Sep
30
30
Not To Be A TOTAL Downer, But …
The first of the month is roughly 24 hours away. How many employers won’t make payroll? This shit is getting serious, folks. I’m screwed if I don’t get paid. How about you?
Sep
29
29
There must be blood
Were I to structure a rescue package for the economy, it would involve locking up the CEOs of failed financial firms in pillory stocks and letting Americans hurl rotten vegetables and feces at them for $20 a pop. Assuming all 300 million Americans hurl an average of five tomatoes/crap balls at their least favorite corporate execs, that would raise a total of $300 billion, or nearly half of the money needed to buy up worthless assets. This way, the typical voter could at least get some schadenfreude in exchange for their trouble. I call this the Brad Righteously Pissed-Off Revenge Act of 2008. I think it’s a winner.
UPDATE: Because I can’t do basic arithmetic, I missed a zero somewhere. In other words, my bailout plan would raise only $30 billion.
Jesus Christ, it’s going to take a lot of cash to bail out Big Shitpile. Perhaps after Americans are done with the execs we could take them on a tour of China?
Sep
29
29
House says “EAT ME!” to teh Fail Out Package
Oh hey look, we still live in a democracy:
House Narrowly Defeats Bailout Legislation
In a narrow vote, the House today rejected the most sweeping government intervention into the nation’s financial markets since the Great Depression, refusing to grant the Treasury Department the power to purchase up to $700 billion in the troubled assets that are at the heart of the U.S. financial crisis.
The 228-205 vote amounted to a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., and was sure to sow massive anxiety in world markets. Just 11 days ago, Paulson urged congressional leaders to urgently approve the bailout. He warned that inaction would lead to a seizure of credit markets and a virtual halt to the lending that allows Americans to acquire mortgages and other types of loans.
Memo to Congress: the American people may be dumb as rocks a lot of the time, but even they know that using $700 billion to purchase worthless assets is a bad, bad idea. Smarter alternatives exist. Explore them.
Sep
29
29
You Suck
Roy, watching the debate and noting that its somewhat open format gives both candidates “an opportunity for endless filibustering, especially on matters like the Wall Street bailout where both… are more interested in misdirecting our attention from the massive heist their parties are about to engineer than in explaining the situation,” concludes, appositely, that “[t]his country’s fucked.” I concur.
Really, with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Oh, I know — and I’m sure someone will be along shortly to remind me — that I’m an asshole, can’t be pleased, am boringly leftwing, and don’t I know about Hope? and Change? But before someone accuses me of being a crypto-Greenie, and thus being a rank rodent from the get-go, just waiting for any excuse to jump from the good ship Democrat, deluding myself that it has wrecked on the Cape of False Hope (because guided by the starry-eyed?) when anyone can see that it’s a smooth sail until port in November, lemme just say again that I’m still gonna vote for the fucker. (However, to conclude the out of control — and admittedly trite — nautical metaphor, I do plan on jumping ship immediately after it docks, and then doing my best to sink the heap unless a major retrofit and crew change is undertaken.)
But that vote is getting harder and harder to cast. I anticipated having to hold my nose at the ballot box, but a hazmat suit now seems more in order:
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — U.S. presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama each deserve credit for a breakthrough in talks on a $700 billion plan to revive the credit markets, their advisers said today.
And:
Mr. Obama, too, went from offering broad critiques of the proposal, and general outlines for changes, to calling Mr. McCain on Wednesday with the idea that they could present a united front on the issue, laying out the areas of common ground on a way forward. (Both have called for greater oversight and for assurances that taxpayer dollars not be used to enrich executives, among other provisions.)
And:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama on Sunday tentatively supported the $700 billion plan to bail out the U.S. financial system.
“This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with,” McCain said on ABC’s “This Week.” “The option of doing nothing is simply not an acceptable option.”
“My inclination is to support it,” said Obama, his Democratic rival in the November 4 U.S. presidential election.
[...]
Both candidates refused to be pinned down on the economic plan during their first presidential debate on Friday. By Sunday, with a tentative deal in place, each gave general support with comments that the taxpayers had to be protected.
Later at a rally in Detroit, Obama called the bailout an “outrage.” “But we have no choice,” he said in prepared remarks. “We must act now. Because now that we’re in this situation, your jobs, your life savings and the stability of our entire economy are at risk.”
