Archive for January, 2009
January 30th, 2009
This is just too, too delicious.
One week ago today, President Obama ADMONISHED Republican lawmakers to quit listening to radio blabber Rush Limbaugh. The president thereby baited a political trap, although hardly anybody saw it as such at the time.
The new administration — especially White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – seems to have recognized that a golden political opportunity had arisen when El Rushbo famously declared that he hopes Obama fails as president. Limbaugh’s comment was ill-advised in light of the president’s CONSIDERABLE POPULARITY.
Here was a chance to paint Limbaugh, a notorious liar and bombastic racist and misogynist, as the face of the Republican Party.
Limbaugh took the bait, blustering for hours every day about how the president had singled him out as a reigning adversary.
Then, Obama got an unexpected gift when Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican, ABJECTLY APOLOGIZED to Limbaugh for having publicly disparaged him. The gesture made Gingrey and, by implication, his like-minded GOP colleagues look like spineless cowards who jump at Limbaugh’s command.
Another gift was the unanimity with which House Republicans voted against Obama’s economic stimulus bill, despite the administration’s gestures of bipartisan compromise when it made certain changes to the legislation to appease conservatives. It was as if they were paying more heed to Limbaugh than to a flexible administration in a time of great national crisis.
So, now the trap is springing, as liberal groups use Limbaugh as a bludgeon with which to beat on Republicans. (See HERE and HERE.)
In the end, Republicans will learn that with friends like Limbaugh, they don’t need enemies.
As I’ve noted here before, Democratic presidential candidates have carried the popular vote in four out of the five presidential elections since Limbaugh became a national figure. The man’s value to the Republican Party is vastly overrrated, and Obama’s shrewd gambit likely will diminish it further.
Don’t you just love it?
January 30th, 2009
THIS GUY says Roland Burris should resign from the Senate now that the sleazeball who appointed him has been kicked out of office.
I disagree.
Granted, Burris’ conspicuous egotism is a bit hard to take, and I don’t expect his Senate tenure to win any historic plaudits, but there’s no evidence that his appointment by Rod Blagojevich was anything but perfectly legal.
Besides, I doubt that Burris would survive next year’s Democratic primary election, should he choose to run. Two years from now, we’ll likely have a new junior senator from Illinois — a Democrat if President Obama remains popular, or a Republican if he doesn’t.
January 30th, 2009
Greg Palast has a HUMOROUSLY FRANK TAKE on President Obama and the economic stimulus bill.
January 29th, 2009
I TOLD YOU about Chip Saltsman (above) about a month ago.
Now, I’m glad to tell you THIS.
POSTSCRIPT: And then there’s THIS.
January 29th, 2009
By unanimous vote, the Illinois Senate has OUSTED Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.
POSTSCRIPT: Here’s a cool Blago montage:
January 29th, 2009
This one looks like a must-read.
HERE’s a brief excerpt.
January 29th, 2009
The current debate over economic stimulus legislation has given rise to a rash of rhetoric among conservative Republicans in which they almost invariably indulge one of my linguistic pet peeves — the ungrammatical use of the word “Democrat” as an adjective.
There is no such thing as “the Democrat Party,” or “Democrat leadership,” or “Democrat agenda” or any other construction in which “Democrat” is used to modify a word or phrase. In such cases, the correct usage is “Democratic.”
I am a Democrat (noun), which means I belong to the Democratic (adjective) Party.
Rabid rightists seem to think that “Democrat” as an adjective somehow sounds less euphonious, less respectable and more pejorative than “Democratic.” So, grammatical considerations notwithstanding, they misuse the one word and shun the other. And when they hear any Republican use these words correctly, it grates on them.
The genesis of this Democrat-as-an-adjective silliness is not entirely clear. According to one theory, it all started with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the infamous red-baiter and witch-hunter of a half-century ago. Others say it can be traced to the late 1950s when a man named Meade Alcorn, chairman of the Republican National Committee, issued a directive to his minions to thereafter avoid use of the word “Democratic.”
McCarthy’s example or Alcorn’s admonition, whichever it was, has been heeded to this day among the party’s more zealous elements. And woe to he or she who dares stray from this orthodoxy.
Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of the conservative National Review Online, has written of the guff he gets from some readers for his refusal to misuse “Democrat.” John L. Perry of the even more rightist NewsMax.com also refuses to go along with those who “abuse consciously or misuse ignorantly” the D-word.
The late Sen. Sam Ervin once said: “I have been trying to reform Republicans all my life and have had virtually no success, but I would like for them to adopt good grammar and quit using the noun ‘Democrat’ in lieu of the adjective ‘Democratic.’ If I can teach the Republicans that much grammar, I will feel that my effort to educate them has not been entirely in vain.”
January 29th, 2009
If B.S. was music, Republicans and their media enablers would be a symphony orchestra.
To wit, check THIS.
January 29th, 2009
Frankly, I don’t care about any of THIS.
I think they should convict him simply because of his hair.
Oh, and his cursing, too. I’ve never been one to use profanity.
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