At what point does falling for the flare off the back of an F-16 constitute not mere idiocy but indicia of a separate and lower phylum? Not a rhetorical question. Look at all the hysteria and superficial reaction to the Administration’s Potemkin offering on Monday (timed before the Sunday talk shows, of course) allegedly to safeguard our “institutional financial integrity.” The NYT surprisingly notes what a sham it is with clarity.
It’s all been done before. Just think of the joke of the Homeland Security debacle. Hastily thrown together to salve public image problems, a bureaucratic disaster that hobbles us to this day, a boon for supposedly supervised industries. We here will naturally understand that no one will really read the entire text and realize the actually intended implications of innocuous or seemingly benign subsections that can literally move billions.
The 2006 Democratic Congress is even a more feeble crew than Kerensky’s regime. First, they will be overawed by the financial incentives and horizons painted for them — staff and members alike. Why do we say that? We’ve sat in the meetings before with all the famous houses, banks and brokerages. How they rolled Committee staff, personal staff and with their Member allies. The generally termed “Wall Street” crowd knows how to “ram and cram”efforts — to slam legislation on something called suspension in the House and rack up 400 plus votes, etc. Although it is said to be for non controversial legislation and usually is, we’ve seen and help write what was packaged as non-controversial go through. (And stopped other efforts by MAKING them appear controversial).
Would Pelosi be dim enough to fall for this? We think it is even odds. Optics aside, as Steny Hoyer proved in his nose dive for the credit cards, Dems can be bought and here is a crowd willing to pay above list price. Populism? The veterna Bulls lost their Olde Fire; the midlings still brace for sealegs; the younglings never had cajones. Would the latter have the historical memory to even know what “Hang em up!” even means? All might in a pallid way seek to tweak the audacity of it all. We bet that at the end of the day, the shuffle distractions will mask the Wall Street give away in weaker supervision, greater access to liquidity, and the comfort of federal rescue. All in the name of cracking down.
Harry Reid?
Why have the American people tolerated a rogue government determined to destroy the Enlightenment, impose Christian Socialist Authoritarianism, the permanent destruction of American moral power and suasion across the globe (this is more than just changing presidents, see item below), the wholesale evisceration of Army Chief of Staff Shy Meyers recreation of the Army after Vietnam to prevent an Imperial War, the reckless disregard for the sinews of our power (imperial or otherwise), our financial/fiscal well being? Why did the Democrats in 2006 prove to be so feckless? Why is one candidate for president an empty suit who successfully strokes all people all of time? Why is another candidate’s team marked by more infighting than Bush 92 and making tactical mistakes that the combined skill there ordinarily should avoid?
The chickens are coming home to roost. Apparently if served with a side of slaw Americans will simply chew it down. We talked today with just one of the professional hordes coming over from the Continent and simply treating the Imperial City as a third world post colonial shopping distraction. Trinkets. You all probably had the same encounter dozens of times. We didn’t bother asking how the coincidence of this prostrate situation before the Old World resonated with HBO’s overly lauded John Adams series. Even stand up comedians know to avoid the cheap laugh.
It does make one wonder. What exactly will it take to Americans emulate Howard Beale and yell out the window? How tragic if never.
Comment says
Yes Ashcroft was a bit of a hero – Unfortunately, Comey was a bit melodramatic in his rendering. So dock him a point or two on aesthetics. Goldsmith did bail, but didn’t he go along for the ride a bit too long? Like a Wilkerson with brains? Or is that unfair?
Comment says
Drum gets caught up in trivia and he often discounts bigger outragers.
Dr Leo Strauss says
re Woo, it is unfortunately pretty much mainstream thinking in the Federalist Society and as we wrote of STSOZ 1.0 Malbin, Addington and Cheney during Iran Contra, etc.
We respect Marty a great deal (although we don’t always agree). I guess I am just exhausted from all the outrage over things that were in plain sight for 30 plus years waiting to seize power. And how by and large, the American people didn’t give a damn. As long as the false equity kept rising, Chinese goods at Walmart were cheap, they got a Sports Utility vehicle and someone else’s kid died in Iraq.
We kept telling EVERYONE UNDER THE FUCKING SUN in the national media you see on TV that Woo is a distraction, a nothing. Even now. OLC notwithstanding. It was always Addington. And Cheney. And it took YEARS for people to even bother looking him up or spelling his name.
If we are going to hang ’em up, I think the useful or deliberate idiots have to join ’em. We should also remember that Ashcroft, Mueller and Goldsmith, for all their other acts, drew a line in the sand.
Comment says
Tweety managed to ask a stupid hypthetical – which Obama batted away with easy – during this Hardball college tour. It was easy to imagine Edwards, Gephradt, or one of the other college tour alums answering that dumb hypthetical in a different way – faux hawkish bluster etc.
Anyway – then came the real stupidity – Endless questions about trivia and faux-tough questions that were just an excuse for Tweety squeaks. Questions about smoking – useless save to embrass and create trivia video.
We think Obama did as well as could be expected but just appearing with Tweety lowers the dignity level.