Supporters tried to play up their candidate’s roles.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told “Fox News Sunday” said Arizona Sen. McCain played a “decisive” role in getting balky House Republicans to focus on negotiating a compromise. McCain cut his campaign short last week to return to Washington to deal with the crisis at a White House meeting.
But Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts told the same program it was Obama who took the lead at that meeting while McCain remained silent.
They’re actually fighting over who gets credit for it. But then what else is ‘Unity’ and post-partisanship about? Aside the obvious ego and careerist jostling over who did the right [wrong] thing, it’s all such quintessential American bullshit: in times of crisis, close ranks, wave the flag, [re]sell your soul to Mammon (by selling out your countrymen), be fucking stupid:
This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem – this is an American problem. Now, we must find an American solution,” said Senator Barack Obama.
Riiight. The partisan blame-game, a superficial and short-term exercise, can indeed be a part of ‘Unity’ and kissy-kissy bi-partisanship, which is the substantial and ongoing project. It’s all in an American politico’s day’s work — and what work! This latest is nothing less than the hugest corporate welfare bill in the history of the universe.
I can’t help but think, in light of what American leaders like Mr. Hopey, who are allegedly reliable liberals, have done (and are doing) for ‘love of country’, if it wouldn’t be better for some (Democrats at least) to abandon their patriotism and adopt Disraeli’s hierarchy of party over country. Maybe then they actually could do America some good. But, nooooo. Even if I could excuse Hopey’s latest excusion in moral and political FAIL on the grounds that he’s trying to court independents (who are always assumed to be deeply conservative if not reactionary, and in this case specifically assumed to be investment bankers and their admirers), then there’s the problem of the Congressional Democratic Leadership, which should be twice shy when George Bush says there’s a crisis and demands instant action and a blank check. But, again, noooo:
Convincing their colleagues to back the plan despite thousands of angry phone calls, e-mails and letters pouring in from angry constituents proved a tall order for leaders in both parties.
“Now we have to get the votes,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the majority leader. He said the measure could pass the Senate as early as Wednesday.
[...]
Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he was inclined to oppose the bill. But he added: “A lot of people are going to hold their nose and vote for it, because they’ve been put in a bad position and they don’t have any other option.”
Leaders in both parties were scrambling to put the most positive face on the deeply unpopular plan. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. said it wasn’t a bailout but a “buy-in” for taxpayers to rescue the economy.
Still, lawmakers in both parties who are facing re-election were nervous about embracing such a costly plan proposed by a deeply unpopular president that would benefit perhaps the most publicly detested of all: companies that got rich off bad bets.
Not nervous enough. Obviously, we have one last chance to exert some pressure. I suggest we do it. Again. I plan on calling Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Pryor, and Mr. Berry first thing in the morning. I ask that you call your Congresspeeps, too. If the bill passes anyway, then we start thinking about pitchforks and torches, ‘Tilden or blood,’ and building a new Bonus Army camp on Wall Street (where we’ll exchange recipes, my favorite being spit-roasted government-teat-suckled kleptocrat). In for 70 trillion pennies, in for extracting several pounds of the… umm, corporate structure, as it were.
Seriously, though, that Congress could even be thinking about giving 700$ billion to the wealthy criminal class just shows how deeply to heart both parties have taken the philosophy of “socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.” Obama had enough presence of mind during the debate to mention how trickle down economics doesn’t work, yet… that’s exactly what this bailout is all about, and he and his party are going along with it: throwing money at people like this, horrible people who should be set on fire and then maybe or maybe not extinguished with fresh urine, and hoping that the benefits will in turn trickle-down to people like this, the decent if understandably pissed-off people who’ve repeatedly been pissed-on even when the economy was supposedly “great.” The Congressional Democrats (and maybe even quasi-Populist Republicans) could, at minimum, throw a legislative monkey-wrench into what amounts to the latest and greatest Business Plot, but being strategic reactionaries when it would actually benefit their constituencies really isn’t their bag (on the other hand, when the initiative is, say, the potential impeachment of war criminals, they are pleased to respond with an instant and adamant “No!”). Though alternatives to the bill exist there’s really no need to hurry (hence George Bush’s and Paulson’s insistence that everyone act now before it’s too late!!1!); yet, rushing headlong is exactly what they are doing, closing their ears to the sound of millions of Ackbars yelling, “it’s a trap!”
