From the monthly archives: April 2009

Quote of the Day: Larison on Krauthammer

by Metavirus on 10 April 2009

So true:

[Obama's critics, such as Charles Krauthammer,] seem to think that the hard work of rebuilding America’s reputation in the world, a reputation that the very same critics and their confreres spent years dousing in gasoline and setting on fire, yields instant gratification, as if repairing frayed relations and coordinating international policies could have overnight results.

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A Primer on Teabagging from Rachel Maddow

by Metavirus on 10 April 2009

If you’ve been curious about the rightwing media outfit paid promotional events teabagging craze sweeping Fox News and the Republican Party right now, Rachel Maddow gives you a hilarious primer:


Update: In case you’re wondering what the actual, you know, “agenda” of these brave teabaggers might be, consider this excerpt from a Glenn Beck 912 Project Tea Party today:
Woman: [Shouts] “Burn the books!” [applause]

Man: “I don’t think you were serious about that, were you?”

Woman: “I am too.”

Man: “Burn all the books?!”

Woman: “The ones in college, those, those brainwashing books.”

Man: “[laughs] Brainwashing books?”

Woman: “Yes.”

Man: “Which ones are those?”

Woman: “Like, the evolution crap, and, yeah…”

I cower in fear of their imminently persuasive arguments. It sounds like William Jennings Bryant had a great-granddaughter…

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GOP’s Neo-Hooverism Has Morphed into Neo-McCarthyism

by Metavirus on 10 April 2009

Well, they tried a new version of Hooverism so they might as well try out some nouveau McCarthyism as well:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) puts the number of socialists in the House at 17.

“Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists,” Bachus told local government leaders on Thursday, according to the Birmingham News.

Bachus gave the specific number of House socialists when pressed later by a reporter.

BarbinMD helpfully transposes these sentiments into a transcript of Fightin’ Joe McCarthy, who gave us one of the proudest moments in our nation’s history:
The State Department House is infested with communists socialists. I have here in my hand a list of 205 17 — a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State me as being members of the Communist Socialist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department Congress.
One can only hope that Rep. Michele Bachmann gets her wish and is able to empanel a new version of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Remember this gem from Chris Matthews back in ’08?

Matthews: How many Congresspeople you serve with — I mean, there’s 435 members of Congress —

Bachmann: — well right now –

Matthews: — how many are anti-American in that Congress right now that you serve with?

Bachmann: You’d have to ask them, Chris, I’m focusing on Barack Obama and the people he’s been associated with –

Matthews: But do you suspect that a lot of the people you serve with –

Bachmann: — and I’m very worried about their anti-American nature.

Matthews: Well, he’s the United States Senator from Illinois, he’s one of the people you suspect as being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You’ve already suspected Barack Obama. Is he alone, or are there others?

Bachmann: [Deer in the headlights]

Matthews: How many do you suspect of your colleagues do you suspect of being anti-American?

Bachmann: I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look — I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

Don’t you get it, people? If you agree with the wingnut fringe of the GOP, you’re a good, patriotic American.

If you disagree with any tenet of their rigid, unyielding conservative dogma, you’re an unpatriotic, America-hating traitor that needs to be exposed, shamed and investigated.

They are right, you are wrong. It’s all black and white to these people: evil vs. good, patriotism vs. treason, tax cuts vs. communism, gay marriage vs. armageddon, abstinence vs. unchecked polygamous sodomy… Anything outside of the orthodox liturgy is heresy.

Just submit to what your betters tell you to think… Just OBEY! and we will fight these Godless communist terrorists for you…

It’s pretty much that simple.

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Dark Storm Gathering – Showers of Men Expected

by Metavirus on 10 April 2009

Weather Alert: Late Afternoon: A significant chance of man-showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 61. North wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation resulting from gathering gay marriage stormfront blowing in from San Francisco is 100%.

