Bennett Tea-Bombed

an emotional Bennett told reporters, choking back tears.
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I present to him the Smallest Violin in the World:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/392519266_4fdacfaaa8.jpg
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Because when you caucus with rabid dogs, you’re going to get bitten.
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But beyond that, how does one have a judicious national conversation with people who think global warming is a hoax, or that the invasion of Iraq was justified, or that tax cuts raise revenue, or that people accused of terrorist acts should not be read their Miranda rights?

It looks like to me that the Tea Party is doing exactly what I said it would do: oust the most electable Republicans and either keep that highly conservative state with Republican control or get somebody so unelectable that they will shoot themselves in the foot.

Paging Dr. Earl Grey Tea Jr.

Paging Dr. Earl Grey Tea Jr

The Tea Party is under attack by a random New Yorker.

Patient is in critical condition.

Illogical and unreasonable arguments needed.

Dr Earl Grey Tea Jr, please report to Swamp immediately.

Joe, at least you didn’t title this post “Bennett Tea-Bagged.” Someone might read that the wrong way. Speaking of tea leaves / reading them, where you do YOU see the R’s + Tea Parties going? Even if R’s gain Nov. seats I’m betting on a permanent implosion / no chance of ’12 WH if they stay the course. If the TP hijacks R’s and keeps pushing out “moderates” (non-extremists) they’ll lose voters – who will disenfranchised / defrocked R’s vote for? And if they don’t take over R party and go their own “third way” they’ll split conservative votes: a no-win scenario even Sarah can’t fix.
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I wasn’t here in the ‘50’s (some of us commentariat were) but are the R’s / TP’s trying to take us back there? At least if they are, let’s listen to another Bennett (Tony)…
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Peggy Lee is a delight too…
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The politics, social pressures, or racial stuff of that time are another matter, but I digress.

Maybe Bennett has simply been there too long and not done enough to stop the rot. It’s time for some new blood. This should be a warning to other Republicans, in the House as well as the Senate, who have a safe seat and don’t feel like rocking the boat.

If Bennett had been a real leader, then it would have made sense to keep him for another term.

Naturally Joe Klein does not have a clue — but he felt it his duty to offer an opinion anyway. The truth is that it has nothing to do with whether Bennett was too conservative or not conservative enough — but everything to do with his lack of energy and leadership. Bennett is 77 years old this year. His country, his state and his party need more than just a placeholder. They need someone like Kyl or Coburn, Thune or Inhofe or Corker.

So you don’t think Kyl, et al you mentioned are part of the rot? So who are? And why is Kyl the best one to stop the rot? What is the rot? BTW, age alone doesn’t mean bad leadership. Even with current mixed mssg.s on derivatives, Warren Buffett still runs Berkshire well at 79 better than many other fund investors …as does his confidant Charlie Munger …at 86. If you can outperform them, prove it to us.

So Bennett isn’t conservative enough for Utah? There are lots of primaries coming up. If the Tea Party keeps pushing for candidates even further to the right, it’s possible more people are going to do what Crist did and run as independents. The democrats are going to lose seats in both the house and senate. That’s pretty much a given. I still feel that the further right the TP pushes, the fewer seats we lose in November.

Joe, you say “sometimes anger is justified.” I’m a lefty. I don’t have anything in common with tea partiers and when I don’t think too hard about things it’s hard to even see the difference between a mainstream but hardline conservative like Bennett and the people who deposed him. But still I have to ask…

If anger is sometimes justified, how can you not look at these times and say “sometimes… like now”?

Toxic is indeed the correct term. Conservatives complain that they are being shut out of governing but then insist that no sane voices are allowed. We need a sane oppostion party. I know plenty of former Republicans who are unlikely to ever return.

“I know plenty of former Republicans who are unlikely to ever return.”
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I know a few moderate republicans that decided to sit out the 2008 election because of Palin. I also know more than a few that voted for McCain because of Palin. I think there are more republicans than we care to admit that are happy to go with the flow and continue the rightward journey. The independents and moderates are still the key to any victory. What happens to the true old school republicans that can’t go along with the right wingers? It’s hard to imagine them voting for Obama. Do they just sit out?

Joe, slightly off-topic, but relevant since your post concerns tea partiers. You recently wrote about conservatives using allegedly “seditious” language. Do you also view this as seditious?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=993gKr2OqZE

The classless Joe Klein huffs: “I never met the man, but his statement today certainly was classy.”

Nothing like getting instructions on class from a deranged, unstable, frothing at the mouth cretin who is completely void of class ….

Maybe Klein should stick to fabricating tales of Donald Rumsfeld having declared that Lt. Gen. David McKiernan would never take command of another unit. McKiernan, of course, was promoted to general after Klein’s bogus, idiotic, loony, fabricated tale and took command of U.S. Army Europe.

This is OT as well: I think that the GOP cup is soon to rapidly boil over. Crist, Bennett and others are getting purged with increasing frequency. At issue, an abiding hatred of all who even compromise with Obama. What follows may seem unrelated, but I think it is another facet of their continuing slide.
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To wit:
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I’ve been very quiet on the issue of immigration reform while I digest the most recent developments. I’m somewhat to the right of many who post here, however, the recent developments have compelled me two think first, then write.
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It seems that what has happened in Arizona is rooted in the use of populist demagoguery to take away rights.
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What has happened to the Latin community has laid bare the fears, long ignored, that pervades the Black community in regards to the conduct of the GOP. Now, it is incumbent on the Latin community to take another look at the perception that the Black community holds for the GOP.
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I’ve commented here on a Jewish adage, hacked a bit due to my own lapses in memory, going somewhat like this:
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“They came for my neighbor, and I did nothing. Then, they came for my brother, and I still did nothing. Then they came for me”
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This should serve as a reminder that what was born in WWII can take place at any time, even here in America. No, I’m not saying that what happened in Arizona is of the level of racial hatred, or even close to what took place in WWII.
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It should, however, serve as a sharp reminder to all who are in the GOP that they had better start getting the individuals who trade in it to silence themselves – in other words, stop the evasion and start taking responsibility for the actions of their peers.
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This opinion was triggered by a discussion with a friend of mine, who is from Antigua, and who has strong ties to the Latino community.
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It is very easy when one is not the target of Republican demography to become complacent, however, the Latin community has now found itself a target. Keep this clearly in mind, as what had happened at the hands of the Democrats from 1900 to 1940 to the Black community can easily happen to the Latino community. They paid the price of populist demography with some 5,000 lives, and since the late ’70s, the GOP has taken up the cudgels.
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This is where the rubber meets the road. The past can be a teacher, and even moderates like Joe Klein, whom I admire for his change of heart over the past several years, needs to look inward and decide what is, and what is not part of a conservative agenda.
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Mark my words, in November, look for voting breakdowns in the Latino community to resemble that of the Black community.
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That is all. Again, apologies for the intrusion.

Oops. Twice I referred to the “Latin community”. I meant “Latino community”.

Textee–Now that he has retired, I suppose it’s no harm to tell you that the main source for that story about General McKiernan was…General McKiernan. There were several other sources as well, all uniformed military–but I didn’t run it until I checked with McKiernan, a man I admire, himself. He had been up for 36 hours straight. He deserved a nap. And Rumsfeld proved, by saying what he did, vowing never to give McKiernan another combat command because he dozed on the c-130, what a hopeless disaster he was a Secretary of Defense.

And by the way, your rancid hatred and blinkered ignorance–which permeates every word you write in this space–is precisely what I’m talking about above.

Snap.

So I wonder why Joe Klein chooses to respond to textee, the incoherent liebot, out of all the commenters here.

I doubt that Bennett was Tea-bombed – although he could have been had he ended up the nominee. No matter, the brewing dissatisfaction in the Republican Party is fueling what the established part of the party fears. I recommend an excellent article about the context of the Tea Party, it development, and likely evolution at:

http://funks2.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/the-trip-to-nowhere-on-the-tea-party-express/

Interesting opinion, jbaustian. I presume that you are one of Utah’s Republican Primary delegates, because if you are not, then you have no more of a f*cking clue than does Joe Klein.

Easy Target?

Right you are Cliff. Why hasn’t Bennett used some of that emotion to condemn the 24/7 hate speech coming from talk radio, some tea baggers, and often from Republican elected officials.
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Maybe he still would have lost but he would have earned some respect.
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Joe Klein just because he didn’t rave at his loss doesn’t excuse years of siding with some of the worst Bush policy. And, after all he came in with the group that stated they wanted term limits and then not only failed to pass them but paid no attention to them.
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Utah will elect another Republican who will be only mildly more crazy.

sacredh: they are already losing some independent support. As they often do, the Republicans will push their intolerance too far. They did it in the 50s, 70s, and 90s. They can’t help themselves.
They have destroyed themselves in California and I expect they will do the same elsewhere. It is a shame because a healthy opposition is good. But, crazy isn’t.