What the dirtbags want is pretty obvious even to retards like me. This WSJ article from relatively early in the “crisis” hints heavily at what the malefactors of great wealth expect from their prostitutes in government who, perversely, pay to get fucked:
In such circumstances, governments almost invariably experiment with solutions with varying degrees of success. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt unleashed an alphabet soup of new agencies and a host of new regulations in the aftermath of the market crash of 1929. In the 1990s, Japan embarked on a decade of often-wasteful government spending to counter the aftereffects of a bursting bubble. President George H.W. Bush and Congress created the Resolution Trust Corp. to take and sell the assets of failed thrifts. Hong Kong’s free-market government went on a massive stock-buying spree in 1998, buying up shares of every company listed in the benchmark Hang Seng index. It ended up packaging them into an exchange-traded fund and making money.
Plainly, they loathe remedies one and two, are neutral on three, but favor with finality the fourth solution, Hong Kong’s — unsurprisingly, as it is the best means to implement their longtime inverse Robin Hood strategy of stealing from the poor to give to the rich (i.e., themselves). But then as good social Darwinists (aka libertarians), it’s only natural that they feel they deserve a second or third or eleventieth chance when the stakes are billions of dollars; it’s the little people who should perish after a first “bad decision.”
So much for the “philosophical” and personal reasons behind the dirtbags’ desire for the bailout, now to address the political calculus. Thom Hartmann cuts it to the quick:
For Grover “Drown Government In The Bathtub” Norquist, this bailout deal will work out very well. At a proposed cost of $4,780 per taxpayer, it’ll further the David Stockman strategy of so indebting us that the next president won’t have the luxury of even thinking of new social spending (expanding health care, social security, education, infrastructure, etc.); taxes will even have to be raised just to pay for the bailout. It’ll debase our currency, driving up commodity prices and interest rates, which will benefit the Investor Class while further impoverishing the pesky Middle Class, rendering them less prone to protest (because they’re so busy working trying to pay off their debt). It’ll create stagflation for at least the next half decade, which can be blamed on Democrats who currently control Congress and, should Obama be elected, be blamed on him.
Bingo.
A more leftwing Congress and presidential candidate would reject this bailout because it’s the morally and ideologically decent thing to do. But beyond that it’s also the most politically conscious (in the sense of the politician’s first instinct: self-preservation in the form of re-election) thing to do. Alas, this candidate is a Clintonoid centrist and serial triangulator, as is the Congress. And they are falling into the trap just like their role model did. Obama is personally appealing, as was Bill; perhaps that will be enough to save him if not us (as for the Congress, forget it; 2012 is the next 1994). A while back, Zizek observed:
In the UK, the Thatcher revolution was, at the time, chaotic and impulsive, marked by unpredictable contingencies. It was Tony Blair who was able to institutionalise it, or, in Hegel’s terms, to raise (what first appeared as) a contingency, a historical accident, into a necessity. Thatcher wasn’t a Thatcherite, she was merely herself; it was Blair (more than Major) who truly gave form to Thatcherism.
The parallels are obvious: Reagan=Thatcher, Clinton=Blair; Obama’s well on his way to being Clinton II, institutionalizing Bushism, W. himself being a more bugfucky version of Reagan. Imagine the whole country and its historical trajectory as JFK’s exploding head: back, and the to right; back, and to the right. Overton Window. You know the litany. Yeah, blah blah blah: but it’s the fucking truth.
Give the Republicans, specifically Bush, credit for doubling-down on the evilness factor, going like Mr. Burns from everyday villainy to cartoonish super-villainy: they were worried that the trillion-dollar war wasn’t enough to hamstring the next president, thus the acte gratuit of demanding an extra 700$ billion of a Congress eager to please. As for me, I take a sort of solace in the symmetry of it all. Even after the Emperor had exhibited the beginnings of the cruel tyrannies which would eventually make his reign infamous, the Roman Senate offered to give Tiberius blanket approval to his all future proposals. At the time, still human enough to be horrified at the principle and leery of the precedent of it, he said no. But of course eventually he acted as if he’d said yes. Plainly the U.S. Congress has their historical analog, and George Bush has his. Most of the especially awful Roman Emperors left empty treasuries and heavy debts, which forced their heirs into doing more awful things to replenish the coffers which in turn they’d inevitably squander and… the trajectory is obvious. The heavens fall. I know it’s a very Glibertarian thing to fantasize about the apocalypse, but I can’t help myself. First thing I’m gonna do when the Vandals come and the Empire implodes? Shoot the Glibertarians who caused it all.
