The Devil's Triangle

There are moments when Peter Daou comes off as a bit too much of an ideologue for my tastes, but a lot of the points he's making this morning on the debt ceiling fight, politics and the media are tough to argue with.

"Think about it: in a nation where Casey Anthony gets unlimited air time, how many Americans really understand the intricacies of the issues facing them? Most Americans can’t tell you where Europe is on a map, how can you expect them to assess the efficacy of Keynesian economics? And that’s not blaming them. Economists can’t even agree on the basics. So what ends up filling the knowledge void is the brashest, loudest, most confident-sounding voices. Voices of supposed authority and alleged principle. Rush Limbaugh, for instance. Or Sarah Palin. Sean Hannity. Ann Coulter. Bill O’Reilly.

Echoing those ‘voices of authority’ are Republican politicians and the right’s online denizens. Conservative pundits and columnists lend it all an air of seriousness. And the media, desperately seeking to appear 'fair,' give an uncritical national platform to those voices. Not to mention Fox News, which pipes a steady stream of propaganda into millions of American homes. The triangle of establishment, media, and Internet comes together and conventional wisdom is created and/or changed. Pollsters then dutifully register that shift in sentiment and the media regurgitate it.

There’s simply nothing comparable on the Democratic side."

In my lifetime at least, the Republicans have always been better at creating conventional wisdom out of whole cloth than the Democrats -- and it's one of the many reasons the Dems come off as perennial losers.

Quote of the Day

"The Republican base is part of a conservative movement. The Democratic base, by contrast, is a loose coalition that elects a new president and then goes home, expecting the new president to deliver miracles."

-- Professor and Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich

Bonus Quote(s) of the Day

"I know your talking points. I know the other side's talking points. But can't we say, 'Look, we gotta do something in this country. This is going to bankrupt us.' And you people up there who are supposed to be representing us are making it perfectly clear you're gonna sit in your corners with your own talking points and we're gonna lose. We're gonna get nothing."

-- Shepard Smith, interviewing Republican John Thune of South Dakota

"What do you think is gonna happen if, after all this talk, you get up there and pass this bill through reconciliation with 51 votes? How do you think the partisan divide in this already messed-up country is gonna lay out? What do you think the right-wingers are gonna do? They're gonna explode."

-- Shepard Smith, interviewing Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland just a few minutes later

Their Own Worst Enemy

So Evan Bayh is retiring from the Senate for thoroughly horseshit reasons -- the kind of thing that drew laughter and ridicule when Sarah Palin made the same basic argument for her own resignation from the Alaska governor's seat.

This isn't really all that interesting; the Democrats have been dropping like flies lately. What's worth noting, though, is the predictably self-defeating response of many on the left to the news that an admittedly centrist Democrat is quitting Congress. Bottom line: They're jumping for joy -- tweeting unmitigated crap like "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Evan!" If there's a better example of how willing the left is to shoot itself squarely in its overly pious foot, I haven't seen it. Bayh may have been a gutless little turd and occasionally an obstructionist of the highest order, but at least he was a Democrat, which means that he was ostensibly on the same side as those who are now gleefully pissing on his grave. Who does the left think is going to replace Bayh in Indiana? A more liberal Democrat? Yeah, right. At best it'll be another centrist Dem -- at worst and much more likely it'll be a Republican, someone who won't even caucus with the Democrats or pay lip service to the concerns of progressives.

This all-or-nothing, Utopia-or-bust stance that some on the left continue to adhere to will be the death of the progressive agenda. Hell, it probably already is.

Realted:

DXM: With Friends Like These.../8.21.09

Adventures in Hypocrisy

Stop me if you've heard this one before, but within the past 24 hours there have been at least two spectacular takedowns of the seemingly shameless hypocrisy of the current Republican power structure and its fervent supporters.

First, Rachel Maddow laid out, piece by inarguable piece, proof of how GOP lawmakers are attempting to block even good policy -- policy they've at times offered vocal support for and which they've gleefully reaped the benefits of -- simply because the White House backs it. In other words, and once again stop me if you've heard this before, the only reason they're uniformly turning against legislation that they've agreed would benefit the country is because their political adversaries agree that it would benefit the country.