Octopus,
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This very obscure man was talking about a revolution of ideas.
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Listen to the radio and you’ll hear DJs saying that there is a “rock and roll” revolution of new rock music taking over for old rock music. Listen to scientists with new discoveries calling the ideas “revolutionary”.
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Yes, this man did use communist references, but, he stated that they would, as educated people start a revolution of ideas.
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Ideas without a concept of violence is not sedition. It is opposition.
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He is not making any reference to guns, bombs or overthrowing anything.
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That said, it was not a good speech, but not even vaguely sedition, either.

To add to and correct the statement you made it was by German Lutheran (outside of the official Riechschurch – the official protestant religion of Germany established by Hitler, contradicting conservative claims that Hitler was an atheist or was in the least bit opposed to religion outside of sermons) the quote 53 was referring to is this:
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“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a part of was a part of the, unfortunately, far too small German anti-Nazi resistance movement.
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http://thinkexist.com/quotation/first-they-came-for-the-communists-but-i-was-not/1500680.html
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Like you, 53, I have called the Tea Party proto-fascist, not fully developed fascist. They are like German conservatives who, eventually, let the minority Nazi Party into power in a coalition. They are not like the Nazis themselves, but, like the ones who could open the door to them if the situation arises.
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Republicans of the 1970s through the early 1990s were not like this.

You speak of candidates and office-holders being purged, but this is not exactly true except in that House district in upstate New York. And it was an odd case where an out-of-touch central committee selected an out-of-touch candidate, then the rank-and-file rebelled; the situation should work itself out in November.
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Crist took himself out of the party, he was not kicked out. He is ahead in the polls right now, possibly because of name recognition, but will run low on money before the general election.
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Anon76 wonders how I know what I what was going on in Utah, unless I was there. I was not… but I have been paying some attention these last few decades, and feel qualified to comment on Bennett’s tenure in a general sense.
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Your own party has a history of purges, Joe Lieberman most famously. Incumbents were rarely turned out unless you count candidates weakened by charges of corruption. I’m not sure how to describe what’s going on in Pennsylvania and Colorado… special cases.

“rancid and blinkered ignorance,” Love it. Thanks, Joe.

I think it’s a pity there are no Republicans sticking up for the necessity of the bail-out package. At least enough of them voted for it. But why are there no candidates willing to spell out the consequences of not voting for a bailout? As distasteful as it was, not to do it would have made no more sense than refusing to bail out a sinking ship you were on just because somebody else caused the leak.

Seems the Utah republicans did what a lot of us want the left to do. And they did it in a democratic manner.
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When there is a reliable/”safe” seat make sure that your Senator/Congressman is what you want.
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This stands in contrast to the Club for Growth taking out Chaffee and ensuring a switch of a seat.
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Or what happened in New York’s 23rd.

jbaustian,
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As usual you make a very good post.
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Joe and the Liberals have it wrong. At 77 Bennett would have been 83 when he completed his next term.
I think the people of Utah believed it is time for some new blood. Someone younger with new ideas and more energy to be sent to the senate.
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When most people retire at 60-65, members of the senate and congress keep running till they die. There comes a time when new ideas are needed.
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I think Bennett’s loss was due to age and an anti incumbent feeling among the electorate.
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I expect these same feeling will be played out against incumbents of both parties and are not unique to Republicans.
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Having said that I don’t expect ideologues like JK and the Liberals on this site to agree with me. Their minds are not open enough for that kind of rational thought.
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53, and Patrick, these are my opinions and are in no way hateful comments.

“…Patrick, these are my opinions and are in no way hateful comments.”
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At, from what you tell us, at the age of 71 you are learning restraint.
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So, at age 77 you might be at your peak for running for office as might Bob Bennett.
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Tea Party or not, we have not seen yet so many Democrats going into imposed retirement. Several, including Al Gore at age 52 in 2000, have gone into self-imposed retirement from politics to do other work.

Joe,
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What do you expect when you show so much bias in everything you write.
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textee is over the top in many of his comments, but when you and other TIME people show so little balance in your writings it is difficult to have an open discussion of the issues.
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Try looking back at articles you have written and see how many are truly positive about Democrats and how few are positive about Republicans. I think if you are honest you will find Democrats win about 20 to 1.
Would it not be helpful if there was some balance of ideas here.

The stupidity of Klein’s post is yet again evidence of his lack of knowledge. Klein also in his uninformed stupor fails to realize the Tea Party movement is not just “conservatives”. The Tea Party movement is made up of millions of people from ALL parties. Conservatives, Independents and Democrats. It is made up of people who have sat back all of their lives and allowed corrupt Senators like Bennett be voted back into office year after year. We have allowed the ear-marked, pork laden politicians like Bennett to keep on funneling our tax dollars to his special interest campaign contributors, friends, and families. This year, we say to them, “No MORE”.
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This year you shall see many incumbents fail at the polls. If the incumbent is running in the primary the concentration to “vote the idiot out” will occur at that time like it has happened to Bennett. If the incumbent makes it to the general election in November, that is where the concentration by Tea Party members to vote him or her out of office. We are seeking fiscal conservative politicians who understand that this Government has spent too much and is taxing us way too much. We want people who recognize this Government has grown way too big and they will pledge to cut it’s size back down to more manageable levels.
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The Tea Party movement basically is looking for a fresh new start in Washington. That is why at many Tea Party rallies and meetings we see more people with T-shirts who have the message printed on it “Re-elect Nobody”. People within the Tea Party movement realize that together our vote is a term limit for incumbents. Our notice to them is if you vote to frivolously spend our hard earned tax dollars like you have in the past, you will be voted out of office.
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People in this country are sick and tired of the business as usual of the Washington elites. There have been many polls taken. Why do you see so many career politicians who are getting out now rather than spend their campaign war chests full of special interest dollars on a race they know they will lose?
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They will take their campaign war chests full of big labor, teacher union, and all the other vast array of special interest groups money to come back in 2 or 4 years from now in hopes that this movement dies out. There is an anger at incumbents which will be seen through out this country, in the primaries, and then the general election in November. They are not stupid people, they see the writing on the wall. Health care was the tipping point.
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It is not just Tea Party folks, it is prevalent across the Nation in both Parties and Independents. That is why Obama has failed at rallying his base of support. Elections are won by those who can energize their bases and then persuade the Independents to join them. Unfortunately for both incumbent Democrats and Republicans their base of support is not energized like that of the Tea Party movement. We want REAL CHANGE we can believe in and we are doing it ourselves.

“Your own party has a history of purges, Joe Lieberman most famously.”
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I explained this before and I’ll explain it again since I was living in Connecticut when Joe Lieberman (from the city I was born in and next to the town I lived in at the time) was elected in 1988. Republican Lowell Wicker was more liberal than a vast majority of Democrats and the Democrats, instead of putting up a sacrificial lamb again, put up a conservative. Democrats loyal to the letter D and conservatives elected Lieberman while Liberals and Republicans loyal to the letter R voted for Wicker.
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Lieberman was always a DINO and there to keep out hard core conservatives. When America and the State of Connecticut began to wake up from the six years of draconian conservative rule (we felt about Republicans what the Tea Party felt about having health care “jammed down [their] throats” about the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, deficit spending, the no-bit contracts to Haliburton but used to consider it going in that the other end of GI tract than our throats) supported somebody who both had the letter D and voted like a Democrat.
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The power of being an incumbent was more powerful and Lieberman won as an independent.
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Republicans choosing to oust respected names of incumbents should expect to have an increased chance of loosing to a Democrat or an independent.

Some interesting statistics.
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According to recent polls.
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70% of citizens in AZ favor new law.
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60% Nationally favor letting local police stop and varify immigration status.
31% are opposed.
9% no opinion
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50% have unfavorable opinion of immigration rights protesters.
25% have favorable opinion.
25% no opinion
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55% of Colorado voters favor immigration law like AZ.
35% are opposed
15% no opinion
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17 states considering immigration laws similar to AZ
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The above polls show that the immigration feelings in the USA are not a Republican only issue. It is an issue for Democrats as well.
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Liberals on this site should open their minds to the facts and stop creating their own facts.

Michael,
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The article you recommended is a piece of garbage with no factual truth in it’s content. It’s strictly a Liberals views on the Tea Party and nothing more. He has a right to his opinion but that’s all it is nothing more.

According to Freeinpa, the Tea Party was waiting until November.
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“We want REAL CHANGE.”
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The last time we had Republicans in control of everything four years ago, we ended up in a situation where we were all wondering if we would end up begging on the street corner for change and believe that this is what the Tea Party is going to lead us back to.
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The Republican and Tea Party strategy seems to be, as your vice president Dick said to Patrick Leahy”why don’t you go Fk yourself.”
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Basically, it is impossible to tell the difference between what the Tea Party wants and what GWB and a Republican majority delivered, “if your not wealthy, then you can go…”

this Government has spent too much and is taxing us way too much

See that’s the nub of the problem. If the gobvernment is spending too much then – by definition – it’s not taxing enough. Failure to recognize this simple logic is crippling our entire country.

