RIP USA

[Beltmann]

Why people keep trying to defend Sarah Palin is beyond me. Ask anyone behind the scenes on the McCain campaign...she's a moron. These tea party people also crack me up. They're focused on the wrong damn issues. I'm all for political involvement, but all this is doing is fracturing the party instead of coming up with ways and issues to galvanize it.

 

There's a place--no, a need--for loyal opposition, but the Sarah Palin / Tea Party axis is something else.

[MattZ]

Why people keep trying to defend Sarah Palin is beyond me.

 

I assume you meant that you don't get why people keep piling on? I don't think anyone has been defending her.

 

I see your point, but my guess is that most liberals/democrats got burned back in 2000 when they underestimated whether someone like George W Bush could get elected. And then in 2004 when they underestimated whether it could happen again.

 

We ain't taking chances this time, but yeah, you are probably right.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I assume you meant that you don't get why people keep piling on? I don't think anyone has been defending her.

 

So you finally came out and called JohnO a nobody?

[MattZ]

So you finally came out and called JohnO a nobody?

 

Oh, whoops! Sorry JohnO.

[Good Old Neon]

From the tea bagger article:

 

Most of the people there had paid only passing attention to national politics in years past. “I voted twice and I failed political science twice,” said Darin Stevens, leader of the Spokane 9/12 Project.

 

Until the recession, Mr. Stevens, 33, had poured his energies into his family and his business installing wireless networks. He had to lay off employees, and he struggled to pay credit cards, a home equity loan, even his taxes. “It hits you physically when you start getting the calls,” he said.

 

He discovered Glenn Beck, and began to think of Washington as a conspiracy to fleece the little guy. “I had no clue that my country was being taken from me,” Mr. Stevens explained. He could not understand why his progressive friends did not see what he saw.

 

He felt compelled to do something, so he decided to start a chapter of Mr. Beck’s 9/12 Project. He reserved a room at a pizza parlor for a Glenn Beck viewing party and posted the event on Craigslist. “We had 110 people there,” Mr. Stevens said. He recalled looking around the room and thinking, “All these people — they agree with me.”

 

Also from the NYT, a review of the book Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, the author of w hich pretty much nails the TB movement:

 

 

He not only notes the appeal of narrative and causality in a frighteningly random world — something readers of Thomas Pynchon’s novels well know — but also argues that overarching theories tend to be “formulated by the politically defeated and taken up by the socially defeated.”

 

These losers “left behind by modernity,” he writes, “can be identified in the beached remnants of vanished European empires; the doomed bureaucrats, the White Russians and the patriotic German petit bourgeois. They are the America firsters, who got the war they didn’t want; the Midwest populists watching their small farmers go out of business; the opponents of the New Deal; the McGovern liberals in the era of Richard Nixon; British socialists and pacifists in the decade of Margaret Thatcher; the irreconcilable American right during the Clinton administration; the shattered American left in the time of the second Bush.

 

“If it can be proved that there has been a conspiracy, which has transformed politics and society, then their defeat is not the product of their own inherent weakness or unpopularity, let alone their mistakes; it is due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.”

 

It’s not surprising, then, that conspiracy theories thrive in times of change, uncertainty and economic stress, and that the designated villains often conform to enemies in “American populist folklore.” Of the era of McCarthyism and the venom aimed at supposed Communist sympathizers, Mr. Aaronovitch writes: “They were East Coasters or Hollywooders; they were educated; they were city dwellers; they liked art and fancy music; they were separate from — and unsympathetic to — the daily travails of the American little man.”

 

These days a similar sort of antipathy is directed at President Obama, the Democratic Party and the mainstream news media by the Tea Party movement and by so-called birthers, who question whether Mr. Obama was born in the United States.

 

In the case of the birthers, Mr. Aaronovitch says, many of the individuals and organizations involved are the same ones who tried to torpedo Bill Clinton’s presidency, denouncing Mr. Clinton as morally corrupt, even criminal: “It is as though,” he writes, “they had been on vacation through the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, only to rediscover, on arriving home, that there was yet another slippery liar in the White House.”

 

Link - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/books/16aaron.html?ref=books

[bleedorange]

I assume you meant that you don't get why people keep piling on? I don't think anyone has been defending her.

 

I see your point, but my guess is that most liberals/democrats got burned back in 2000 when they underestimated whether someone like George W Bush could get elected. And then in 2004 when they underestimated whether it could happen again.

