Ben Shapiro has figured out what Mittens Romney needs to do in order to win the Republican nomination:
He needs to muss his hair, don a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, grab a photographer and go dig a hole somewhere.
We suggest digging a hole to the 21st century.
Ben graduated from UCLA and Harvard Law School. No, really.
Gavin adds: One title would be ‘Ben Gay.’
The pearls-o-wisdom keep on comin’:
So, Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed John McCain. He extolled McCain for “reach[ing] across the political aisle to get things done.”
We’ll hear that annoying platitude a bazillion and one times through Super Tuesday and beyond.
To which I say: When did it become the Republican Party’s top priority to “get things done?”
“The Republican Party: Vote for us so we can sit on our fat asses and get rich off of kickbacks and slush funds.”
If that ain’t bumper sticker material, I don’t know what is.
UPDATE: Two prime LOLs in the comments.
One:
‘Vote Republican. You can wreck a country in 8 years, but it takes 12 years to kill it’
Two:
The Republican Party - “When we’re not drowning Government in the bath tub, we wear our diapers out to the airport and have sex with random men!”
Dear Dr. Atrios. I have a good Wanker of the Day nominee for you. His name is Jake Tapper and he’s (tragically) a senior national correspondent at ABC. He’s also apparently illiterate. Check it:
Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday.
In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.” At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? “Slow down our economy”? I don’t really think there’s much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?
He went on to say that his the U.S. — and those countries that have committed to reducing greenhouse gases — could ultimately increase jobs and raise wages with a good energy plan. So there was something of a contradiction there. Or perhaps he mis-spoke. Or perhaps this characterization was a description of what would happen if there isn’t a worldwide effort…I’m noquite certain.
Or perhaps you should actually read the entire goddamn statement that you posted on your own freaking blog (my emphasis):
“Everybody knows that global warming is real,” Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, “but we cannot solve it alone.”
“And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.
“But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.
How much clearer could this be? Clinton actually said that it would be unwise to slow down our economy as a method of combating global warming, if for no other reason than developing countries would be unlikely to follow our lead. He said that the better way to go about it would be in creating alternative fuels that could create a more sustainable economy.
Are major political reporters in this country honestly this stupid? Aren’t they embarrassed to be publishing this crap? When even the very dim bulbs at the Corner call you out on stuff like this, you know you’ve really stepped in it.
UPDATE: Oh for God’s sake:
Wow, I hardly know how to take this. This morning, trying to understand what former President Bill Clinton was driving at when he made a statement about effort to combat global warming, I posted a quote of his, put it in context, provided video links, and asked what he meant.
It was perfectly clear what he meant, doofus: he said it wouldn’t be smart to slow down our economy to stop global warming. Even the insane folks at the National Review understand this.
The Clinton campaign did not provide for me, as requested, an explanation of what he meant.
Because they mistakenly assumed you had reading comprehension skills beyond the third-grade level, they probably didn’t see why they had to.
Instead, the response from the Clinton campaign is to post an item on its “fact” hub and accuse me of “parsing.”
I will plead guilty to “parsing” — the dictionary definition of the word — “To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components” or “To make sense of; comprehend.”
But I suspect the Clinton campaign thinks of the word “parsing” in its more colloquial sense — as in “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
I guess I should defer to their expertise. Apologies for taking a confusing public comment from a former president about a major world issue and trying to make sense of it.
No, you should apologize for taking what was an absurdly clear statement and intentionally mucking it up just to draw the oh-so-coveted Drudge Report traffic to your page. You should also apologize for giving the Republicans yet another set of bogus “Al-Gore-said-he-invented-the-Internet!!!11!!1!” talking points to use against Democratic candidates, which you dutifully reprinted on your blog shortly after they were posted.
Wowsers. Just say sorry and stop embarrassing yourself, buddy.
Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.
At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan. […]
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments. Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 — the lowest rate on record — the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006.
The only thing I’ll add is this: we don’t treat mental health in this country nearly as seriously as we should.
*Yeah, I know the column is really titled “A Matchup Starts to Take Shape,” but “It Could Be McCain vs. Obama” is how it was billed on WaPo’s front page and it suits the shorter’s comedic purposes better.