Feel free to try and cut spending – I’m all for it. But be willing to pay for what you’re getting or else you’re just another whining freeloader.

Newfreedom,
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Good Post.
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You’re one of only a couple people on this site that has any understanding of what the Tea Party is all about.
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With a Congressional approval rating of 22%, It’s hard to understand why Joe and others on this site don’t understand why Bennett was defeated.
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I think Liberals are in a wonderland where they dream up stories that they think will help them in 2010 and 2012.
None of these fairytales are based of real facts.

It will be helpful to get the Tea Party to come clean on their position on Social Security and Medicare. A fews months one tea partier was heavy on gubmint spending while waiting at his post box for his disability check.

3xfire3:
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I’m well aware of the immigration issue, and as I’ve said before, many Black Americans are conservative. It’s definitely a wedge issue.
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However, I wasn’t talking about whether people found it popular or not, I was discussing the endemic racism in the GOP and the fact that another group – the Lationo community, has found itself in their cross-hairs.
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Once you have gotten over your more than thorough beating I helped you administer to yourself, you really should take a closer look at what I write.
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Didn’t you notice also that I used the phrase “populist demagoguery”? Look at the first word.
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And btw, provide links please. Hypothetical polls are not something that plays well here.

Patrick:
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3xfire3 and Rusty blow a lot of steam, but I wonder:
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Regardless of how you or I or anyone else feels about the events in Arizona, do you think that with both of the two largest ethnic groups voting for the GOP in November in the low single digits that there will be anything left but Angry White Males to vote for them?
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They may win some seats in 2010, but Rush Limbaugh’s claim that they don’t need diversity is going to come back to haunt them.

Explain why they are rioting in the streets in Greece? .
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Who are protesting? Big Unions? Why?
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Social Security and Medicare do need to be relooked at, it is clear that these two entitlement programs are not sustainable. But also, Medicaid, “Save the Spotted Owls”, Military posts in Germany/Japan/South Korea, Earmarks for every special interest group under the sun, and all the other social justice programs need to come under close scrutiny.
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Let’s put it ALL on the table, rank them one by one as to importance, and then begin the cuts. Maybe we can first go after the IRS. Abolish it, and just put on a simple, VAT tax in it’s place. Everyone pays the same, no more tax loopholes or special tax provisions. Pass a balanced budget amendment on the Federal Government just like all the 50 States have in their constitutions. Ban all earmarks. Ban all lobbyists from the halls and offices of Congress. Open up all budget related meetings to the c-Span Cameras for total transparency.

“Republicans of the 1970s through the early 1990s were not like this.”
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I’m going to have to disagree with you on this, Patrick. The purveyance of racial hatred for political gain was at it’s peak back then – they had ties to any number of hate groups. All under the aegis of the Libertarian concept of personal liberty (even to hate your neighbor).
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No joke here, Patrick, had they not conducted themselves in this fashion, the racial divide would have been closed long ago. These were the days during which they mainstreamed many urban myths about the Black community, which people like Rusty and 3xfire3 cut their teeth on:
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http://www.splcenter.org
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Look at their Intelligence Reports and type the following:
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“CCC”
“Patriot Movement”
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You will find a lot more there too. They had informal political ties to Neo Nazis, the Sons of the Confederacy, and many, many more…
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Timothy McVeigh wasn’t just a “smaller government” type, by any means…

textee:
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Consider yourself in an almost unique position.
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I don’t think that anyone in my 3 years here has earned such accolades from any pundit in the swamp.
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Usually, it’s us lowly tetrapods that snarl and snap, but not in this case.
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Bear your wounds proudly…

Rusty:
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What does Greece have to do with anything?
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They are 4,000 miles from the east coast of the US, and are part of the EU – not the United States.
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I have a emelentary suggestification for you:
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Stick to US issues to buttress your claims!

Swampland, The Tea Party and Sarah Palin
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On May 1 I attended a meeting in Detroit sponsored by “Americans for Prosperity Foundation” which was attended by approx. 1,500 people. The key note speaker was Sarah Palin.
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I have never attended a large political type meeting before and I thought it would be a good opportunity to see and hear Palin first hand and see if all the demonizing by the MSM and Swamplanders had any real truth to it. Many people present were also Tea Party members but not all.
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To start with my impression of Sarah Palin was very favorable. She is intelligent, articulate and very knowledgeable on the issues. Her speech was in no way hateful but she did state many areas where she strongly disagrees with the policies of President Obama and the Democratic controlled congress.
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There was a question and answer period after her speech. She answered all of the questions and seemed to have a good knowledge of all the issues of which she was asked.
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Palin appears to have a lot of Common Sense. For some of you younger swampers let me quote Will Rogers, the Great American Cowboy Philosopher, as he gave his definition of Common sense.
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“Common Sense is Genius Dressed Up in its Working Cloths”.
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I thought you would also like to hear my perception of the people in attendance.
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There were no Red Necks or Billy Bobs present
Ages ranged from High School to Seniors
About 1,500 in attendance with women appearing to out number men by a small number.
They appeared to be a good cross section of Mainstream Americans.
I saw no one that appeared to be of a radical or violent type.
I talked to quite a few people and they all seemed quite nice.
They were concerned about the direction that President Obama is taking our country.
They were definitely not Progressives or Liberals.
They appeared to be the same type people I would see at my grandchildren’s baseball games.
Just average Americans.
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Overall my perception of Sarah Palin and the people in attendance was very favorable.

Yeah, I don’t see this as a purge at all. Utah is a conservative state, and if the GOP there doesn’t see Bennett as conservative enough, vote him out.
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It’s the exact same thing as happened with Lieberman. Connecticut Democrats were more liberal than he was, and they decided to vote him out. Sure, he found a way back in by appealing to Connecticut Republicans, but the Democrats were entitled to vote him out in the primary.

“Americans for Prosperity Foundation”
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You might be interested in learning more about Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
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APF is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries — a Big Oil giant led by the country’s ninth-richest man, which is pumping millions of dollars in campaign contributions to purchase Republican congressmen.
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Quite a grassroots movement of average Americans you have there.

In 1757, English admiral John Byng was executed for “not having done his utmost against the enemy, either in battle or pursuit.” Previously, senior officers were often treated leniently while junior officers were sometimes executed; the Articles of War had been amended to establish a single punishment for all convicted of this charge.
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Voltaire referred to this incident in Candide, where he wrote “it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others” (Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres).
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Some naval historians credit this incident as having a salutory effect later on, contributing to the success of the Royal Navy. It demonstrated to commanders then and later that more was expected of naval officers than just courage and loyalty; they had to show initiative and creativity.
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Why do I bring this up? Because too often, too many politicians of mediocre talent are routinely reelected. We should not have to wait until they commit some crime or horrendous blunder to get rid of them, especially when the country is in trouble. And we should not have to wait until the voters decide in favor of someone from the opposing party — if a Republican is not doing an adequate job, then he should be replaced by a better Republican, not an inferior Democrat.

I am not sure who brought up Greece, or in what context, but it is worth paying attention to the situation there so that it does not spread to the US.
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Having said that, it might be too late. Several of the largest states are already in great distress because of the same practices that led to the difficulties in Greece. The country cannot recover while California and others keep dragging it down and down.
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Also, at some point the practice of bailing out every weak company or agency or state may put the entire country at risk. Those states which used stimulus funds last year so they didn’t have to make difficult fiscal choices, now think they may get bailed out again. It has to stop somewhere, before it is too late.

53_3: Alex Altman did a take down just a couple of days ago that was every bit as good. Swampland Hall of Fame material.

This should have been in response to 9.1.

I missed it completely. I wish I could have read it.
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Who got the hot poker?

This was, also, the means of controlling both junior and senior officers in the Japanese Army and Navy. Watch Bridge on the River Kwai again.
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Your comparison is very strange to say the least. Since one is about destroying an enemy in combat and the other is about providing services voters demand in exchange for tax money.
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You did not notice the stories of Connecticut.
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Lieberman won due mostly to his being an incumbent. It is unclear if the Republican would have won or lost had Lieberman quit. For the most part, independent voters choose incumbents and giving up an incumbent gives the opposition a high chance of winning.
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His original rival, Lowell Weicker, as an independent became governor of Connecticut mostly due to his eighteen years as senator due to name recongintion.
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So, I see those Tea Party Republicans with their guns pointed straight downwards, shooting themselves in the foot.
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Although the Tea Party Republican may win, he will not get Bennett’s 69% victory.
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It is a risky move what these purges are doing to your party and, therefore, I could not be happier about it.

53,
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This, indeed, will be an angry white man’s Republican party.
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Agreed.

Let me check. I think I remember the thread. brb.

I think it was textee that time as well.

3X,
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10.5

Some interesting statistics.
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Yes, and, although you can’t bear the comparison, before the pesky supreme court got involved, segregation was incredibly popular in states which had segregation.
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The Supreme court is not there to pat the majority on the back and say “good job”. It is there to uphold principals some of which are extremely popular such that it is nearly redundant and, other times, to support some extremely unpopular ideas.
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No, I am not specifically calling you a racist. I am saying that your reasoning regarding legalized and even legally mandated harassment of Latinos is popular, unconstitutional and, very, very arguably, unjust as was segregation.