 

We ain't taking chances this time, but yeah, you are probably right.

 

No, I meant the very few on this board and the vocal minority elsewhere. As to your point, I see what you are saying, but I would gnaw my own arm off if Sarah Palin got the Republican nomination. There's no way it's going to happen. At least, I hope not. Her best role is to rally support from these blind followers for whoever does get the nod.

[mountain bed]

Patches Kennedy on the other hand has legitimate disabilities to deal with including extended pre-pubescence and genetic lack of responsibility. It's too bad his drunken murderer of a father couldn't have set this example for the kid decades ago.

It's an extremely rare occasion when I respond to obvious trolling here, but I just have to say this has to be one of the most mean spirited things I've ever read in the 4 years I've been on this board. Wow, just wow.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

I don’t think it’s energy that you’re lacking, more like a valid argument.

 

No...it's energy.

 

While the Bayh's aren't in the same caliber of American Political Families as the Kennedys, Bushs, Udalls or Rockefellers; Bayh had a prominence and a bully pulpit to decry the atmosphere in Washington that a new Senator won't.

 

Evan Bayh was on the short list for VP. Now he will be competing with Chris Dodd for air time on CNBC.

 

Back to the original conceit of this thread...America won't die from overt action. It will die from ennui.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Back to the original conceit of this thread...America won't die from overt action. It will die from ennui.

 

Still waiting on why serving his state since 1986, and possibly considering a national office, is consistent with getting lost when the going gets tough.

 

ETA: How long should his resume be before he leaves the "ennui" bracket of achievement?

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Still waiting on why serving his state since 1986, and possibly considering a national office, is consistent with getting lost when the going gets tough.

 

ETA: How long should his resume be before he leaves the "ennui" bracket of achievement?

 

I've been as clear as I am capable of being on my opinions about Bayh's decision.

 

What do YOU think of his decision...and Chris Dodd...Ted Kaufman? Goodbye and good riddance? Rats leaving a sinking ship (although with the majority they have that would be a stretch)?

 

I am dumbfounded that in the face of the great challenges this country is facing domestically, economically and internationally; these prominent Senators are choosing to call it a day.

 

That's all.

[embiggen]

It's an extremely rare occasion when I respond to obvious trolling here, but I just have to say this has to be one of the most mean spirited things I've ever read in the 4 years I've been on this board. Wow, just wow.

 

 

I've seen this kind of thing before. not surprised one bit.

[Guest Speed Racer]

I am dumbfounded that in the face of the great challenges this country is facing domestically, economically and internationally; these prominent Senators are choosing to call it a day.

 

Well, if the rumors are true and Bayh is kicking around a presidential bid, then he's really looking for a promotion rather than retiring.

 

What YOU see is that they are quitting, as if being a senator is the only way these men can serve their states and their country. What I see is that they feel they can no longer do the job as well as they would like - and again, I think that after more than twenty years of holding various positions, Bayh can make that assessment much better than you can. I don't think that Bayh is looking to quit serving his state or his country at all, and I think that his statement yesterday made that abdundantly clear.

 

This country will face great challenges today, tomorrow, and for as long as it exists. These senators are going to move on eventually no matter what, and to call someone a quitter after serving for so long is nothing short of childish.

[bleedorange]

Since I'm all for term limits, I welcome any congressman's decision to not seek reelection.

[Guest Speed Racer]

So you actually want to impose a rule that would render all congressmen and women quitters?!

[Central Scrutinizer]

you sure about that one?

 

As far as foreign debt it is ...

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Not if you don't think you can do that anymore. If you think you have done all that you can do, then you step down after you have completed your term. I think in the case of Bayh, who stayed on for three terms as a senator, it shows a lot of humility to admit that you aren't interested in doing something anymore. He very well could have taken another term and dicked around, but he didn't.to manage a country? That doesn't make her a coward, that makes he a delusional moron.

One problem that has been pointed out is that moderates on both sides of the aisle or throwing in the towel. It's merely going to make congress all the more divisive.

 

To an extent, the best thing that could happen in America is a completely bipartisan Congress. Split right down the middle (and that includes separating Lieberman like a turkey's wishbone).

[Guest Speed Racer]

(and that includes separating Lieberman like a turkey's wishbone)

 

Probably the one thing everyone in that room could reach a consensus on pretty quickly.