It seems that eventually politics gravitates towards the liberal side of the aisle. I think it’s because in our society there are so many rewards for thinking like a Democrat–mainly because of the media–and coming up with liberal solutions to problems, and so few rewards for being in the conservative camp.
Nope, there are no rewards for being in the conservative camp. None at all. Really, what could be less lucrative than being a conservative?
Above: Self-representation of The Anchoress
Carey “I love you Marie Antoinette” Roberts hears that the American Heart Association is organizing a National Wear Red Day whose goal, according to the AHA, is this:
By wearing red and making a donation, you’ll help the American Heart Association support ongoing research and education about women and heart disease.
Which, if you’re Carey, prompts you to pose the following questions:
1. Why does the Heart Association want to deprive aging women of the main source of their financial support?
2. Why does the AHA want to send more elderly women to nursing homes?
So there you have it. Want more? Wondering, where’s the beef loony? On your marks:
Ladies, when was the last time you visited a nursing home? Did you wonder why nearly all the residents were women? The reason is simple — men meet their maker 5 years sooner than the fairer sex.
Set:
A few years ago Dr. Verbrugge did a study on elderly women[.]
GO!
She found that compared to their married counterparts, single elderly women are four times more likely to end up in a nursing home. Which means after your husband dies of heart disease, you are four times more likely to be removed from your home and taken to an institutional setting[.]
Yes, if you’re a single elderly woman whose husband dies of heart disease, you’re gonna end up in a nursing home.
It seems we’ve lured Andrew Longman over here after we ridiculed his lunatic post in Wingnut Daily on CFL bulbs. And he dropped by not once, but twice.
In our original post we said that Andrew Longman, the author of the Wingnut Daily piece, had also invented a system to use cell phones to detect nuclear bombs. Several days later we got an email from someone named Andrew Longman who said that he is the inventor of the cell phone system, and that he is not the author of the Wingnut Daily article. That emailer then asked us to remove the entire post to avoid the confusion. Instead, we deleted references to the cell phone invention, since if indeed this inventor was a different Andrew Longman, it’s easy to understand his not wanting to be associated with the Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman. For reasons that will become obvious below, we’ve returned our reference to the cell phone system to the original post.
Not long afterwards, an “Andrew L” posts a long, and ridiculous, reply in the comments section to the CFL bulb post. The Andrew L in the comments refers to the Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman in the third person and purports to be someone else defending Andrew Longman’s thesis. Yet “Andrew L” adopts many of the same arguments that the Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman made, including the bit about the feminine emotional thinking of squishy liberals and the manly logical thinking of real scientists. That is suspicious, of course, but not conclusive.
Gavin adds:
Above: Clif starts walking away, then turns around again
Except for one thing.
Both the email and the comment originated from the same Purdue University IP address. And Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman has posted a bio which says that he has two degrees from . . . you guessed it . . . Purdue.
Now, it is, after all, remotely possible that there are three different Andrew Longmans at Purdue (the inventor, the commenter, and the author) and that they all just happen to be using the same IP address. But if the inventor Andrew Longman isn’t the Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman, then why did the inventor want us to delete the entire post and not just the reference to his invention? And if commenter Andrew L and Wingnut Daily Andrew Longman are different folks at Purdue, there seems to be no reason why the commenter would feel compelled to post such a long comment defending a post by the, er, “other” Longman. Looks like we have a little Fumento-esque sock puppetry from Mr. Longman, who apparently is unaware that we can figure out his IP address. So let’s have some fun with Andrew Longman’s sock puppetry shall we?
Gavin adds: You know, life’s short, and I haven’t been able to grasp what he’s trying to accomplish here without paying that most precious of tithes (i.e. attention), but the argument seems to be like this: If you take the highest estimates of Hezbollah fighters killed, and pair them with the lowest estimates of civilian casualties, you end up with only about half, and not exactly ‘most’ of the casualties being civilians. …In direct contradiction to an AFP wire story that clearly says ‘most.’ If I got that right, he’s even more loop-the-loopy than we suspected.
Brad responds: Yes, that’s exactly his point. Now you see why I try to avoid reading him whenever possible. I don’t know how you have strength to do this on a regular basis.