May 6th. Kevin’s right. It was textee again. It was the Free Speech thread.

3X,
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This is what is called blogwhoring.
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Your buddy Newfreedomblog does it, Lawyermommy does it and so do a few others.
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I have no idea what his blog says, but, if he can’t share his opinions with the class and has to hide it behind a link, then I don’t care what it says.

3xfire3: “Overall my perception of Sarah Palin and the people in attendance was very favorable.” Now there’s a surprise!

Addressing just one point in your report — Sarah Palin does not allow just any question to be asked of her. Questions must be submitted in writing in advance and vetted. Maybe that’s why we still don’t know what she reads to get the news of the day.

Overall, my impression of Barack Obama is very favorable. How many of you changed your minds upon learning this?

So I wonder why Joe Klein chooses to respond to textee, the incoherent liebot, out of all the commenters here.

Prison rules, always beat up the crazy loner in hopes the gangs will leave you alone.

The uncoordinated erratic radical right resembles a flight of geese migrating in the wrong direction. They are causing a stir – and other geese are following – but ultimately the weather will turn cold and they will die off. Obama’s American Revolution will prevail. ……….

http://thefiresidepost.com/2010/05/09/obamas-american-revolution-2010/

Could there be ANYTHING more hilarious (or pathetic) than a covey of fluffed up liberals banding together to protect their threatened hen house? You people are a joke and a drain on humanity. Newfeedom and 3x are correct, this liberal social democracy is a failure and your ilk are the enablers who put it there. The Tea Party is for real and liberal bottom feeders are the target. Let the heads roll and America will celebrate a return to sanity and the reemergence of prosperity. (once again) The idiot-in-chief, will be our next target in 2012 and this comes from an Independent voter who unwisely voted FOR him in 2008.

“Rancid hatred and blinkered ignorance” will be on Joe Klein’s headstone.

Looking at these posts the radical left must be worrying about the tea party or they would not be blasting them so much. Utahns are happy to be sending real conservatives to D.C. to clean up the swamp… all of you liberals on welfare living off the govt teet.. GOYA and get a job before you are forced to

Klein needs to get some 5″ platform shoes so the next time he tries to threaten Glenn Beck like he did at the Times 100 dinner he’ll be tall enough to at least reach Glenn’s navel. The only reason Time Mag is still profitable per his comments on Chris Mathews show this A.M. is the number of times they have put Obama on the cover…. Is that journalism??? LOL

charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

“Rancid hatred and blinkered ignorance” will be on Joe Klein’s headstone.

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I’m betting on “I Told You I Was Sick”.

“Could there be ANYTHING more hilarious (or pathetic) than a covey of fluffed up liberals banding together to protect their threatened hen house?”
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Yes. It would be a covey of self-righteous right wingers banding together and pretending that their minority represents the vast majority of Americans.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there.

Actually the Tea Party movement is made up of a majority of females. The “leaders” which is a loose name to give them is also made up of mostly women. Of the top % of the Tea Party leadership or better yet, those who have started local Tea Party groups, women out number men 2 to 1. Yes the vast majority are indeed white, but then so are the other two major parties as well.
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So much for your knowledge of who ranks in the majority of the Tea Party movement.
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And to 3x3fire, thank you very much for your kind words. Despite IQ53 and Patrick “I’ll put you in my cross-hairs” Sartor’s comments to incite racisim, they simply run in fear of this great grass roots movement not unsimilar to that of Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the movement progressive Democrats backing Barack Obama’s insane policies. They know they are against the wall and this is how they fight back now, and historically. This year we put them back into the holes they crawled out of.

jbaustian: It was Republicans who reseated Lieberman. Their candidate had no support from the party. He only won 10% of the Republican vote. With the help of the Republicans Lieberman won 50% of the vote and Lamont 40%. In other words he couldn’t have won without the Republicans.
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Hewing to his self named Conn. for Lieberman Party, Joe’s votes have consistently favored Joe’s ego and interests. Yet, he is still allowed to caucus with the Dems. No purge there.

I miss the days of Lowell Wicker, Chuck Percy, Nelson Rockefeller, Ed Brooks, Earl Warren. Even Dirkson, Dole and Goldwater seem moderate compared to the theocrats, neocoms, paleoconservatists and plutocrats now leading the party. None of the above Republicans would survive the great self-destructive purge happening now. McCarthy would love it but would be out demogogued by Rush and Beck.

Don’t forget the ubiquitous Michael Fury.

Greece can thank that great exemplar of the free market, Goldman Sachs for helping them hide their debt.

Actually the Tea Party movement is made up of a majority of females.
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Actually, no.
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Eighteen percent of Americans identify as Tea Party supporters. The vast majority of them — 89 percent — are white. Just one percent is black.
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They tend to skew older: Three in four are 45 years old or older, including 29 percent who are 65 plus. They are also more likely to be men (59 percent) than women (41 percent).

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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
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I know, I know. Rusty is wrong on the facts again. I’m stunned.

3x..I don’t think any liberal on this site denied that the majority of Americans are in favor of the new Az law. Speaking for myself, I am concerned about the overlay of xenophobia and usurpation of constitutional rights.
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If you had taken a poll when Truman integrated the military, I think you would have found a majority in opposition. The majority of the south was against civil rights legislation. This country is not about majority rule. So your statistics are only politically meaningful.

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Good one, sacred!
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Kindof like the quip Obama made last year that Rahm has trouble with this holiday because he’s not used to saying the word “Day” after “Mother”…

I’m of two minds here. In the one, as Digby said today:

“Imagine a government in which Bob Bennett of Utah is considered a liberal and you have some idea of what will happen if the Republicans seize power.”

In my other, DFH brain, I see that Joe once again can’t stand the notion of a democracy at the behest of impassioned (although highly misinformed) voters. Liberals in love with his attacks on teabaggers, don’t forget that the next time the activist left is in ascent (as opposed to our present self-induced coma) he’ll be equally condescending.

And to think I spent my entire AF career thinking that “mother’s day” happened every two weeks…
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When we arranged to “pay this mother… and pay that mother…”.

53_3 wrote: “Like you, 53, I have called the Tea Party proto-fascist, not fully developed fascist. They are like German conservatives who, eventually, let the minority Nazi Party into power in a coalition. They are not like the Nazis themselves, but, like the ones who could open the door to them if the situation arises. (end of quote)
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German conservatives did not actually “let” the Nazis into power — it was more like, someone had to form a majority and both the conservatives and the National Socialists hated the communists. But not for the same reasons, and not because of any shared values.
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One could argue that the conservative supporters of Hindenburg should have had nothing to do with Hitler. One could also logically argue that none of the parties should have had anything to do with any of the others — there were only several radical parties, with no moderate center and no libertarian right. Given the situation, it is hard to see how a non-authoritarian and non-totalitarian party could have formed a stable coalition.
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The Tea Partiers are mostly libertarian, though of course because they have no real leadership or organization it is hard to make blanket statements about any unifying philosophy or ideology. Still, it is reasonable to say that they are not like any German philosopher since the time of Hegel or even before. In fact, one could argue that German philosophers from the time of Kant took a different direction that Hume and other Scottish and English philosophers; thus it is hard for Americans to sympathize with the ideas that have propelled Europeans for these last 250 years.

apr2563 wrote: “Greece can thank that great exemplar of the free market, Goldman Sachs for helping them hide their debt. (end of quote)
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Greece’s problems date back all the way to 1977; since then left-wing parties have either formed the government or joined in coalitions with the center-right. So when the Left was in control, they grew the governement; and when they were not in control, they were able to block any roll-back in the size of government.
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Goldman Sachs is the convenient foil for all the ills of the world. But in this case and nearly all others, GS had nothing to do with Greece’s problems — it was the Greeks themselves who elected governments which promised more than they could possibly deliver.

“Could there be ANYTHING more hilarious (or pathetic) than a covey of fluffed up liberals banding together to protect their threatened hen house?”
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Yes, and that would be a group of pathetic know-nothings like you, Rusty and freeinpa who think you actually threaten anyone.
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You continually insist on things that aren’t true, you invoke facts that don’t exist, you respond to arguments based on evidence with snide insults and a woefully undeserved sense of superiority, and then you huff and puff about how your little 18% of the population will make the rest of us “rue the day” when you rise to power.
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And. That. Is. HILARIOUS.

