After Corbu » republicans

A Fine President

Quixote — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:26:34 +0000

To my liberal friend who won’t let the thought experiment of a Ron Paul presidency go:

Ron Paul, on the other hand, has no shot. No natural constituency capable of carrying him through the Republican primaries. No unexpected polling strength in an early primary state. And wait till his views on such weighty matters as abolishing the federal Medicare entitlement come into play. If he even inched towards a threat, he’d get crushed by the other candidates. As President, he probably wouldn’t do much damage as he’d be unable, both ideologically and operationally, to do anything at all, but speaking of Paul as president is like speaking of my parakeet as emperor. And though Mr. Tweets would be a fine emperor, it’s not a terribly useful thought experiment.

From Ezra Klein at Tapped.

Lazy Candidates Then and Now

Quixote — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:05:28 +0000

Intelligent piece comparing the Clark ’04 and Thompson ’08 candidacies by Publius at ObWi. An excerpt:

The Clark and Thompson campaigns have eerily similar pre-histories. Because the party elites and rank-and-file weren’t very happy with the slate of candidates, Clark and Thompson’s names got floated for months. Party members didn’t know much about them, so they projected their desires on to the idea of them — and expectations ran high. Rather than seizing this opportunity early on, both candidates played footsie for months and months but hesitated to jump in. And then, finally, they did.

By pointing out the deficiencies of the Clark and Thompson campaigns which doomed/doom both, Publius also provides a good justification for the expanded length of the primary season: it makes our candidates better, both personally and in terms of their organization. Those are much more tangible advantages than being the newest flavor at primary time after a late launch.

I’m going to go ahead and predict that the honeymoon ends quickly, another ‘messiah’ is recruited (Newt’s available…), and Thompson drops out before the primaries. Then, Law + Order decided to have him lose his DA election, and replaces him with a liberal, just to twist the knife a bit more.

You’re Hurting America

Quixote — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:26:32 +0000

I agree with the arguments at Ways to End the World (here and here) that Tucker should have to turn in his pundit car keys for his interview at MSNBC. Of course, his assholery mostly exists in the tone of his statements, without a “nappy-headed hos” smoking gun, so I think he’s safe. Sadly.

What should be noted about this incident, however, is that it comes from “the least anti-gay right winger you’ll ever meet.” Which mean the best that gay people can expect from the Republicans is to be hit on the head and then arrested. What a deal.

We are ruled by silly, silly people.

Quixote — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:56:26 +0000

Suburban Guerrilla extracts from The Rove Presidency the revealing truth about the lofty concerns of the politically powerful:

To autograph or not to autograph.

3am Roundup

Quixote — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:00:30 +0000

I went hiking today and neglected the internets. Disengaging actually feels pretty good, which is worrisome. I wouldn’t want to develop bad meatspace habits that interfere with my blogging. My readers (-der?) would cry.

Anyway, assorted thoughts:

Predictably, I join with my similarly draft-age comrades, Matt Zeitlin and Mike Meginnis in opposing the return of the draft that David Sirota endorses. Their take-downs are better than what I could write, but let me add: It’s extremely paternalistic to assume that more people would oppose the war if liberals made the policy choice more real for them. And let me suggest that this is exactly the kind of advocacy that gives liberals a bad name; feeding the sense that we know better. You create a shared military burden by providing real economic opportunities for poor folk so that they don’t have to rent out their bodies. Not by forcing rich people into a similarly shitty situation and hoping that maybe convinces them to be nice someday.
MyDD has a post arguing that Florida is leaning Democrat at this point in the 2008 election. This is unfotunate, since it means Democratic candidates will feel the need to visit the state and pander to the Cuban expat community again. I’m tired of that group, the children of an exploitive aristocracy, determining our Cuba policy.
Archidose presents the limit case of blog advertising. I’ve avoided advertising entirely at After Corbu, but I’ll admit that’s mostly because I can’t imagine it would be very lucrative. Plus I blog from a position of class privilege, which makes it easy to stay “pure.” I don’t begrudge the starving artist bloggers out there…but there is a reasonable limit to one’s crash commercialism.
I saw someone quoting Priest Hardon and thought they were snarky, but apparently not. There is such a theologian. Now I feel like an irreverent asshole.
The video at the GOOD Magazine Blog of a Tokyo wave pool packed with people is mesmerizing. Also alarming: how does no one drown?
Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody is riding the Huck train. Right next to Ezra Klein! As much as I’d like to see it, I think the Republican’s will nominate a class warrior about the time the Democrats go for a Donald Trump. Though if the DLC has there way…
Zoos are already creepy, and tigers being forced to nurse piglets is completely messed up.

