learned a lot at the smelly feet of Nixon, Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell, Chuck Colson, Donald Segretti, Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, and other assorted assholes. It's not for nothing that the acronym for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) was nicknamed CREEP.
But as far as the evolution into the Modern GOP, you're absolutely right. Reagan tended that garden of weeds well. Today, wingnuts cure those weeds, roll 'em up in Zig-Zags and smoke 'em to the nub.
There is an eye opening article in Advertising Age about Facebook entitled, "Facebook Under Siege: Will It Ever Grow Up?"
http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/facebook-siege-grow/239002/?utm_source=mediaworks&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage
"Despite Facebook's Harvard-dorm-room roots, the company's M.O. is more stubbornly childish than post-collegiate. Think of Facebook as a self-absorbed, petulant brat, one that doesn't understand how to play well with others -- users, investors, partners, competitors. Consider just the latest string of misbehavior:" The article then lists six behaviors that I think are outrageous, including, of course, its ongoing privacy issues. The one that struck me (although did not surprise me) is the way that it avoids paying taxes:
"Facebook is structured so that companies buying advertisements ... anywhere outside of the U.S. have to pay Facebook Ireland. Through a complicated series of maneuvers involving royalty payments and transfers to the Cayman Islands, Facebook Ireland is then able to report a huge loss, "despite it accounting for 44% of the social network's revenues." Per Business Insider's math, that means Facebook paid just $4.64 million on its entire non-U.S. profits of $1.34 billion for 2011 -- an effective tax rate of 0.3%."
I especially liked the article's conclusion:
"But here's something that may surprise you (because time flies; just check your timeline): Facebook isn't exactly a startup anymore. It turns 9 next month (it launched Feb. 4, 2004 as thefacebook.com). And its boy-genius CEO turns 29 in May. I'd say "They grow up so fast!" -- except that sometimes they don't."
Re; Ah, Freedonia; Thanks Ak, I was introduced to the Marx Bros. at all you could smoke parties in my wasted yute. They are stone funny.
Too bad the current crop of funny people are harnessed to Media overlords. On the other paw, can we get better humor, intended or not from a Republickcan press release?
It is already happenin' for poor Chuck Hagel. AIPAC and another right-wing Israeli lobby are pouring it on. If they manage to block his confirmation, I guess we will know how the tide rolls. If not----then Bibi had better hold on to that little thing he thinks with!
This from Slate:
..."In an illustration of what a tough fight lies ahead for the former senator, the Emergency Committee for Israel bought www.chuckhagel.com and has set a website opposing Hagel’s nomination, reports the Hill.
As Akhilleus suggests, Nixon was smack dab in the mainstream of American paranoid politics. Uncertain of his own self and worth, to win, even to survive, he always needed an enemy. First Communism, particularly when he could finger anyone wealthier or better educated than himself like Alger Hiss, where he earned his chops, then when he needed them for his re-birth, he went after civil rights supporters (soft on Negroes, just like they were on Communism, was the implication) and those dirty hippy left leaners who thought Vietnam was the gigantic mistake it was.
While I am grateful to the Nixon administration for some of its accomplishments, particularly the environmentally friendly policies and institutions it helped create, Nixon's primary personal and political legacy survives today in the dirty tricks of Andrew Breitbart's minions, the nasty biliousness of Rush and his imitators, and the pretense to factual reporting presented to the nation by his former political advisor, Roger Ailes on Faux News. They are all lineal descendants, in Ailes case virtually a son, of this contemptible man, and we still feel the nasty effects of each in our politics and lives every day.
I have long suspected the missing 18 minutes on that famous tape contained Richard Milhous' soul.
Reading all these comments about Nixon I want to add a few more:
Nixon’s way of getting certain information out was to convey a strong message to adversaries or whomever by saying something off the record to a reporter that was sure to leak was pure vintage Nixon in form and substance. He was constantly alert as to all his "enemies" and some have said he seemed almost to feel that he functioned best when the world was against him. Such men, almost surely, eventually do get the enemies they so desperately want.
He was the greatest postwar international strategist-president and was simultaneously a grievously dysfunctional executive. His tortured personality created a fractured, twisted executive apparatus that exacerbated his weaknesses and liberated his darkest angels and those of his top staff. In time, he had no devil’s advocates, only his own devils, and they devoured him.
He ran foreign policy out of the WH. He was escalating the war while telling the public otherwise. He was, however, a brilliant strategist.
The other thing I recently learned was that Pat Nixon came from a truly hard-scabble childhood in which she worked terribly hard to keep the family intact. The fact that Nixon praised her publicly, but ignored her privately and that she suffered this kind of abuse in silence is as far as we know the complete opposite of Obama's family situation and that for my money means one hell of a lot when it comes to what kind of leader I 'd like to see run this country.
@ Marie: I, too watched "Downton Abby" and loved every minute of it. Don't you love the old class struggles? And that kitchen––amazing the way it worked.
and speaking of Groucho:
Here's the Horse Feather’s opposition team coined from the famous Marx brother’s classic film, "Horsefeathers" in which Groucho dressed as a judge sings this:
I don’t know what they have to say, It makes no difference anyway, Whatever it is, I’m against it. No matter what it is or who commenced it, I’m against it.
Your proposition may be good,
But let’s have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.
I’m opposed to it,
On general principle, I’m opposed to it…
The refrain from God's Own Party.
To me, this picture of Nixon says almost everything you need to know about him:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=nixon+on+beach&num=10&hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1752&bih=964&tbm=isch&tbnid=Gr-_JhmNCna3YM:&imgrefurl=http://zero-drop.com/%3Fp%3D1149&docid=TP6ELFjYRenU4M&imgurl=http://zero-drop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/nixon-beach.jpg&w=1182&h=1600&ei=qGnrUMGDIoeGiQLllYDoAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=12&vpy=102&dur=943&hovh=256&hovw=190&tx=60&ty=143&sig=108854123098166134145&page=1&tbnh=141&tbnw=106&start=0&ndsp=64&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:90