Update: Holy shit! The fuckin’ audacity:
One of the more contentious issues was how to limit the pay of executives whose firms seek government aid, a top priority for Democrats and even some Republican lawmakers. But it was a concern for Mr. Paulson, who worried about discouraging firms from participating in the rescue plan, which seeks to convince companies to sell potentially valuable assets to the government at relatively bargain prices.
MOAR: All this is pretty much right. And someone pat Ben Stein on the head; this is a righteous bit of populism (RTWT, it’s really that good). See also Ian and Sterling.
Sep
29
29
Ctrl-Althouse-Delete
MR. BROKAW: In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note, and that is that we continue to poll on who’s best equipped to be commander-in-chief, and John McCain continues to lead in that category despite the criticism from Barack Obama by a factor of 53 to 42 percent in our latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
This was Brokaw’s deeply unfair concluding remark at the end of this morning’s Press the Meat interview with McFAIL strategist Steve Schmidt and Obama strategist David Axelrod. When I saw it, I almost threw the remote at the screen. Then I remembered we were planning to use the TV to stay warm in the winter months. So I gave the kids my maxed-out credit cards to build a fort, put our next-to-last shoe on the stove for supper, and fucked off to stand in the bank-run line at WaMu with a jug of grain alcohol and a dead look in my eye.
But apparently Ann Althouse saw Brokaw this morning, too. And like me, she was hopping mad:
What? Why was it a matter of “fairness to everybody here” to end the debate with a thudding, unanswered poll result? At the end of a discussion in which both candidates were perfectly well represented by their mouthpieces, Brokaw thought fairness required him to say, essentially, “Well, the American people still think McCain is much better on these questions.”
Whubba? Could Althouse finally be getting that media bias, rather than working against Republicans, contrarily, and in quite an opposite fashion, tends to work for them?
Brokaw began the discussion by saying “We’re not going to get into this business about who won and lost the debate.” He made a point of not presenting Schmidt and Axelrod with poll numbers on that subject. And none of his other questions were based on polls, nor did Schmidt and Axelrod bring up any polls. So why did Brokaw end like that?
Why, indeed? Is it because he’s in the tank for McCain? Because he’s a total scrote? Because he likes the fucking shit out of the pulled pork at Straight Talk barbecues? Why, Ann, why?
My guess? Inside NBC, they are fretting about criticism that they show favoritism toward Obama, so Brokaw thought it might help to lob out a glaring hunk of McCain favoritism. Sorry! That just looked really weird. Consequently, it reinforced the perception that NBC favors Obama.
Please kill me now. And I really couldn’t explain why any better than the very first commenter on this Althouse post:
… few people are so addled that they would bother presenting pro-McCain tidbits as evidence of underlying pro-Obama bias.
Sep
28
28
If Wishes Were Mooses, Then K-Lo Could Ride
ABOVE: Blind Allegiance
Things have gotten ugly over at America’s Shittiest Website™ since Kathleen Parker said that Sarah Palin was too stupid to be VP and ought to return to Mooseburgerstan to care for her brood. When Kathleen Parker, best known for a column criticizing Obama for not being a “full-blooded American,” ferchrissakes, calls someone else stupid, well, attention must be paid.
This has put K-Lo, who has sworn an oath of fealty to anyone who wants rape victims to bear their rapists’ children, in something of a pickle. So she has a novel solution:
I absolutely refuse to watch another Sarah Palin interview. It’s not because I don’t like the lady and don’t want to hear what she has to say. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. It’s because I want to hear what she’s about and what she believes in and that’s why I won’t listen anymore.
And, you know, if folks refuse to look in a full-length mirror, they can imagine that they “really” look like Paris Hilton or Brad Pitt too.