Turning Arnold Blue

Quixote — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:21:57 +0000

I haven’t been paying enough attention to this, but the California budget continues to be deadlocked one vote shy of the 2/3′s required to pass. The problem is the Republicans, naturally, who are borrowing plays from their US Senate brethren and trying to dictate policy despite the fact that the public has chosen to keep them out of power.

Now, however, Arnold has started visiting the districts of obstructionist Republicans to pressure them to pass the budget. I have no idea whether this will work, as the curse of California’s districting is that the few Republicans that do get elected come from very conservative districts and are consequently, completely nutty.

However, this does further alienate Arnold from his party, making it increasingly hard to imagine him winning the Republican senate primary in 2010. And since he’s the old star the GOP has in California, Boxer looks safer every day. That’s the best I can do to come up with a bright side to the budget catastrophe…

Baptists for Psrodt

Quixote — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:18:54 +0000

Visiting Jesus Politics (it is Sunday), I ran across a link to The Curse of Ham: Why Barack Hussein Obama Will Never Be President, brought to us by Baptists for Brownback. The post relies on racist theology to explain why Obama can’t be president, and the commenters take the ball and run with it to some remarkable places:

Warrior Jodie Says:
July 19th, 2007 at 9:22 am
You got no worrrys from me I would vote for ANY colored EVER. Talk about giving away the world in a henbasket they wouldnt be a single on of them working if he was president they would all be home cashing checks while WE WORKED. Thnk GOD for Sam brownback going to be our next Preisdent he wont stand for none of this crap.

Dottie415 Says:
July 19th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
If the Lord wanted to save dark folks, He wouldn’t have sent Jesus down with blond hair.
I’m just saying . . .

And these are the mild comments, since I don’t want the really bad ones to appear on my blog. The post gets so over the top that Andrew Sullivan asks: Is this for real? Which shows the sites brilliance. It lives on the thin line that separates crazy from satire. You can’t tell whether it’s real or not, because none of us would put this thing past the wingnuts out there.

But information wants to be free, and this site has a particularly clever way of dishing it out. If you use “parody” in your comment it’s changed to “psrodt” when it posts.

That’s it; the only time the site breaks character. But it’s enough, since there’s no reason to put that comment filter in unless you want to tip off the curious. The True Believers wouldn’t think to ask. I’m impressed by this little piece of culture jam.

Get Ready for Huckmentum!

Quixote — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:41:39 +0000

Huckabee comes in second at the Ames ~~Shakedown~~ Straw Poll! Which (I think) means he “won” since Romney outspent everyone and his victory was a forgone conclusion.

Now I know it’s blasphemy…but if Huckabee were to make I <3 Huckabees his campaign slogan, I’d have to consider voting for him, despite the whole, you know, being a Republican thing. That’s how much I love pretentious movie references.

But really: Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Marky Mark, Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, & Jude Law could all go on the campaign trail with Huck. That would be more than a match for the 96,000 Romney clones marching around “serving their country.”

I’m getting excited just typing about this.

George vs. Fred

Quixote — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:18:49 +0000

So I guess this means we won’t see a Cox + Combe’s Thompson video?

An appetizer:

Presided over the Constitutional Convention

Drove around Tennessee in a red pickup truck

Bush Confuses Me

Quixote — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:37:41 +0000

What I don’t understand about Bush’s strategy of indefinate detainment in Guantanamo for political reasons (as outlined by Brian Beutler) is that at some point, there will be a Democratic administration that will release people. Possibly not in 2008, but certainly by 2040s when detainees start dying of natural causes.

When that happens, there will be lots of stories of unjust imprisonment and torture, and there will be nasty political fallout. Unless Bush’s secret plan is to disappear the whole prison, the stories will eventually be told. So what’s the gain in procrastination?

Bush’s popularity is already down to the Republican base that has decided it’s fine with torture. How could the actual stories of torture hurt him?