Like most red states, Utah gets back 107% in federal spending than it pays in federal taxes.
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My blue state, meanwhile, gets only 61% back in federal spending of what we all pay in federal taxes.
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You want to complain about welfare recipients living off the government teat? Don’t look at me, pal. Go look in the mirror.
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http://scatter.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/red-state-blue-state-welfare-state-subsidizing-state/

Poor kevin. He remains in a state of denial. I proved him wrong on three points yesterday and he is still pouting about it. I find people like you utterly contemptible, kevin, as you epitomize the “entitlement” mentality that is crippling America. The sooner we get people like you OUT of office, the better off we will all be. Now go back and let MaMa wipe your runny nose, it’s probably your bedtime, anyway. (sweet dreams, sunshine and lolly pops, too)

(quote)Like most red states, Utah gets back 107% in federal spending than it pays in federal taxes.
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My blue state, meanwhile, gets only 61% back in federal spending of what we all pay in federal taxes. (end of quote)
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Your “blue” state senators and representatives are likely responsible for passing all the biggest spending bills of the last 75 years, including all or most of the unaffordable entitlement programs that are driving the country WOT toward bankruptcy.
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Maybe Utah would pay more federal taxes if the federal government did not control between 60% and 70% of the land. If those acres/square miles were used for productive purposes, the state would be wealthier and would produce more tax revenue.
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Yet Bill Clinton locked away much of the best coal-bearing lands while he was president, and Barack Obama is trying to impose further limits on mineral extraction.
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So if you want Utah to contribute more to the federal treasury, then maybe you should write your congressman and ask that Utahns be allowed to use more of the land within that state’s borders. And while you’re at it, suggest that other Western states be allowed to do the same.

Here’s kevin, complaining once again how his taxes are distributed. Gee, kevin, I thought your ideology was ALL ABOUT redistributing wealth…what are you complaining about? Just wait until your health insurance premium triples to pay for that HCR you swore would pay for itself. Will you complain about that, as well. I will lay even odds that you do….AFTER blaming it all on Bush, of course. Go night night, little boy, your incessant whining is becoming a big bore!

apr2563 wrote: “jbaustian: It was Republicans who reseated Lieberman. Their candidate had no support from the party. He only won 10% of the Republican vote. With the help of the Republicans Lieberman won 50% of the vote and Lamont 40%. In other words he couldn’t have won without the Republicans. (end of quote)
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Are you saying that in one of the most liberal states in the country, one of the bluest of the blue states, the most left-wing candidate could only get support from 40% of the electorate?
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I’m not surprised at this result, not at all. But I just wonder how you expect to build a lasting majority… unless you assume that the moderate center can be fooled over and over again, like they were in 2008.

I proved him wrong on three points yesterday and he is still pouting about it.
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You mean when you said Obama lied because he said HCR would pay for itself, and I pointed out that the official CBO report said it would pay for itself, and your rebuttal was essentially “shut up, that’s why”?
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I’m not pouting. I’m laughing and pointing.
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I find people like you utterly contemptible, kevin
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And I wholeheartedly welcome your contempt.
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You know nothing about the issues, you don’t have the slightest clue how the real world works — not even in health care, as we found out yesterday — and your overarching political philosophy is the third-grade mentality of “I Got Mine, F-ck You.”

Did you even click the link, jbaustian?
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Federal land ownership may well be an issue in Utah, but I doubt that’s why Mississippi is hauling in 202% and Louisiana 178% of what they pay in.
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Should I contact my congressman and tell him not to support relief efforts to the Gulf? Because as we’ve learned, it was representatives from those welfare state red states — of both parties — that got the Bush administration to back off the requirement that BP and other companies had to have the safeguard that would have stopped the spill.
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We’re all paying the price for their supposed small-government philosophy, but now they’re coming with hat in hand. I’m happy to help out my fellow citizens, because I am not a Republican, but it’d be nice if they shoehorned the hypocrisy about how they don’t normally want federal money for a second while they have their hands out.

In your dreams. Not in the real world.

Gee, kevin, I thought your ideology was ALL ABOUT redistributing wealth…
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Of course you did. That’s because you only get your information from shows like “Fox and Führers” and the junior jumble on the Human Events kids page.

Kevin: What’s sad is that after liberal state politicians spend and tax their states into insolvency the very liberals who voted these idiots into power move out of the blue state with high taxes and move to red states where the economy is still good and a state that has jobs and yet these idiot libs keep voting for liberals turning red states to purple. Please explain to me Kevin I assume you live in UT now or why are you interested in Bennett….. are you one of these people who left a high tax state moving to a more conservative state and you didn’t learn the lesson given you are still a liberal????

Please explain to me Kevin I assume you live in UT now or why are you interested in Bennett…..
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Uh, because this is a post about Bennett? Was that hard to figure out?
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are you one of these people who left a high tax state moving to a more conservative state and you didn’t learn the lesson given you are still a liberal????
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No, I’m one of those people who looks over the economic data for the past sixty years and sees that there is incontrovertible hard evidence that no matter what metric you use — GDP growth rate, NYSE growth, employment, whatever — the American economy has always done better under Democratic administrations than it has under Republican ones.
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http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/
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That’s the lesson I learned, and it’s based on hard numbers. But you heard Ronald Reagan tell a made-up story about welfare queens, so I guess that proves those numbers wrong?

It figures jbaustian would run away from questions, as usual.

kbang, what was the correct answer to your question thursday about what you call a Grecian girl who can outrun her bros.? I doubt our naughty answers were the right ones.

Kevin wrote: “Did you even click the link, jbaustian?”
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Looking at the list of states that receive more than they pay… it looks like mostly states with lower per capita income.
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You like the graduated (progressive) income tax? Then the states with higher per capital incomes will pay more… until those incomes regress toward the mean, because of high state taxes and slower growth.
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Nearly all the states in the Old South are at the top of the list, because they’ve been below-average in median incomes since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Since FDR and the New Deal, those states have benefited from federal largess.
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The solution, of course, is to cut way back on federal spending. And maybe switch to a flat tax, or at least one not so progressive. That might help even the playing field. Or maybe the states in the Northeast and Midwest and Pacific Coast will just grow faster and get richer and pay even more despite lower tax rates. That would suck for you, wouldn’t it?

deconstructiva wrote: “It figures jbaustian would run away from questions, as usual. (end of quote)
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I thought that those were rhetorical questions. (So you don’t think Kyl, et al you mentioned are part of the rot? So who are? And why is Kyl the best one to stop the rot? What is the rot? )
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Wait a minute, those are rhetorical questions.
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I’ll try to answer real questions. I still owe Patrick a detailed answer to one he posed about ten days ago, and will answer that one when I have time.

“The fact that we can’t seem to have this sort of conversation right now, that’s it is ripped away from the vast majority of decent Americans by telecharlatans and infotainers, does not speak well for our ability to survive as the greatest nation in the history of the world.”

Libraries are still good places to visit while you consider what’s gone wrong with this country. They’re one of the few places left that are free and open and, at the same time, reliably well-ordered. Fiction is on ones set of shelves. Nonfiction is on another. Books on theology lean on one another. Nobody puts them on a shelf with the scientific volumes. Aquinas and Mendel are in different places. Ignatius Donnelly’s work does not abut that of Percival Lowell or Edwin Hubble. And, if libraries sometimes seem to be involving into Internet cafes, still, once you step away from the computers, a library is a good and steady place, where knowledge you’re looking for is in the same place it’s always been.
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Idiot America is a strange, disordered place. Everything is on the wrong shelves. The truth of something is defined by how many people will attest to it, and the facts are defined by how well they will sell. The best sellers are on one shelf, cheek by jowl, whether what’s contained in them is true or not. People wander blindly, following the Gut into dark corners and aisles that lead nowhere, confusing possibilities with threats, jumping at shadows, stumbling around. They trip over piles of fiction left strewn around the floors of the nonfiction aisles. They fall down. They land on other people, and those other people can get hurt…
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Idiot America is the development of the collective gut at the expense of the collective mind. It’s what results when we abandon our duty to treat the ridiculous with ridicule. It’s what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and we not only surrender our right to punish them at the polls but also become too timid to punish their ideas with daily scorn – because the polls say those ideas are popular, and therefore they must hold some sort of truth, which we should respect.
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–Charles P. Pierce, Idiot America

…uh, jb, they’re not rhetorical but if you can’t answer them, then it’s ok to admit it. If you wish to just hide behind talking points, well, so what else is new, right?