Because you see, the Palin in the interviews isn’t the “real” Palin either, but just a shell of herself after having been locked in a room, deprived of mooseburgers, waterboarded by the McCain staff, and forced to memorize really stupid shit like the name of the President of Iran and the correct way to say Vladimir Putin’s name:
I see a woman who looks like she’s stayed up all night studying and is trying to remember the jurisprudential chronology of privacy vis-a-vis reproduction, the war on terror, and public figures (add 12 more things, described in the most complicated way possible, to the list to be more accurate).* She looks like a woman who’s been cramming talking points and great Matt Scully lines and Mark Salter-McCain war stories and Steve Schmidt marching orders into her head since that first plane ride from Alaska.
And if you can just let her talk about the stuff she really knows, like moose recipes and why they gave Levi a Camaro rather than a Mustang as Bristol’s dowry, then she’s unbeatable:
When she’s firing at full force, she comes off as authentic, self-possessed, and ready for a fight. If that is Sarah Palin, that’s the Sarah Palin who should be talking to everyone she can. That’s the Sarah Palin who should call up Rush Limbaugh. That’s the Sarah Palin who should go on The View.
Which, of course, makes perfect sense if Palin were running for hockey coach or game warden.
*Kathryn J. Lopez is the editor of National Review Online
Sep
28
28
Pwn3d
It’s a sad commentary on this election when Tina Fey can quote Sarah Palin verbatim and have it be funnier than anything any comedy writer could ever concoct.
I should note that Mona Charen has joined in the chorus of right-wing crazies who think that Palin is coming off as phony because she’s pretending to know what she’s talking about:
That much having been said, and here’s where I slightly disagree with Bill, Palin was atrocious not just with Katie Couric but with friendlies like Sean Hannity. She needs to devise answers for questions about foreign policy that do NOT rely on recent cramming. That will look and sound false. She may make stupid errors. And it plays to her weakness. She should never again refer to her Alaska experience as preparation for the role of commander in chief.
She needs instead to play to her strengths which are, as I see it, good solid instincts. If she is asked about Waziristan or whateverstan, she should say that (unlike Obama) her desire is always to be firm with adversaries and fair with allies – and to know the difference.
Again, this is the very essence of modern wingnuttery — you don’t actually have to know one goddamn fucking thing about anything as long as you have the right “instincts,” i.e., you agree with wingnuts about everything.
Sarah Palin, for all of her charisma and political savvy, knows nothing. Again, wingnuts, I will repeat that so it hopefully sets in: SARAH PALIN KNOWS NOTHING. This is why the McCain campaign is keeping her away from the eeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiilllllll reporters who are asking her policy questions. Because SHE KNOWS NOOOOOOTHIIIIIIIIING. If that doesn’t disturb you in the least, then you really have no business trying to run the country.
Sep
28
28
McCain campaign jumps the shark, the humpback whale AND the giant squid
This latest Hail Mary pass is too stupid to be believed, my friends:
McCain camp prays for Palin wedding
In an election campaign notable for its surprises, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice- presidential candidate, may be about to spring a new one — the wedding of her pregnant teenage daughter to her ice-hockey-playing fiancé before the November 4 election.
Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”
In other words:
See, I already placed money on McCain bringing a helper monkey onstage during the next debate in an attempt to throw Obama off his game. The monkey would bring a laptop with him and would be actively fact-checking Obama’s claims on the Internet in real time. Whenever Obama misspoke, the monkey would screech loudly and hurl poo at his face. McCain would smirk throughout and would say, “Seeeeeee, Senator Hussein? I don’t need to use the Intertubes when I can have Mr. Billzo here KICK YOUR ASS with it!!!”
Again, I did actually place money on this possibility. But even I didn’t think that McCain would be desperate enough to resort to a shotgun wedding stunt. Holy crap.
(Via.)
