In Praise of (Shudder) George Will
I never thought I could ever give George Will a “heh-indeedy,” but this is one of the truest things I’ve ever read:
To Rush Limbaugh’s 20 million receptive listeners, Hastert, referring to Republicans as “we,” said:
“We have a story to tell, and the Democrats have — in my view have — put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They’re trying to put us on defense.”
It is difficult to read that as other than an accusation: He seems to be not just confessing a coverup but also complaining that the coverup was undone by bad manners. Were it not for Democrats’ unsportsmanlike conduct in putting “this thing” forward, it would not be known and would not be disrupting Republicans’ storytelling. […]
After the 1936 election, in which President Franklin Roosevelt shellacked the Republican nominee in all but two states, a humorist wrote: “If the outcome of this election hasn’t taught you Republicans not to meddle in politics, I don’t know what will.” If, after the Foley episode — a maraschino cherry atop the Democrats’ delectable sundae of Republican miseries — the Democrats cannot gain 13 seats, they should go into another line of work.
Uh-yah. That pretty much sums it up. Time to go in for the kill, Dems. This election is yours.
Um, I won’t count the evil empire out of anything. The repubs will fight this with every last little vise they can come up with. Never underestimate your enemy…which is a sad comment to make about a fellow citizen. A 2 party system is needed for a democracy to function correctly…
Say what you will about Will, he does at least seem to be capable of distinguishing between actual conservativism, and the asshattery and fuckwitticism than passes for it these days.
Cue us all on November 8th going, “How the hell did the Dems manage to screw this up.. AGAIN”
Lots of Jesusland/United States of Canada maps, lots of “b-b-but Diebold”. Lots of “well the Democrats alienated values people of faith” and lots of press with “dead heat in the exit polls, the population is divided” and lots of suspicious 51-49 victories. The Republicans just want this more. I don’t sense the Dems as in a mood to kick ass.
Please, in the name of god, prove me wrong.
But those ducks in that barrel have feelings
The so called anti-CW GOP hacks (Kaus et all) think that this scandal will force media to “out” some Democrat politicians as well because MSM’s need to “balance”. I don’t buy that at all. However they also made one point which I think is valid, that Foley scandal basically muted Bob Woodward’s accusastions against Bush and Rice. Rice was proven a liar regardingthe meeting with Tenet but Foley saved her ass.
I am not sure which issue would cost GOP more votes. The Foley fisaco will definitely cost the GOP some Christanist votes but to show that GOP is weak on terror/security might hit GOP harder. The Democrats are sitting back for now watching GOP imploding but at some point they will have to restore the leadership image.
Repubs are going to wait a week, then crank open the Jeeee-zus-ah! floodgates upon the sheep. I predict many, many photo-ops with as many uniforms and flags as can be held in one frame.
Dems will drop the ball. They’ll find a way. Maybe get suckered into another He said/He Said about something that happened seventy years ago.
For what it’s worth, Woodward’s book is #1 on Amazon.com. I think people are talking about the Bush/Cheney/Rice failure(s), even if it’s not dominating the shark/missing-runaway-white-girl-bride channels. And, as of yesterday, Bush was still using the ‘it’s just a comma’ routine at the sold out gigs on his Wargasm tour.
It pains me to type this. Because I tore my rotator cuff the other nite… in my sleep. No, I’m not embarrassed about that at all… oy…
But I won’t stop typing John Laesch ’06 until my arm falls off. Or Nov 8, whichever comes first.
A 2 party system is needed for a democracy to function correctly…
A two party system? Jesus, everyone else has a 3, 4, 17 party system. Half the damn problem with US politics is that you only have two parties competing (I know… insert joke here!) in a preseidential system.
So you have all the angst over whether or not to vote for Nader or the Greens instead of the ‘just the same as the other side’ Democrats. It’s no wonder people like Jillian are so goddam frustrated.
A 2 party system does not allow democracy to function correctly – it simply inculcates an ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ binary left/right mindset. You need at least a third party, if not a fourth and a fifth.
Oh, and, unfortunately, a Parliamentary system to allow those divergent voices to be heard.