Digby needs reminding that the one or two 2nd Amendment freaks with the firearms that showed up to (a veal pen cordoned off blocks away from) an Obama rally aren’t going to “seize power” for the Republicans in some sort of obesity-stricken, sale-at-Dillard’s brown-shirted coup.
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Nope, the Republicans aren’t going to “seize power,” they’ll be voted into power again, because ordinary people –fools that they are– don’t believe that the centrist technocrats to whom they handed the change mandate are governing with these little people’s interests at heart.
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Imagine a government in which either William Clinton of Arkansas or Barack Obama of Illinois is considered a liberal (and a communist/fascist/socialist by the right) while enacting policies that would be considered imperatives to Canada-emigration had they been (when they were) the result of Bush’s establishment Republican bureaucrats.
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The next time the activist left says “Excuse me, please, sir? Sir? May we please vote for policies that make sense now? No? It’s not realistic? Oh, OK, so sorry to bother you…please don’t hit us, thank you, sir,” Joe won’t just be equally condescending, he’ll call us teabaggers outright –or “firebaggers,” if he’s informed on Journolist about what that means by somebody like Ezra or Yglesias.
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When I last spoke with digby, she started to talk about some apocalyptic showdown between left and right, in which activist rightists like the Tea Partiers, and a democratically accountable GOP were on one side, and…well, she then agreed with me that the left wasn’t actually represented anywhere, so I’m not sure just who she’s expecting to to show up at the OK Corral.
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At this point, as stupid, fractured, misinformed, disorganized and incoherent as many of them are, the Tea Partiers are kicking liberals’ asses, despite the overwhelming contempt of the political press corps. They’ve got one of the two major political parties, an entire popular cable news network, national publications and probably twenty to thirty percent of the population behind them. Liberals have only the latter, and that’s largely because of accomplishments in the faded past.
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I’d say that liberals should worry less about how scary-bad the popular right will be once they get into power, and start worrying more about how the practice of hiding behind establishment Democrats seems to inevitably result in the scary-bad popular right taking over again. At this rate, we’ll have the Gang of 14 back in no time — a coalition of GOP antediluvians and Vichy New Democrats– which will actually suit Joe Klein just fine, if the centrists can finally convince enough machine pols that their pork depends on getting in line:

There is, then, a profitable discussion to be had between “ownership” Republicans and “third-way” Democrats about transforming the stagnant bureaucracies of the Industrial Age. Republicans refused to play during the Clinton presidency; the stunned and churlish Democrats are refusing now. It will be interesting to see whether Bush, at the height of his powers, actually tries to break the impasse.
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from “The Incredible Shrinking Democrats” by Joe Klein, TIME Sunday, Feb. 06, 2005,
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Read more: http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1025086,00.html#ixzz0nTpFYLmZ

It will be interesting to see if the liberal base of the Democratic party recognizes who their real enemies are before that “profitable discussion” about which Joe prophezised in 2005 finally happens. It will be interesting to see if digby is able to overcome her fear of the popular right in time to recognize that Joe Klein’s definition of “doing the rational thing” is the only rationality she can ever expect from New Democrats.
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The thing is, it’s not an elected GOP in which Bob Bennet is deemed a leftist we have to fear. If, in 2003, we had had liberal Democrats in control of the party, and they had voted their consciences, Bush would have never been granted the authorization to invade Iraq, nor the power to “go to war” with terrorism indefinitely at home and abroad. We mightn’t have changed so much as a country, too.
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No, the thing we have to fear isn’t a government of a rightist GOP, it’s the opposition of a centrist Democrat minority that should cause the gravest concern to people like me, you and digby.

“No, the thing we have to fear isn’t a government of a rightist GOP…”
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I beg to differ. While it might not be as dispiriting as Centrist Democrats helping right-wing propagandists give liberalism a bad name, it is more dangerous by orders of magnitude.

“ordinary people –fools that they are– don’t believe that the centrist technocrats to whom they handed the change mandate are governing with these little people’s interests at heart”
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As your subsequent paragraph aludes, most discouragingly of all, the vast majority will call this liberalism. Most astonishly, far too many liberals will call this liberalism.
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I’ve about given up on any f’ing notion at all of an activist left during a dem. administration. A quote I posted a few weeks ago put it this way:
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“Australia is by most standards an advanced democracy. It is also a land where cynicism about politics and contempt for politicians abound. But such cynicism and contempt are quite comfortably accomodated within the system. If you have reservations about the system and want to change it, the democratic argument goes, do so within the system: put yourself forward as a candidate for political office, subject yourself to the scrutiny and the vote of fellow citizens. Democracy does not allow for politics outside the democratic system. In this sense, democracy is totalitarian.”
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“Fiction” writer J.M. Coetzee
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IMO, we’re all in the veal pen by dreaming that fundamental change can happen when an inherently corrupt process is policed from within, not to mention a system that violently limits outside voices.

Kevin,
I trust you have not studied the economy much. The US economy is like a giant oil tanker where the pilot has to turn off power miles out prior to reaching shore and it takes a long time to turn an oil tanker around. The USA economy is so huge and dynamic it takes a long time for any policy changes or monetary policy changes to be seen in the economy. Most economists would tell you that Pres Clinton took credit for growth while he was POTUS that was a result of policies of Reagan admin so I really don’t put much on your Salon chart as far as cause and effect. Look at the debacle Reagan inherited after Carter (no relation) so it took time to bring down escalating inflation, high tax rates and very high interest rates! There is only loose year to year relationship as it takes time to see the result of policy on economy which is why we see often the unintended consequences of well meaning politicians who sign into law bad policy because they are ignorant to economics ie those who still believe in Keynesian economics watch this video please

shepherd:
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I didn’t put that in a way that could be understood correctly.
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When I say “the thing we have to fear isn’t a government of a rightist GOP, it’s the opposition of a centrist Democrat minority that should cause the gravest concern,” I mean that, by itself, rightist government is dangerous enough, but, when combined with the aid and comfort of a centrist-led Democratic minority opposition, it is the combination of the two that causes the country to be the most imperiled.
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Again, I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t be frightened of rightist government, I’m saying that we should be even more frightened of a Republican majority “opposed” by New Democrats eager to make coalition with them against liberals (as the 2005 piece by Joe Klein evidences), and that the governance of centrist Democrats makes that prospect inevitable, as is the case currently.

“I’m saying that we should be even more frightened of a Republican majority “opposed” by New Democrats eager to make coalition with them against liberals.”
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It is a truly frightening prospect but, to a certain extent (perhaps in less perilous times), we’ve lived through that particular horror show on more than one occasion over the past thirty years. Though I think your real complaint is that New Democrats are eager to make those coalitions even when they hold huge majorities and, therefore, have no practical need for them.

All of this is lost on little kevin. He has NO desire to improve himself or become better informed. He is completely brainwashed by the liberal infomercials and his ONLY source of information is from liberal blogs. Too bad, little kevin may have had a future, but now he is immersed in a dogma of entitlement. Liberals just love the free stuff….as long as someone else pays for it!

“…not to mention a system that violently limits outside voices.”
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If you mean liberal voices, by all means, mention it. It goes to the heart of the problem and why Klein’s attempt to lay the blame on “telecharlatans and infotainers” isn’t too convincing and why Pierce indicts the entire journalistic enterprise for it’s failure to ridicule the ridiculous. Joe seems to be pretending, either consciously or not, that this hasn’t been happening for virtually his entire career.

Most economists would tell you that Pres Clinton took credit for growth while he was POTUS that was a result of policies of Reagan admin
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No, they wouldn’t. Name some. Go ahead, name some. (And do me a favor, and find someone who’s not for a right-wing front group like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation this time. An actual, accredited economist who publishes in peer-reviewed journals and isn’t just an industry gun-for-hire.)

“If you mean liberal voices, by all means, mention it.”
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Well, there is absolutely no doubt that the voices on the right get plenty of play in MSM, while full-throated liberals are outside the [.....] of accepted discourse. So, as far as media go, sure, let’s limit it to liberals.
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As far as the process, I was as concerned about Kucinich being banished from any real debate during 2008 as I was about Ron Paul. I live in a country (mind you, equally f@cked), where on NHK (our PBS) every night they interview all the party spokesmen/women, first the ruling party , then the opposition, followed usually by a theocratic buddhists, the social democrat and last but not least the communist. They don’t get equal billing, but they have a respected seat at the table. U.S. debates are ludicrously limited. What’s happened to our media, fragmentation, needs to happen to our parties.

I think your real complaint is that New Democrats are eager to make those coalitions even when they hold huge majorities
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No, seriously, that’s not my concern for the future.
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When you say that “we’ve lived through that particular horror show,” we have, it’s true. It was back when the war for control of the Democratic party was between machine-pol remnants of Great Society Democrats, and the DLC.
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The war for control of the Democratic party in 2008 wasn’t even between nominal New Deal-ers and Third Way Democrats, it was between the DLC and the New Democrats. The fight for rule was between factions of the center, one of which had means of obscuring themselves during the primaries that were the slickest I’ve ever seen.
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When I say I’m afraid of what the New Democrats will do with the GOP, once the right gets back into power, I mean it. I mean I really am honest-to-God afraid of Joe Klein’s

profitable discussion to be had between “ownership” Republicans and “third-way” Democrats about transforming the stagnant bureaucracies

, in which the legacies of the New Deal finally go down the crapper once and for all.

I’m pretty sure linking Goldman Sachs and Greece was a joke…
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Hurrah deadpan sarcasm!