Sep
27
27
Newest Item On The Homosexual Agenda: Financial Meltdown
ABOVE: Mark Krikorian
First teh gays were trying to destroy the institution of marriage. Now, according to Mark “Brown People Suck” Krikorian, teh gays have been going after financial institutions as well. This means, of course, that the current financial meltdown is the fault of teh gays and teh n**gers.*
Yesterday at America’s Shittiest Website™, Krikorian squeezed out a post titled “Cause and Effect,” about a diversity press release from Washington Mutual:
I really thought this was a joke, but it’s not. WaMu’s final press release, before it sank beneath the waves (h/t Sailer):
WaMu Recognized as Top Diverse Employer—Again
…
SEATTLE, WA (September 24, 2008) – Washington Mutual, Inc. (NYSE:WM), one of the nation’s leading banks for consumers and small businesses, has once again been recognized as a top employer by Hispanic Business magazine and the Human Rights Campaign.
…
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) civil rights organization, also awarded WaMu its second consecutive 100 percent score in the organization’s 2009 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which measures progress in attaining equal rights for GLBT employees and consumers. WaMu joins the ranks of 259 other major U.S. businesses that also received top marks in the annual survey. The CEI rated a total of 583 businesses on GLBT-related policies and practices, including non-discrimination policies and domestic partner benefits.
Teh gays are, apparently, so busy being fabulous and indoctrinating three-year-olds into the finer points of The Homosexual Agenda, that they just forgot to pay their loans. The next thing you know, bankers at Lehman Brothers were jumping out windows over bad gay debt. Cause and effect, indeed.
After being widely ridiculed over this nonsense, Krikorian tried to refine his connection between the diversity press release and WaMu’s failure. No, says Krikorian, the real problem was that the bank was so busy kowtowing to teh gays that it didn’t realize that it was making loans to inner city deadbeats:
[My] point was not that gay … employees caused WaMu to fail, but rather the irony that the bank was touting its diversity just as it was about to expire due to a mortgage meltdown driven by policital [sic] correctness about diversity.
Silly faggots, loans are for straight white people.
*The meme that the Community Reinvestment Act, which allegedly forced banks to make loans to lazy inner-city blacks, is the root cause of the credit crunch continues to circulate through the cheet-o-sphere, most recently appearing at a blog written by a pretend nun. As I’ve already shown, the idea that the CRA and deadbeat Negroes caused the problem is, succinctly put, cheeto-flecked crap.
Sep
27
27
Moving In For The KILL
McCain’s superfical, rhetorical low-point was the stuttering over ‘Ahmadinejad’.
But the real FAIL by McCain was when he challenged Obama to cut all spending but military, veteran’s benefits and entitlements. Obama parried nicely by talking about the health care crisis and energy independence.
But folks, consider this – McCain is now ON THE RECORD as saying he wants to cut all spending but military, veteran’s benefits and entitlements. This is hammer-able, hammer-able shit. Here’s what McCain wants to ignore in future McCain America:
- Healthcare, as Obama pointed out. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em ruin themselves over basic hospital bills.
- Alternative energy, as Obama pointed out. Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em pay $4->$5->$10->$20->$?? a gallon.
- FEMA. Katrina, Ike? Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em drown.
- Infrastructure. Bridges collapsing in Minnesota? Trains crashing in SoCal due to operator error? Fuck ‘em. Let ‘em crash and die.
- Education. Kids can’t read? Fuck ‘em. Let the Chinese and Indians do our reading for us.
- Start-ups. Fuck ‘em. Let Europe build Technology 2.0.
- International Investment. Fuck ‘em. Let all those Sub-Saharan Africans die of HIV-Aids.
I’m sure we could go on and on.
Sep
27
27
Is K-Lo wasted right now?
I’m sure one of her editors will be along with a mop and broom soon enough, but right now this is actually what she wrote:
I think Obama supporters are happy enough tonight. But I suspect they wanted McCain to show up tired and cranky and he didn’t he appeared a leader whose dont some of that leading.
Yeah.
AN’ YA KNOW WHAT ABOUT THAT OBAMA FELLER IS HE JUS’ AIN’T A GOOD TELLER OF TRUE STUFF AN’ HE LOOKS LIKE A BUTT!!!! BAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRPP!!!!
Thank you, National Review, for this excellent drunken commentary.
Sep
27
27
Nailed It!
Obama KILLED McFAIL. Pwned him. Forgive the implications, but he was the Globetrotters and McCain was the Washington Generals. Discuss. I’m drinkin’.