Gavin explains: I keep trying to pick up more constructive hobbies, like that bottle cap collection I was nurturing for awhile — and I’m talking two (count-’em, two) VG++ Figgy Fizz caps. But really, nothing seems to stick.
UPDATE: Oh man, this old interview with Sr. Yanqui in the Washington Post is too hilarious to pass up:
What one issue do you think readers should be most concerned about, and what’s your position on that issue?
The most pressing issue for the world right now should be Iran’s apparent goal of acquiring nuclear warheads. I sincerely hope that diplomatic pressure brought to bear against the Iranian regime will work, but at this present time, that does not appear to be in the cards. Iran appears intent on triggering a war. Whether it is a nuclear war or not depends on how fast we act.
I think he left something out of there. He should have said, “Iran appears intent on triggering a war that I think the United States should launch NOW, NOW, NOW!!!”
Y’know, there are days when I wish the Republicans would heed Michelle Malkin’s advice, if only to ensure a resounding and humiliating defeat in the 2008 elections. Michelle seems to think the GOP can take back Congress and hold onto the White House by telling voters to go eff themselves. Sure, waving a giant middle finger at your own citizens is a rather novel and untested way of getting them to vote for you, but Michelle really seems to think there’s a large constituency of Americans out there who like it when their government tells them to go screw. Check this out:
Who says bipartisanship is dead? From President Bush to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, to Mitt Romney and John McCain, virtually everyone in Washington agrees: The government must Do Something to stop home foreclosures across the country. These leaders agree on the total presumption of homeowner innocence. The borrower-as-victim and lender-as-predator storylines are etched in stone. Can’t let reality get in the way of election-year pander-monium.
Special guests at the State of the Union address are usually extraordinary heroes, entrepreneurs or citizens who’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty. On Monday night, one of those guests was an Indiana woman whose claim to fame is that she called a 1-800 number and was assisted by the “Hope Now Alliance,” a group Bush convened, which, according to him, “is helping many struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.”
Subprime victims are the new heroes. Welcome to the politics of foreclosure.
This is terrific stuff, Republicans. I encourage you to base your entire 2008 campaign on lustily attacking people who have lost their homes. And heck, if you guys started publicly condemning the families of 12-year-old car-crash victims, you’d have the election wrapped up by May! Go, GOP! Follow Michelle’s playbook!
If you want to know how well Bush did with something involving coordinated movement, speech, human metabolic processes, or any of his other challenges, go check Assrocket — that’s what I always say.
Mr. John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog (and the Claremont Institute) places his fingers ponderingly on his chin, nips his pen cap between his teeth, and emits wisdom:
State of the Union, Origins of the Surge
I missed President Bush’s State of the Union speech tonight; we tuned in just in time to see Chuck Schumer standing and applauding.
This is like if you ran into Christopher Hitchens on the street, and Hitchens was like, “I forgot to have a drink this afternoon, but I nipped into a bar just in time for the 10-cent Buffalo wings.” You’re inclined to believe him just because it’s so slappingly unlikely. Goebbels knew all about this human tendency. Regardless, I genuinely think we’re learning something here.
By then the speech was about over, but even the last five minutes were a useful reminder of the President’s power, even in the last year of his administration.
I.e., Bush said various things, and audience members, at times, stood up and applauded as though they knew they were being watched and judged on national television by voters and tee-vee pundits — proving that unlike Obama and Hillary, Bush is in fact president, as opposed to not-president. He is, as a pure fact-on-the-ground, special in that way. Proving his specialness, et seq.
We didn’t live blog the speech tonight, but a number of our readers did, here. Their running commentary (including some by a handful of liberals) gives a pretty good sense of the evening.
I feel a bit guilty, by the way, because a number of referrals tonight came from Google searches on “live blog the state of the union.” I trust that those Googlers figured out they had linked to another year’s speech.
Unfair, because what about all those Googlers searching for ‘dude shooting a rocket out of his ass?’ Also, no quotes means false-positive results on possible Powerline phrases, “I live in a hell of my own making,” “2004 blog of the year!” “the state of my penis is quite more detumescent these days than before, actually,” “beauty contests such as the Miss America pageant are the pinnacle of the lively arts, circa 2008 AD,” and “I’m hip to the popular music: Like, oh, what’s that song the kids were listening to awhile ago? The telegram force and ready, the fine line drawing? The union of the snake, it’s on the climb?”