Quote: “And do me a favor, and find someone who’s not for a right-wing front group like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation this time. An actual, accredited economist who publishes in peer-reviewed journals and isn’t just an industry gun-for-hire. (end of quote)
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kevin: you don’t give anyone an incentive to do favors for you. I don’t work for free.
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The Cato Institute is honest about what it stands for, unlike so many leftwing organizations with names that sound so egalitarian but are totalitarian in their goals.
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Keynes was a fine economist, made great contributions to the study of macroeconomics, but he never advocated many of the ideas attributed to him. For instance, while he favored counter-cyclical government spending, he never believed that recessions could be prevented by ever-increasing levels of government borrowing and spending.
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His General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was just that, a theory; it was useful as a design for thinking about demand, consumption and investment in a large economy, but it made assumptions about human nature which are totally wrong. That’s why explicitly Keynesian policies failed in the 1970s and are not working now. If you think they are, then check back in a couple years.

“When I say I’m afraid of what the New Democrats will do with the GOP, once the right gets back into power, I mean it. I mean I really am honest-to-God afraid of Joe Klein’s… profitable discussion to be had between “ownership” Republicans and “third-way” Democrats about transforming the stagnant bureaucracies…in which the legacies of the New Deal finally go down the crapper once and for all.”
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Agreed. Though The Beast is still all powerful – unless the oligarchs decide it’s worth it to go all out social conflagration on us rather than maintain the modest social safety net programs, essentially modified Medicare and Social Security, they would need to placate us. Remember, they’re getting incredibly, preposterously rich under the current system and a few loaves to the rabble would be far cheaper than watching their business empires collapse and having to retreat to their island fortresses for the rest of their lives (they’ll find a creative way for us to pay for it anyway).
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So it really comes back to peoples’ understanding of what is happening to them and why, and what are the best possible public policies we can adopt to deal with social problems and who most supports those “activist government” policies, etc. Which means it really comes back to our public media, which is how people come to understand those things. New Democrats would never have happened without the corruption of the entire political press by the “conservative” movement. Neither could the politically brainwashed millions on the far right, nor the politically vacuous millions in the middle.

ShepherdWong:
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Let me think about what you’ve just said.
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That’s a very, very interesting argument, one for which I don’t have a response.
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New Democrats would never have happened without the corruption of the entire political press by the “conservative” movement.
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I really do have to think about that.
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Thank you.

a real shame. it was such a great argument between kevin and jbaustian until earlj and dcarter got involved. (although i think dcarter’s 2nd post counts as actual argument so maybe he shouldn’t be lumped in w/ earlj)
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also, kevin im surprised you give so much credence to those economic stats. i don’t dismiss them entirely, but we’re looking at a perfect example of why they are unreliable: Obama’s economic numbers will be terrible, but at this point at least, they can’t possibly be blamed on his administration.

must be a quote from one of those pink $2 wal-mart wall plaques girls put in their rooms

“Are you saying that in one of the most liberal states in the country, one of the bluest of the blue states, the most left-wing candidate could only get support from 40% of the electorate?”
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If Prescott Bush, his very Greenwich (but supposedly Texas) son George Herbert Walker Bush are your idea of liberals.
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Prescott Bush, GHWB’s father was US Senator from Connecticut. Since Wiecker, even after a Republican John Roland went to jail for corruption, Connecticut has has had Republican governors.
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Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the United States and has a very strong Republican party.
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So, I have no idea where your concepts come from.
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The one and only state which consistently has Republican majorities is Kansas.

”
German conservatives did not actually “let” the Nazis into power — it was more like, someone had to form a majority and both the conservatives and the National Socialists hated the communists. But not for the same reasons, and not because of any shared values.”
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There were social democrats in Germany then as now. They are, actually, gaining power in the most recent election. The conservatives considered themselves more similar to the Nazis than they did the social democrats. This was a horrible mistake that would never be forgotten.
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As for shared values,:
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1) Jingoism
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2) Xenophobia
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3) The restoring of the past (but without a monarchy since the German people at the close of WWI hated the aristocracy and monarchy for getting them into the war.)
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4) Militarism including wars of “preemptive self defense”.
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5) Use of religion as a part of national identity.
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Sure, the Nazis were incredibly anti-democratic and unlike libertarians, but, they had conservative values.
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The Nazis did not have welfare. They put one armed legless war veterans to work in the war factories.
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As for philosophers… Philosophers will always be there and will be taken off the shelf to justify what people in power want to do.
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The only philosophy based ideology is Marxism.
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Democracy is not philosophy based other than on the vague duality of majority rule meets minority rights (including the rights of minority groups – political and otherwise – to be very vocally critical of the majority.)
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The number one difference between conservatives and fascists is elections. We can vote out conservatives if we don’t like them.
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The second, is, obviously, the degree of those five conservative principals is much more extreme in fascists.

j,
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Comparing Greece to the United States is like putting Ralph Nader and Ronald Reagan in the same conservative political party.
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Second, Greece used to be able to depreciate it’s currency to handle situations like this. This was the ticking time bomb of putting many countries under the same currency.

“You people are a joke and a drain on humanity.”
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That’s what Hitler said to the left, the the liberals, Jews and Gypsies.
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Dr. Earl Josef Mengele, he gets to decide for the party who is a part of the master race and who is a drain on the master race.
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Thank you for proving my point about how conservatives are cousins to fascists.

Keynes did advocate government agencies to exist as needed. His theories were completed in 1936 after studying both FDR and European examples of governments creating the alphabet soup we have today.
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It’s bad enough when the Tea Party and other wing nuts take quotes from Jefferson and Lincoln and pretend that they are about HCR and a stimulus package, but, 80% of economists today are New Keynesians and the Tea Party wants to rewrite what his theories were.

Must read for Kevin and all Liberals: Great missive by Dinesh d’Souza about how Clinton not only benefited from Reaganomics but how Clinton embraced it.
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/articles/reaganreelected.html

(Quote) Second, Greece used to be able to depreciate it’s currency to handle situations like this. This was the ticking time bomb of putting many countries under the same currency. (end quote)
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Creating the Euro and inviting both strong and weak economies to join it was a mistake. For too long this allowed Greece, Portugal, etal., to borrow too much at low interest rates. Too much money floating around, at cheap rates, invites corruption and speculation; and it gives the beneficiaries a sense that they deserve a higher standard of living than their own productivity merits.

(quote) There were social democrats in Germany then as now. They are, actually, gaining power in the most recent election. The conservatives considered themselves more similar to the Nazis than they did the social democrats. This was a horrible mistake that would never be forgotten. (end of quote)
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Social democrats could not form a government — they were too weak, could not find other centrist coalition partners, and were constantly attacked by both national socialists and communists.
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As for conservatives being more like the Nazis… it’s true they both hated the communists. And both were nationalist parties, whereas the communists claimed at least to be for the workers of all countries.
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Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism were both present in Europe from about 1848. Anti-Semitism was widespread in both Germanic and Slavic societies. So nationalist hatreds were not far beneath the surface even in the Weimar Republic, or in Russia under the Czar or the provisional government of Kerensky.
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(quote)As for shared values,:
1) Jingoism
2) Xenophobia
3) The restoring of the past (but without a monarchy since the German people at the close of WWI hated the aristocracy and monarchy for getting them into the war.)
4) Militarism including wars of “preemptive self defense”.
5) Use of religion as a part of national identity. (end of quote)
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Those are German values, not conservative values or National Socialist values.
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(quote)Sure, the Nazis were incredibly anti-democratic and unlike libertarians, but, they had conservative values. (end of quote)
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The Nazis were health nuts — Hitler wanted to ban cigarettes and processed foods, and used state power to encourage healthy dietary practices and discourage alcohol consumption. Just like the liberals/progressives in the US today.
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(quote)The Nazis did not have welfare. They put one armed legless war veterans to work in the war factories. (end of quote)
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There was a welfare system, modeled on Bismarck’s system just like in the US. But there was also an attitude that only those who contributed to society should benefit. Euthanasia was popular in Germany just as it was in the US. Someone with useful skills could work, otherwise he was a burden on society.
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(quote)As for philosophers… Philosophers will always be there and will be taken off the shelf to justify what people in power want to do.
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The only philosophy based ideology is Marxism. (end of quote)
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Marxism is only one of the ideologies that grew out of Hegelian and Nietzschean thought.

