Time’s journalism on Republican collapse reeks of stale, musty clippings stowed in a moldy basement. Still a concise summary. All we can say is go DeMint, go!
Polls show that most Republicans who haven’t jumped ship want the party to move even further right; it takes vision to imagine a presidential candidate with national appeal emerging from a GOP primary in 2012. DeMint, the South Carolina Senator, greeted Specter’s departure with the astonishing observation that he’d rather have 30 Republican colleagues who believe in conservatism than 60 who don’t. “I don’t want us to have power until we have principles,” DeMint told TIME after firing up that tea-party crowd in Columbia.
Eric Cantor’s travails make equally compelling reading. After McCain disses Cantor as a lightweight never considered as a Veep candidate and Rush makes Cantor denounce ‘listening’, National Council for a New America careens into a ditch – again.
Mike Huckabee, the former presidential candidate who was not invited to join the so-called GOP panel of experts involved with the effort — a list that included Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Sarah Palin of Alaska and Haley Barbour of Mississippi and former Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Jeb Bush of Florida — said that it was “sad day” in Republican politics when “we think it is necessary to form a ‘listening group’ to find out what Americans think we should be fighting for.”
As Carly Simon said, ‘these are the good old days.’
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Pat: The wiggle? Wiggle Galore, gimme a break. The West is Dead. [hand chops] The Palins are good solid God fearing
Fineman: I don’t see a lot of fear there Pat. Solid?
Tweety: Pussy Galore was pretty conservative, wasn’t she?
Pat: Never trust a woman to fly a small jet (laughs)
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Tweety: Howard, you point out that Sean Connery is English, but …..
Fineman: British
Tweety: What? Yeah, that’s what I said.
Fineman: Well Chris, actually – you said English. He’s not English — strictly speaking, he’s …
Tweety: American, he’s …
Fineman: Scottish ….
Tweety: He’s American, that’s my point.
Fineman: He’s not all American, Chris.
Tweety: No – You mean like Mel Gibson or Kiefer Sutherland or that guy who kicked butt in Gladiator
Fineman: Australians and Canadians, Chris.
Tweety: After the commercial, we return to our segment on Great Americans, featuring Winston Churchill lll, but before that we ask what in the world is Britol Palin up to?
commercial — off air
Tweety: Howie, who do you think is hotter, Bristol Palin or Sarah
Fineman: Apples and organges, Chris
Tweety: More like Tomatoes and More Tomatoes, if you ask me.
Fineman: That reminds me, Honeydew and Cantalope is two for 5 at Fairway this week
Tweety: What’s Fairway?
Fineman: A supermarket.
Tweety: You shop? Mr. Mom. Hahhahahaahhahahah. Pat, Fineman shops in supermarkets.
Pat: You would never catch me in a supermarket unless it was to makes a quick anti communist point to a Sov or a college professor…
Tweety: Hey, Howie – are you gonna bake us some cookies. Hhahahahahahahhahahhaaa
Fineman: Getting back to the Palins – Sarah wins the MILF category, hands down. Bristol has some of that Honor Blackman thing going on …
Tweety: With the wiggle?
Fineman: Yeah, the wiggle.
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Sid Blumenthal had a pretty good description of Newt, we think. Newt sometimes seems biploar (nothing wrong with that) or some sort of split personality – When he is feeling personally secure – or seeming that way – he can say interesting things and give signs of leadership. But his personal demons seems to overwhelm him – the peevishness and insecurity and lack of grace.
Rudy collapsed this way too – His excellent 1st term as Mayor sagged into a petty and vindicative second term (complete with ugly personal spats, unnecessary racial anatagonisms, gratutious favors for Wall St pals, and bizarre attempts at squelching various free speech – only to lose in court)- Then he resurrected himself and made a lot of money over 9-11, but he overstepped his bounds and politicised it. His un-Presidentialness was summed up with his ungallant and unpresidential laughing and mocking of Ron Paul – a man with no chance of winning but known to be personally decent- during that debate.
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Newt was erupting with his mental diahrea today on FNC. He is an absurd person to speaking about Obama at Notre Dame – That pathetic Archbishop Burke ( complete with slothful personal appearance – Obama is always blessed with enemies like this) aspect who is dishonest in that what really galls him is that Obama won Notre Dame and South Bend handily.
Newt’s public piety – whether sincere or not – is very unconvincing because he lacks grace, a basic Christian virtue –
Obama always grants his adversaries good faith – even when they do not deserve it – That’s why people love him – That’s why people think he has a good heart –
Newt deeply envies this -But he does not really understand it –
Newt consistantly does the opposite of Obama – implying those who disagree with him are wicked and base and act from bad faith and treasonous impulses – They want to protect terrorists and punish Americans yada yada yada.
It must be a terrible burden to go around with these feelings all the time – Nixon suffered a bit from this.
That absurd slothful Archbishop – attacking a popular President that projects impeccable family values – actually was so disgusting he used the word “scandal” to decscribe Obama –
If he was truly concerned about his immortal soul he would STFU and rendition Cardinal Law (the Judge Bybee of church scandals) back from Vatican City and get him to a cell in gitmo
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ROFL!
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Goldfinger also benefits from some of that later new frontier aesthetic – before disillusion sets in. We better stop now before we sound like Tweety.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Tweety: Howard Fineman, isn’t it true that Bond before Roger Moore ruined him used to be the all American hero? I mean he liked his women and they liked him. He never had to worry about whether they were better educated or whether they earned more money than he did. He was the man. And he took what he wanted. He had the cars. He drank hard, worked hard and women appreciated him. Isn’t that something America and Bond both lost, something Reagan understood so well? In fact, isn’t Reagan the last great James Bond? I mean it.