Sep
26
26
Mark Hemingway: Too Big To Fail
Shorter Mark Hemingway:
Above: CONSERVITISM… UR DOIN IT WRONG*
- Okay, okay. No, yes. Oh God, no. Oh crap. Okay, no, wait! Wait! Look everyone: Guess what? [does sprightly jazz hands] Michael Moore is fat!
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
* Cf. National Review éminence gris Jeffrey Hart.
On Returning: Computer blew up, been offline for days and days unending.
Also, I’d like to reproduce this statement of Roy Edroso’s to further account for my absence:
I thought five-plus years of covering this kind of gibberish had inured me to it, but here it is only September of a Presidential election year and every time I step even into the foot-washing pool of the political scene I feel as if I have been fatally poisoned. The degeneracy of political discourse in the internet age has been my subject, but I feel as if it is getting away from me, screaming beyond my capacity to keep up. Is it really so much worse than it has been, or am I getting soft?
It’s like a stroboscopic drug cyclone. Moreover, it’s like that, and you’re swaying in a chair with a ballpoint pen and a notebook, trying to capture the profundity of the experience. You think you’re explaining how people’s reality-tunnels don’t allow them to experience the quantum verb-act that is ‘being,’ but later, when you look at what you wrote, there’s a drawing of the Zig-Zag man with a speech balloon that says “Zoinks.”
Regardless, I’m back with a bong bang, as it were.
Sep
26
26
Shorter Jay Nordlinger
- If John McCain completely blows tonight’s debate, it will be because, like George W. Bush before him, he cares too much about the American people to talk about policies that could make their lives better.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Sep
26
26
Shorter K-Lo
- Sarah Palin should stop trying to pretend she knows what the hell she’s talking about.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Sep
26
26
Shorter Cap’n Ed
- Mmmmmmm! Yum, yum, yum! Is there any other shit you’d like me to swallow for you, McCain campaign?
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Hey Ed, update your talking points — McCain now thinks the debate is more important.
Sep
26
26
This election is over
Epic, epic fail:
Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.
Man, does St. BBQ’s judgment look downright insane. This is the single silliest stunt I have ever seen a major party candidate pull. You fail big time, St. BBQ. Thanks for handing Obama the election.
Sep
26
26
Grease Is The Word
Summer lovin,’ had me a blast:
Palin’s Palliative, by Kathleen Parker, Sept. 5
When Sarah Palin took the stage Wednesday night, the reaction of conventioneers went beyond mere appreciation. It was gratitude. And relief that the first Republican woman on a presidential ticket wasn’t going to let them down. No one was going to be embarrassed by John McCain’s maverick pick.
Summer lovin’ happened so fast:
Several days of brutal scrutiny leading up to her acceptance speech had given them cause to wonder.
Tell me more, tell me more, did you get very far?
Much of the off-mic talk in St. Paul the past few days centered on whether she was up to the fight. Would she be able to make it through? Would she crumble? Did Palin have the stuff to withstand the bludgeoning scrutiny?
Tell me more, tell me more, like, does she have a car?
I suspect that even many Democrats would confess to a private hope that Palin would do well. There aren’t enough women in high places yet for us to enjoy a first-woman’s stumble, no matter what the arena.
Palin delivered.
Summer sun, something’s begun, but uh-oh those summer nights:
A Time to Worry, by Kathleen Parker, Sept. 19
I love Palin for her chutzpah, courage, maverickness and her authenticity. As a woman, I want her to be fantastic. I want her to expose the fraudulence of identity politics and show the world that Woman is not just one thing. But my inner eye is watching. And my inner voice is saying: These are not good enough reasons.
I worry.
Tell me more, tell me more, was it love at first sight?
The Palin Problem, by Kathleen Parker, Sept. 26
I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Tell me more, tell me more, did she put up a fight?
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.
Summer fling, don’t mean a thing, but uh-oh those summer nights:
Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
It turned colder; that’s where it ends, so I told her we’d still be friends:
McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
Summer dreams ripped at the seams, but oh, those summer nights…
Sep
26
26
The worst president ever
Did anyone see Bush’s “statement” from the White House on the bail-out package just now? The one that lasted, like, 20 seconds and was filled with such wonderful insights as “it’s hard work” and “the reason this rescue package is so big is because it’s a big problem.”
I know I’ve been belaboring this point for the past, oh, eight years, but Bush is a really sucky president.
