“There are many bad men around the world who run countries and we don’t topple them, and indeed in earlier years we had actually supported Saddam Hussein when he was fighting against Iran. The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for [...]
I have often groused dyspeptically about the tawdry circus acts that have replaced political discourse in this country, and the insulting way in which our media stars never fail eat it up, like slow children gazing in slack-jawed amazement at an unusually bad magician. Such misguided adulation then trickles down to the dumber members of [...]
Well, the teabaggers “descended” on Washington today, in part courtesy of 40 buses chartered by something called “Americans for Prosperity,” and of course having been heavily promoted on Fox. A “crowd” the police estimated at 3000-3500 came waddling in to generally make asses of themselves, invading the wrong offices, carrying strikingly dumb and offensive signs, [...]
Already the teabaggers (and the media who worship them) are declaring tomorrow’s elections to be a stinging defeat for Democrats, all but certain to hobble Obama’s nine-month (or, according to the strange calendar of the media, who can’t wait that long, one year…) presidency. How many facts must one ignore, and how much Fox must [...]
It’s been curious, in the most delightful way possible, to watch the Republican party rise from the ashes of its last two defeats carried on wings of insular delusion into the ether of pure crazy. This has been happening for some time, of course, but under the careful eye of Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, [...]
It’s only a paper moon, hanging over a cardboard sea, but it wouldn’t be make believe if you believed in me. While it’s probably somewhat redundant at this point to pile on poor Michael Steele for his brand new but flabbergastingly idiotic “What Up (!) ?” web site, I still feel a need to do so, [...]
Ever since Nixon, the American Right has essentially given up on facts, logic, and evidence, preferring to focus on comic book narratives wherein they’re always the plucky, all-American heroes, fighting valiantly against forces of pure evil. Unable to sell the efficacy of any of their policy goals on the merits, the world has been imaginatively [...]
As I’ve noted before, one of the neatest things about righty discourse is the way it so perfectly packages every fear and hatred, albeit haphazardly, into a baroquely nefarious conspiracy that, lo and behold, turns out to be diabolically connected. To normal people, it might seem a little on the insane side for Glenn Beck [...]
UPDATE BELOW: UPDATE II: After reading abundant analysis about the health care speech last night, some of which said better what I might have said, I’ve decided that the most enlightening, and to a degree hopeful, thing about the speech was the boorish outburst by Neo-confederate Joe Wilson of South Carolina. ”You lie!” Hmmm. Care to [...]
What the whole disgusting rightie flap about President Obama having the outlandish temerity to give a bland, Mr. Rogers-type speech to America’s schoolchildren about the importance of being educated really boils down to is that, as was so eloquently put in the song from South Pacific that fellow Hag authors RMP, Dirigo, and I were [...]