Fineman: I don’t know about that, Chris (nervous chuckle). Bond was British, after all. He was an elitist, from Cambridge, I think. One of them. And don’t forget he was a sociopathic killer. So I am not seeing the Reagan connection, to be honest. And Roger Moore nailed Maud Adams twice, so . . .
Tweety: Oh come on! No one fantasized about being Roger Moore Howard, no one. Except for maybe Howard Dean and those netroots types.
Real men wanted to be Connery, you know, slapping the women around because he knew they want it like that. Taking them to bed when they said no because as a man he understood no means yes! All before Gloria Steinem, all before Katrina, and Andrea Dworkin — they *ruined* everything !! I’m telling you, that’s Philadelphia!
Fineman: (slightly recoiling) Well I know you didn’t mean any of that Chris and are exaggerating to make a point, but I have to say most men and women today are probably closer to where the Administration is on harassment, rights and protections than . . .
Tweety: Roger Moore killed the American dream. You just made my point. We’ll be right back with the Sideshow. Who’s hotter? Sarah Palin or Susan Collins. Coming up.
Comment says
We have not seen Quantum – but the vibe we get is a shift away from wit toward a steroid aesthetic with a 24/brutalism tie in. Goldfinger/Russia had brutal moments too — but it was winked at a bit.
Prob might check out Trek this weekend.
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” … Noooooo Mr. Bond, I expect you to die …”
Goldfinger on TCM tonight – always a treat.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Goldfinger is as you say, a treat. So, too, for us is From Russia With Love. Your observation is timely because we discovered a video/dvd rental outlet in the area; the local Blockbusters have closed. The outlet had a wall of the Quantum of Isolinear Brownian Motion or whatever. We couldn’t even summon the mitochondrian ATP energy to reach for shelve and look at the case, let alone take it.
One wonders whether MGM wouldn’t be better served resting Bond for a few years. It doesn’t seem to have any purpose in our current media soup. Is it Bourne? Is it Ronin but with Judi Dench? If Q isn’t there, if the condescending one liners are excised, why bother. They might want to take a page from Abrams and see how to reburnish a franchise with love instead of camp.
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Live long and prosper:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/05/the-vulcan-factor.php
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Hand chop watch:
http://mediamatters.org/clips/200905070016
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More Obits – We have not really followed the “debate” over Obama’s SCOTUS pick , but we think Rosen at TNR – a long time pseudo-lib (“even TNR …”) really blew it with his lazy and refutable hit piece on a potential nominee.
There has been a slight shift away from the Consensus Center because of this – that mushy Broder-esque claque of war winkers and AEI tributaries.
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As an aside – the Movement’s success at the class reversal cannot be overstated – By and large, embodied in the absurdity of Dubya and Tweety as the twin ends of a barbell – Each absurd in the role for different reason – It reached its apotheosis in Palin – Palin, though tecnically a millionaire and well in the top 1 percent economically – had at some authentic working class creds, as opposed to McCain – owner of 13 houses and a descdent of a slave owning Plantation owners.
But the success of the meme reversal could be seen in those who accepted the false title of being on the upper end of the class – ironically with false consciousness – as they sneered at Palin in their rent controlled apartments while listening to dredfull ethnic poets on NPR and worried about getting tenure at some school somewhere so they would no longer have to wait tables for tourists from red states.
This at the time of immense explosion of wealth in the top tier.
Meanwhile Tweety is still bargaining his cafeteria status by embracing the trope of the Irish fireman he has nothing in common with.
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Mitt’s “monarchist” comment is an example of the GOP losing its battle of reversals – Shifting the elitism label from highly paid slobs that hang around Tweety’s pool to low paid editors at art journals and untenured academics — has been one of the great feats of the Movement because the liberal establishmment, for self interested reasons (“even TNR ..” bought into it.
But it always relied on better tropes – Bill O attacking clever web writer over something etc – But Mitt and Jeb are too conspicious as inheritors of privlidge – Ironically Jeb’s well-spokeness is held against him – whereas his brother’s monkey face and verbal ineptness made him seem plausible as no-nuthin’ man of the people – despite being rich and privlidged and unable to ride a horse (something even Comment is able to do – barely)
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Obama has been planning on being President or thinking about it – sort of – since Kingergarten, as HRC noted and was ridiculed..
He is so methodical and disciplined and focus in his execution – camoflaged with his uber cool demeanor and multi-culti pop savvy and urbanis – that the GOP still has no idea what hit them. They are in total denial and confused and babbling.
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Mitt’s problem is that he has become – slowly but surely – a joke – His “they are the monarchists” line was easy Daily Show bait, but so much of what he says sounds silly and contrived because there is no way someone could become so successful in business sounding so stupid – so it must be an act.
Jeb Bush is the smart one (Bush), supposedly – But he mispronounced Amity Schlaes name (he called her Shales twice) when he wanted to invoke some bookishness critiques of FDR liberalism – Like Tweety bragging about Petraeus COIN manuel, it is certain – nearly certain – Jeb did not read Amity’s book, but his reliance on it as a talking point reveals some conceptual weakness.
Cantor just babbles – he is not gonna last long as a fresh up and commer.
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Quoting and assenting to a Martha’s Vinyard lefty songstress like Carly Simon is pretty much a criminal/theological offence in today’s DeMinted GOP.