If you’re looking for an alternative to SOTU commentary, check out Fred Barnes’ cover story in this week’s Weekly Standard: “How Bush Decided on the Surge.” It’s a riveting account of what was probably the most important decision of Bush’s eight years. Here is the conclusion:
Verdict: Bush flopped like a floppy flopping-thing, and was not Hindy’s champion and personal Stretch Armstrong toy last night. There was teeth-gritting and muttering, soul-searching, even. Shallow, shallow soul-searching of the papery-thin Powerline kind.
The 20-minute speech on January 10, 2007, was not Bush’s most eloquent. And it wasn’t greeted with applause. Democrats condemned the surge and Republicans were mostly silent. Polls showing strong public opposition to the war in Iraq were unaffected.But the president, as best I could tell, wasn’t looking for affirmation. He was focused solely on victory in Iraq. The surge may achieve that. And if it does, Bush’s decision to spurn public opinion and the pressure of politics and intensify the war in Iraq will surely be regarded as the greatest of his presidency.
It’s fascinating stuff; check it out.
Translation: Bush sucks and everyone, in some measure, knows it. His hat is hung on a bendy-straw. This, since other casuistries are unavailable, must certainly be Bush’s very strength: Sucking. Plus, of course, any program or idea that isn’t currently destroyed, on fire, or leaking toxic spew. E.g., the surge.
A fitting end for their kind — if their kind ever gave up, which they totally freaking don’t.
Lord, please save us from the Quiet Americans. They are entirely too loud.
UPDATE: Oh lord, the wanking — it never stops:
Both Matthew Yglesias and The Nation’s Ari Berman are appalled at two of the endorsements contained in our “TNR Primary;” those of liberal intellectual Paul Berman and law professor Alan Dershowitz, both of whom endorsed Hillary Clinton. […]
Yglesias, as per usual, doesn’t have anything to offer other than snide remarks, referring to “Paul ‘al-Qaeda is totalitarian so we should fight it by invading Iraq’ Berman” and “Alan ‘everyone who disagrees with me is an anti-Semite’ Dershowitz.” These penetrating insights from the namesake of the laughably titled, “Yglesias Award,” bestowed upon individuals “who actually criticize their own side, make enemies among political allies, and generally risk something for the sake of saying what they believe.” This is actually a fitting descriptor for men like John McCain, Paul Berman and Alan Dershowitz.
Heaven knows where the Left’s moral compass would turn if we didn’t have Alan Dershowitz around to tell us how we should embrace torture. Clearly, his is a profile in noble contrarian courage.
Stimulation-palooza: Why are we extending unemployment benefits?
Shorter Phyllis Schlafly: Only commies and traitors could disagree with some guy’s research vindicating Joe McCarthy.
Shorter Doug Wilson: The fact of the matter is, freedom will die if President Bush’s tax cuts are allowed to expire.
Shorter Star Parker: Upon closer analysis, Fred Thompson’s campaign failed because he just wasn’t conservative enough.
Shorter Matthew Ladner: We’d have better graduates and fewer dropouts if we made students pay their own damn tuition.
Shorter Amy Ridenour: Class-action lawsuit websites are destroying patients’ confidence in their prescription drugs; also, a lot may depend on what the definition of “safe” is.
Shorter Kathryn Jean Lopez: Sure, Barack Obama is charming, but he’s still a baby killer.
Shorter Frank Gaffney: Right-wing Democrats are becoming scarce, with the result being the impoverishment of our politics.
Shorter Dinesh D’Souza: Bush so did not lie, you liars!
Shorter Bert Prelutsky: Back in my day, movies didn’t show homo buttfucking.
Shorter Carol Platt Liebau: All things being equal, I’d rather the Republican nominee be a total asshole.
Shorter Rich Galen: I don’t approve of racial politics, but as a Republican, I’m happy about the South Carolina Democratic Primary.
Shorter Suzanne Fields: Clintons aren’t human beings; they are animals.