Sometimes the parodies just write themselves:*


* In case you missed the shameful source material, go here to read up on it.
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Quote of the Day: CNBC Caller on Rich Lowry

by Metavirus on 9 April 2009

Oh wow, today is a very good day for the part of my spirit that enjoys GOP nonsense-peddlers getting smacked down.

Here’s a quote from a caller to a CNBC program that had on Rich Lowry, an unabashed neocon who cheerleaded the Iraq War and continues to try to drum up support for invading Iran:

CALLER: I would like to know why, if you had a car, ma’am, and it broke down and you took it to your dealer and it kept breaking down, and breaking down. Wouldn’t you change dealers? Why do you keep bringing these neocons on? […] This failed! …And you keep on bringing on failed policy. […] I would like you to tell me why we are still using this car dealer who has failed America.
Just friggin awesome…

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Lawrence O’Donnell Delivers the Smackdown to Pat Buchanan

by Metavirus on 9 April 2009

You just have to watch this to appreciate it:



O’Donnell’s premise is pretty unassailable. He points out that, unlike the howls of protest now greeting President Obama due to his pro-choice stance, President Bush — who ordered the deaths of people via the death penalty, ventured into a war of choice in Iraq against the pleas of the Pope, and signed off on the torture of countless detainees — was welcomed to speak at Notre Dame without a peep of protest from the Catholic hierarchy. For the first time I can remember, Pat Buchanan is caught with his pants down. Liberals really seem to be feeling their oats right about now…

Update: Here’s a little bit of grist for the mill on the topic of the Catholic Church’s varying positions on abortion over time:

Many religions, including many denominations within Christianity, have adopted the general principle that abortion is a form of murder if it is performed at or after the time that a soul enters the body of an embryo or fetus. Down through the ages, beliefs varied about when this “animation” happened.

Various church authorities and popes placed the time at:

  • At a specific time into pregnancy (40 days, 80 days, 116 days), or
  • Quickening (when the woman first feels the fetus move), or
  • At conception.
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Cries of SOCIALISM! by GOP Make Americans Like Socialism

by Metavirus on 9 April 2009

If this take on a recent Rasmussen poll is correct, all I can do is break out into hysterical fits of laughter:

A somewhat surprising poll was just released showing that only 53% of Americans “believe capitalism is better than socialism.” Amongst the under-thirty set, the two enjoy almost equal support, 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided…

I see this poll as even more evidence of how widespread the American people’s rejection of conservative values has become. Ever since Sarah Palin ceased to be an attractive-but-unknown face from Alaska, conservatives have railed against any attempt to use government spending to mitigate the present economic downturn, labeling it “Socialism!” The alternative, they say, is to double-down on George W. Bush’s policies, cut taxes on the super-rich, and rely on the invisible hand of the market to make everything all better again.

In other words, the American people have been subjected to a months-long campaign which defines President Obama’s popular policies to improve the economy as “socialism,” and George W. Bush’s disastrous policies as “not socialism.” Is it any shock, then, that many Americans no longer find the word “socialism” very scary?

Here’s Digby’s take:

When the McCain Palin people started blathering on about Obama being a socialist I wondered whether it would blow back on the conservatives. After all, only old people like me, who grew up during the cold war, still have that reflexive freakout over the word. Young people just see it as another political ideology.

So, when the rightwingers went nuts and started calling this very popular young president a socialist, rather than tarring him with an unpopular label, they ended up validating socialism by applying it to a popular, mainstream politician.

So the ever-so-crafty Republican plan to basically slander Obama as a dirty pinko commie is backfiring to such an extent that Americans are becoming more accepting of socialism!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!*

Is there anything these numbnuts in the GOP can’t fuck up?

* As a disclaimer, I do not in any way endorse socialism/communism/fascism/NancyGraceism/etc. Ongoing ownership by the government of the means of production is a bad thing (and is not something we’re headed toward – notwithstanding Beck, Malkin and NRO’s protestations to the contrary).

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