 

I still don't see what the problem is that a number of people aren't seeing reelection. As far as I'm concerned, it just means that Congress gets some new blood and a breath of fresh air - if only for a moment. Like bleedorange, I don't particularly enjoy the idea of career congressmen who view it like any other job. Stay while you're energetic, leave when you're tired.

[Central Scrutinizer]

No, I meant the very few on this board and the vocal minority elsewhere. As to your point, I see what you are saying, but I would gnaw my own arm off if Sarah Palin got the Republican nomination. There's no way it's going to happen. At least, I hope not. Her best role is to rally support from these blind followers for whoever does get the nod.

I can only speak for myself, but I am not piling on Palin. She is what she is. My fear is that the people who take her seriously reach a critical mass. You can't rule it out. But she isn't simply going to rally support without getting something out of it. And would that cost really be worth it to the Republicans?

[Central Scrutinizer]

Since I'm all for term limits, I welcome any congressman's decision to not seek reelection.

And that would be the other side of the coin if they stayed. "Cozy incumbents who represent the old way of doing things."

 

I would say it's a gauntlet to anyone, an opportunity. Do better.

[mountain bed]

I'm all too familiar with Bayh, and I think I can say with some certainty that he just never seemed real comfortable being in the Democratic Party. Especially being from Indiana.

 

Now like I said I'm not going to be real sad when he's gone, but the thing that rubs me wrong is the way he went about this. He announced at 2 PM yesterday, and at noon today anyone who wanted to be a candidate had to file (with 4500 signatures). Everyone assumed he'd be the guy. So now there will be no primary for the Dems.

 

It's like he slapping us in the face on his way out the door.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Probably the one thing everyone in that room could reach a consensus on pretty quickly.

 

I still don't see what the problem is that a number of people aren't seeing reelection. As far as I'm concerned, it just means that Congress gets some new blood and a breath of fresh air - if only for a moment. Like bleedorange, I don't particularly enjoy the idea of career congressmen who view it like any other job. Stay while you're energetic, leave when you're tired.

 

There is nothing wrong with career politicians (at least there didn't used to be). Henry Clay, Everett Dirkson, Hubert Humphrey, Franklin Roosevelt.

 

The real thing we are missing is STATESMEN.

[Beltmann]

There is nothing wrong with career politicians (at least there didn't used to be). Henry Clay, Everett Dirkson, Hubert Humphrey, Franklin Roosevelt.

 

The real thing we are missing is STATESMEN.

I agree with this. Statesmanship is a lost art, especially at a time when you can gain power more easily by demonizing your opponent as someone who, say, pals around with terrorists.

 

I understand the appeal of term limits, but the problem is that it paints with too broad a stroke and takes power away from the people. It's another kind of government intervention that shrinks freedom, by assuming ordinary citizens can't make decisions for themselves--in this case, it assumes the public can't be trusted to decide who ought to represent them. If the people are happy with their incumbent, then they should be free to re-elect that person. If they aren't happy, they are still free to elect someone else. I'm way, way more concerned about how money controls our options than how incumbency leads to corruption.

[Doug C]

I agree with Beltmann and CrowDaddyMagnus(edit - Whoops! I don't have a trademark sign. The @ was wrong). It always strikes as odd that many of those that want 'less government' are strongly in favor of such an undemocratic thing as term limits. A total contradiction.

[bleedorange]

I agree with Beltmann and CrowDaddyMagnus(edit - Whoops! I don't have a trademark sign. The @ was wrong). It always strikes as odd that many of those that want 'less government' are strongly in favor of such an undemocratic thing as term limits. A total contradiction.

 

I don't see it as a contradiction at all, nor as undemocratic. Term limits would have to be implemented through a Constitutional Amendment. It would be a limit imposed on the government by the people (if it passed). Nothing undemocratic at all about it.

 

I've heard the arguments against term limits, and they are compelling. I certainly see both sides. I think it's an interesting issue.

[Doug C]

For me, it is a contradiction to want more democracy/less government, but also want the government, i.e. term limit law/amendment, to tell you that you cannot vote for an incumbent that you may feel is the best candidate. I understand the logic of citizens voted for term limits, therefore they are democratic, but why you (not you, you) would want to take away the voter's ability to decide, is beyond me.