Anon says
Leo – what was that you were saying about a piano wire shortage?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013450.php
Anon says
This is kind of funny – But as with Ackerman’s railing against JG, it’s goin nowhere. It’s part of the culture to be wrong in the right kind of way. It’s nothing new – The British commentariot before and during ww1 never had to answer for their lies and manufactured jingo ‘tude/
http://www.cjr.org/on_the_contrary/the_war_expert.php?page=all
Aldershot says
I may have ‘misspoken.’ I think he said you say the cheese you want, like, ‘provolone with.’ I am not worthy.
Comment says
We question Tweety’s Cheesesteak bona fides – He’s not really part of Philly c-steak culture – It’s an affectation for him. His banal suburb was quite far from that famous cheesteak place. For Tweety, it’s almost like Mitt Romney talking up his favorite Chowdah.
Comment says
Normally we wouldn’t bother looking at Johnson’s wiki bio, but he just said something so foolish (we forget what it was) that we had no choice but to examine the origins of such foolishness. That spy class of his is really making waves. Shhhh…
Comment says
Roger Mudd was interviewed by Brian Lamb over the weekend and was somewhat amused when Lamb let him know that nobody young knows him. Yet – for years he commanded 25 million viewers. Olberman and co. should be see the writing on the wall.
Aldershot says
Tweety knows HRC hates him, but that she would look elitist not to appear…and she needs all the face time, a la SNL, that she can get. Who’s in the driver’s seat now?
Gee, and thanks to Tweety, I know to say, ‘a cheese steak with’ if I want onions. He’s a national treasure.
DrLeoStrauss says
The idea of scanning Larry Johnson’s Wikipedia page is more horrific than remembering when Barnett was given attention in OSD. And says alot.
Olbermann needs to have someone whisper in his ear ala Patton’s telling of the Roman returning in victory that glory is fleeting.
Comment says
Here’s a small laugh – go check out larry johnson’s wiki page – Then look at the ‘discussion’ tab and see the great debate contained therein. Allen Dulles would be disappointed by such contentiousness surrounding one of his heirs. Btw – where did he get that PhD?
Comment says
Tweety is out of control – indignant that HRC may not have written her own April Fools joke speech, mixing up the meaning of metaphores with similes, etc.
Olberman is amazing – his show gets worse, but his ratings go up – He must be happy that Scaif endorsed HRC – Sid Blumenthal’s work?
DrLeoStrauss says
The Tweety smugness as if he was the Richard Leaky of Pennsylvania (with his junior acolyte Howard Fineman) reaches new lows even when one things the sub basement has a poured concrete floor.
Apologize to all for the slow posting — had a back end reset issue the last few days but all should be up and running. No wreckers this time, just a glitch.
Aldershot says
Will Hillary accept Tweet’s invitation?
Comment says
Tweety is really cracked — What is wrong with that guy? Comment does not boo politicians and we would have probably clapped politely were we at the opening game today in DC – Clapped for the event, the office. Its understandably that people booed – No big deal. But Tweety actually had to praise Bush for courage today for throwing out a baseball.
This reminds us of when R. Cohen said that Colbert was a bully to Bush = The most powerful man in the world – Again, with Tweety the cracked vessel has so lowererd the standard that he is actually sincere when he praises Bush as if he were a slow student.
Comment says
Ackerman was just out of college – so he has plenty of excuses. Now he has the zealotry – We shall see.
Dr Leo Strauss says
What to say? The whole thing reminds me of the part in Life of Brian where the factions of Judean Peoples’ Front, the Peoples’ Front of Judea etc. keep calling each other splitters.
Like you, we never understood the Ackerman shooting star Bushian Era celebrity. His reporting was always coded, with a prism that blurred the spectra.
He was a fixture at the Dupont sushi type think tanks. A weird effort to straddle the fences while pretending to be Oppositionists. There were a few, but most tried to keep within the General Jello/Wilkerson/Benchpresser aura.
Ackerman fit right into the ambiguity that could be slightly adjusted for the audience required.
JG? It really is the Judean Front thing again.
The suggestion? Watch from afar for mere sport.
A Random Quote says
“So?”
~Dick Cheney
(On Public Opinion)
Anon says
Non a piffle, but increasingly tiresome:
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/goldbergs-non-mea
Ackerman is right to jones on Goldberg for the latter’s transparently insincere reporting on Iraq before the war.
But this debate is just going nowhere – While Cheney and Bush hailed Goldberg and used his reports to say they came from liberal media, it’s not clear how many people believed them.
We think – we can only guess – that JG pretty much knew what he was doing and part of him winked at the audience. Ackerman says he slowly realized he was duped and that’s great. But we think that people never really believed that stuff – They convinced themselves. It was willed ignorance and gullability.
Comment says
Speaking of feeble – we just saw the scene in “Bush’s War” – the Frontline doc – where Wilkerson waxes poetic aloud about the time when he typed up his resignation letter and put it in his desk and speculated on daily basis that he might resign. He never did hand in that letter – but he thought about it and it’s pretty clear that Wilkerson, as small as he was in the scheme of things, thought of himself more important than De Gualle thought of himself when he was playing his critical role.
sglover says
“The 2006 Democratic Congress is even a more feeble crew than Kerensky’s regime.”
Beautiful; spot on.
And am I the only guy who’s seen an uncanny resemblence between President Fuckwit and Czar Nicky? The cloistered dull-wittedness, the total incompetence, the obsession with inbred proprieties — a clown so far out of his depth that he can’t even begin to comprehend just how far out he is.
Comment says
Argentina’s currency is weaker. Small consolation.