/end snark
🙂
George Will is one a those rare, ruby-throated, erudite-and-well-read wingnuts. How he manages to not be an airhead and still be so wrong most all the time is one of those mysteries… I mean even Hitchens has his booze as a rationalization for his puffery.
Will’s comparison of Foley to Elmer Gantry reminds me of a favorite H.L. Menckenism:
“Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.”
I am sick to death of a series of election eve phony scandals and lies–TANG, Plame, now this..and the people who pulled this one are under scrutiny and it will boomerang. I can smell it.
Posted by: clarice feldman | October 04, 2006 at 10:28 PM
George Will is a whore.
So’s Clarice Feldman.
George Will is one a those rare, ruby-throated, erudite-and-well-read wingnuts. How he manages to not be an airhead and still be so wrong most all the time is one of those mysteries…
It’s easy to look like a genius when you’re surrounded by illiterate morons. I always felt that Will chose the wingnut route out of laziness, or perhaps just a shrinking from the rough-and-tumble of actual intellectual debate on the more liberal end of the pundit spectrum. He’s got a very good thesaurus, and probably a team of unsung “research assistants” to pull up le mot juste for every one of his columns, but he doesn’t stretch himself very much. The columns he churns out today are pretty much re-workings of the columns he was printing 20 years ago, with only the proper nouns updated. Among his “Mongo luv Preznit! Mongo hate librul!” Wingnut Welfare fellows, he’s treated like a Faberge egg — something fragile and precious for its rarity. He’d be handled much more roughly among the moonbats, and he’d be susceptible to attacks from the Mongo wingtards as well.
… to date we have no evidence of sex …
Posted by: clarice feldman | October 04, 2006 at 11:09 PM
And isn’t that really the problem, Clarice ?
Posted by: anonymous | October 05, 2006 at 02:11 AM
My sources tell me Hastert is going to resign in order to train full time for his long-awaited rematch with the Three Billy Goats Gruff. trip-trap, trip-trap
I commend you for hanging in there, anonymous. It’s hard enough to read those comment threads!
Hey anonymous–make sure to tell clarice that Foley’s Adam Walsh law made the very act of soliciting the teenager online a crime, whether they actually had sex or not.
Foley’s law is poorly written and excessively burdensome (two teenagers can’t make a date via IM without running afoul of it), but he’s the one who wanted it. If he can’t live by the rules he sets down for everyone else, he deserves whatever he gets.
As far as Hastert et al, I’d much rather see them go down for any of the various ongoing corruption investigations than Teh SEX!!!, but I’m not picky. Anything that cracks The Hammer’s political machine is a good start.
The so called anti-CW GOP hacks (Kaus et all) think that this scandal will force media “anonymous sources” to “outâ€? some Democrat politicians as well…
let the misdirection begin.
Lanny Davis: “What I want to warn my fellow Democrats is that this issue involving Mr. Foley is a tragedy for him, for the young people involved. We should not be touching this issue politically. There is certainly a valid question to be asked of the speaker and his colleagues, why they weren’t proactive as soon as they learned about this problem, gone to Mr. Foley months ago, had his get counseling or even asked him to resign, they wouldn’t be where they are tonight. So there needs to be some fact-finding about their reaction, but no political exploitation.”
As if the Right wouldn’t declare any fact-finding investigation in which Democrats have any part “political exploitation.” Idiot.
floopmeister,
Since you helpfully added an end snark tag but not a matching beginning tag, my brain’s parser is forced to revert to the default assumption that your whole post is snark.
It’s a pity you’re so dismissive of multiparty poltics, though understandable since the two-party system seems to have borne us such wonderful fruit in the past few years. I would encourage anyone who’s really open-minded about the question, though, to learn more about topics such as IRV and proportional representation. There really can be a system that reflects more than two points of view and yet leads to effective goverment. Pretty much most major democracies outside of the US, Canada, and the UK have some elements of PR. (I may be leaving out a few more.) Check out Germany, for example, as a counterexample to the supposed Italian chaos.
For that matter, compared to what we have, would Italian chaos be so bad?
(Maybe you were saying the same thing and I’m just confused by your snark designation, not sure. If Swift or Twain had been kind enough to use “snark tags” their work would be so much more readable.)
You know you’re truly fucked when George Will is the voice of reason.