(quote)”Are you saying that in one of the most liberal states in the country, one of the bluest of the blue states, the most left-wing candidate could only get support from 40% of the electorate?”
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If Prescott Bush, his very Greenwich (but supposedly Texas) son George Herbert Walker Bush are your idea of liberals.
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Prescott Bush, GHWB’s father was US Senator from Connecticut. Since Wiecker, even after a Republican John Roland went to jail for corruption, Connecticut has has had Republican governors.
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Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the United States and has a very strong Republican party. (end of quote)
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Weicker was a RINO, other than him there has been no Republican senator from Connecticut since 1962.
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You might want to check the CT entry in Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics; any edition in the last 30 years will tell you the same thing. You might also check to see how often Connecticut’s electoral votes have gone to a Republican candidate in the last several decades.

jbaustian: Here is reality. Straight from Forbes.
Goldman Sachs was knee deep in Greek debt manipulation.
http://blogs.forbes.com/streettalk/2010/02/18/goldman-sachs-shorted-greek-debt-after-it-arranged-those-shady-swaps/

jbaustian – great stuff. thanks for that critique. and patrick, if by conservatives, you mean the likes of earlj, then its impossible to argue with your fascist comparisons. (see perfect catch at 18.11) he is not a fair representative though

jbaustian – great stuff. thanks for that critique. and patrick, if by conservatives, you mean the likes of earlj, then its impossible to argue with your fascist comparisons. (see perfect catch at 18.11)

“Marxism is only one of the ideologies that grew out of Hegelian and Nietzschean thought.”
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Wow you are so far off.
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First, Marx Predated Nietzsche by about forty years.
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Second, Nietzsche was incredibly elitist and anti-Marxist.
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Marxists would say that there is one difference between a doctor and the person who cleans the toilets at his office: the doctor spent his lifetime being indoctrinated by capitalist values and the rebel who did not stay in school for more indoctrination was the rebel.
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Obviously this is absurd and I completely disagree with it, but, that is a Marxist view of education.
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At 180 degree contrast, Nietzsche believed in the Uberman. The Uberman (superman) is a concept of a nearly sociopathic man to rise above others by the nature of his greatness.
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In other words when it comes to the nature vs nurture arguments, Marxists believe 100% in nurture and and Nietzsche believed 100% in nature.
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Being a Marxist Nietzsche disciple would be like being a Christian Satan worshiper.
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Other than knowing that he is often put in the same context as Nietzsche, I am unfamiliar with Hegel.
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That’s just your philosophy errors.

“quote)As for shared values,:
1) Jingoism
2) Xenophobia
3) The restoring of the past (but without a monarchy since the German people at the close of WWI hated the aristocracy and monarchy for getting them into the war.)
4) Militarism including wars of “preemptive self defense”.
5) Use of religion as a part of national identity. (end of quote)
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Those are German values, not conservative values or National Socialist values.”
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Modern Germany is nothing like that.
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By contrast the modern American Tea Party has these values;
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1) Jingoism: Making the American flag the symbol of American conservatism. (Except in honor of the dead, the 4th of July and other national holidays in which all Americans have a flag in their life.) American exceptionalism.
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2) Xenophobia: See Arizona and the immigration reform issues where conservatives are very anti-immigrant.
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3) Restoring the past: dressing like out founding fathers and talking about them as if they were around last week.
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4) Militarism: See the Iraq War of GWB.
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5) Use of religion as a part of national identity: see how how Republicans falsely identify the US as a country founded on “Christian values”.
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The Nazis were health nuts, but, as a means to the ends of military preparedness. Fat smoking people do not make the best soldiers.
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Also, bringing communities together for group sports games helps create a community spirit. Unfortunately that community spirit wasn’t about cleaning up public parks, it was about murdering people.
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The differences between conservative values and Nazi values is a matter of degree (obviously Nazis took everything to a disgusting and evil extreme) and that conservatives both allow opposition speech and step down when they loose an election.
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The German conservatives were given a choice between an alliance with the social democrats on the left which would have been dominated by social democrats or with the relatively small Nazi Party who believed in one election for a one thousand year reign.
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German conservatives chose an extreme version of conservative values over a shared value in Democracy and lead to the Nazis taking power only two years later.

“invites corruption ”
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Corruption has not been an even slightly significant portion of this issue.
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Greeks do not have private pension funds. They rely on government pension funds. A few hundred professions have men retiring at age 55 and women retiring at age 50 with full government pension.
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This predates the Euro.
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The Euro is the first time in centuries when countries with very varied fiscal policies share a common currency. The “PIGS” are in along with Germany, France and Italy. (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain are the PIGS). They are all significantly less developed than the other members.
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I haven’t cross referenced it, but, according to you, the Greeks have had these policies and other generous plans since 1977.
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The Euro goes back only to 1999.
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Clearly is the lack of transfer payments among member states which cause differing currency needs.
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When red states are broke, the blue states, through the federal government, bail you guys out. If not, red states would need to depreciate currency to maintain your level of living and be on a separate currency from the blue states.

Dinesh D’Souza? That’s the best you can do? He doesn’t even have an undergrad degree in economics, much less any advanced training or a formal publication record.
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And really, a former member of the Reagan administration thinks the Reagan administration did good things? A guy who lives off wingnut wlefare at the Hoover Institute and AEI thinks Clinton doesn’t deserve credit for something?
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Wow, impressive find there.

“In your dreams. Not in the real world.”
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3X, besides the fact that this is a blogwhore, you are bright enough to be more specific than this.
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In board meetings at the company you managed, when somebody said “we are making a mistake. we should be taking the opposite approach” did you respond “In your dreams. Not in the real world.”
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No, you haven’t been hateful, but, you have the intelligence to say something far more informative than that tenth grade comeback.

“You might want to check the CT entry in Michael Barone’s Almanac of American Politics…”
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“Michael Barone is the senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Fox News Channel contributor. ”
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http://www.nationaljournal.com/almanac/2010/index.php
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“The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper with published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed around Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. All of its opinion pieces express a conservative viewpoint. It is owned by Denver businessman Philip Anschutz, one of the world’s richest men.”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Examiner
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So, this will definitively tell me one thing: some conservatives consider Connecticut very liberal.
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I am not going to spend $50 to $136 in a harsh recession even if I did find an unusually reliable source of information, which Barone may or may not be.

earljr1 cannot, 3xfire3, and Rusty simply cannot stand up to any level of scrutiny.
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They dodge, divert, and what’s more, the call what is, isn’t.
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Rusty makes my day though. He always does.
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Rusty pontificating on racism is as dichotomous as Hitler claiming he “loves his jewish countrymen”.

3xfire3:
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I didn’t even venture that they were, 3xfire3.
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I pilloried you publicly for statements that were.
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I think it is more of a case that you don’t want to acknowledge the difference between these statements and the chestnuts I loudly derided you for.
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I’m very comfortable with what I did.

3xfire3:
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Just so you know, when you do write hateful commentary, I will certainly let you know…

(Quote) By contrast the modern American Tea Party has these values;
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1) Jingoism: Making the American flag the symbol of American conservatism. (Except in honor of the dead, the 4th of July and other national holidays in which all Americans have a flag in their life.) American exceptionalism. (end of quote)
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There is nothing wrong with flying the flag 365 days a year, or wearing a flag pin on your lapel, or standing for the National Anthem, or placing flowers and/or small flags on the gravesites of veterans on Memorial Day. In fact there is something wrong, seriously wrong, with people who despise the American flag and would rather wave a Mexican flag or a Palestinian flag.
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(quote) 2) Xenophobia: See Arizona and the immigration reform issues where conservatives are very anti-immigrant. (end of quote)
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anti ILLEGAL immigrant. ILLEGAL. Otherwise the new law in Arizona would not be so popular among LEGAL immigrants
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(quote)3) Restoring the past: dressing like out founding fathers and talking about them as if they were around last week. (end of quote)
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Yeah, and there are Civil War reenactors, and the people who hang out at Renaissance fairs. All relatively harmless, unless you’re the one with an apple on your head and archers are shooting arrows at you.
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Or is it the ideas of the Founders that you find so abhorrent?
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(quote) 4) Militarism: See the Iraq War of GWB. (end of quote)
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I guess I see it differently that you — I see 30+ million Arabs and Kurds liberated from the despotism of Saddam. What I see from your side is regret that Saddam was ousted. The liberation of Iraq was one of the great unselfish actions by the American people and their all-volunteer military.
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I understand there are many of you who hate the US military and all it stands for — but of course most real Americans despise your attitude.
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(quote)5) Use of religion as a part of national identity: see how how Republicans falsely identify the US as a country founded on “Christian values”. (end of quote)
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That is not false… though it is more accurate to say Judeo-Christian values. Our founders were not Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Zoroastrians, or atheists. They were mostly Protestants, but were reasonably tolerant of Catholics. What they did not want was to be forced to follow the Church of England or any other particular sect.
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The Nazis were health nuts, but, as a means to the ends of military preparedness. Fat smoking people do not make the best soldiers.
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(quote)The German conservatives were given a choice between an alliance with the social democrats on the left which would have been dominated by social democrats or with the relatively small Nazi Party who believed in one election for a one thousand year reign. (end of quote)
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I am not going to summarize the political environment in Germany from 1919 to 1933. Suffice to say that some parties cannot abide in the same governing coalition. For instance, if you and I were politicians, I would not join any coalition that you belonged to. Actually, I would probably not want to sit at a dinner table with you.
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In the UK right now, there is talk of the Conservatives forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. That would be a huge mistake — it is better if the Conservatives stay in the minority, than link up with a party that will block anything good the Tories want to achieve. Also, the Tories are not ready for lead — their current leadership is too tolerant of liberal ideas.

(quote) I am not going to spend $50 to $136 in a harsh recession even if I did find an unusually reliable source of information, which Barone may or may not be. (end of quote)
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Barone is the editor, he does not write every word about every congressional district and the people who represent them. But you don’t have to buy the Almanac of American Politics — it should be at the reference desk of any reasonably good public library.