Then in Salon, Glenn Greenwald, as much as he irritates the hell out of me sometimes, slam dunks National Review editor and Sarah Palin masturbation fantasist Rich Lowry. Little Richie took aim at Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas's new book -- titled, in obligatory over-the-top fashion, American Taliban. The book compares aspects of the American right to radical Islamists, leading Lowry to decry, "Only an extremist says, the other side in the American political discussion shares the same agenda as radical jihadidsts."

Greenwald points out that the National Review's own Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a book called Liberal Fascism -- which asserted, absurdly, that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis could be classified as liberals -- and that Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru wrote one called The Party of Death which claimed the Democrats were for euthanasia and infanticide.

Greenwald writes:

"I know it's not news that Rich Lowry is an intellectually dishonest hack. And I also know it's not news that the brain of right-wing authoritarians allows its host to blithely accuse others of exactly that which they do. Still, as common as it is, there are times when I'm amazed at how compartmentalized and self-blinding the human brain can be.

Shouldn't a normally functioning brain send a signal to Lowry along the lines of: You can't complain that it makes someone an 'extremist' to compare 'the other side in the American political discussion' to Islamic radicals because one of your magazine's Senior Editors just recently wrote a book comparing liberals to Nazis, and another one of them wrote a book calling them the Party of Death? Forget intellectual honesty; just as a strategic matter, in order not to expose yourself as a wildly dishonest and hypocritical polemicist, shouldn't the brain intervene and at least tell the person that they should alter their criticisms so it's not blatantly attacking exactly what their closest comrades do? Yet somehow, the brain never sends that signal -- or it never gets received -- and people like Rich Lowry can sit there with a straight face and attack someone for doing exactly that which his own writers do, without any apparent recognition of that fact at all. If nothing else, it's a wonder to behold as a biological and psychological phenomenon."

Once again, though, as I've been saying 'til I'm blue in the face lately, I'm just not sure logic even has an impact anymore. Ideologues at the extreme of either side of the political argument appear to be bulletproof to it; the only difference being that the Republicans seem to be at the mercy of those extremist ideologues these days. They've allowed their party to be hijacked by them and they've gladly fallen in lockstep behind.

The folly of this is what led me to write the following piece in November of last year. Maybe this is where I first began to sort of "give up."


"Partisan Crashers" (Originally Published, 11.10.09)

If you've read this site long enough, you probably know that it hasn't always been this way.

I used to put a very high value on my ability to evaluate each issue on its own merits. Although I often tend to be center-left in my politics -- rarely if ever going the extreme liberal route -- I spent many years frequently siding with the right on a whole host of topics. I'm all for being strong on defense; I could care less about the political correctness that was a ridiculous liberal cause celebre for quite some time; I don't believe capitalism to be inherently evil; I want to see the poor and helpless in this country treated with dignity and everyone afforded good health care, but I think it requires a more efficient and vigilant government -- not a big one willing to just throw money around; I think that paying extra attention to certain ethnicities at airports is a natural concession to reality in this day and age and amounts to basic police work; I hate hippies; I can occasionally be as jingoistic as your average Toby Keith fan and freely admit that right after 9/11, I too had the knee-jerk reaction that wanted to see us annihilate a random city in the Middle East, just as an object lesson; I pretty much laughed out loud when those Navy snipers took out the Somali pirates who held an American captain hostage back in April.

Yes, sometimes I'm the first one to get all "America, fuck yeah."

For months and months on this site, I skewered Democrats in much the same way I skewered Republicans, believing that working backward in any argument to make the "facts" fit a predetermined point-of-view -- no matter that point-of-view -- was the most intellectually dishonest thing imaginable. I still think that I'm capable of sticking to that ideal, because if I don't, then my already somewhat inconsequential opinions are rendered utterly worthless since they're the product of nothing more than partisan prejudices.

But lately it's no secret that I have actually been more outraged by the actions of the right as a whole than those of the left. And I think the reason for that can be summed up in one simple question that may seem trite but which kind of needs to be asked: When did the primary voices of the American right become so shockingly dumb -- so shamelessly willing to jettison every last vestige of rational thought? True, during the Bush years stupid seemed to reign -- but the reality was always that those at the top were very smart people using very gullible people as stage props to further their agenda. I also get that this still happens regularly -- on both ends of the political spectrum.

But something has changed recently; maybe it started with the introduction of Sarah Palin to an already toxic mixture of paranoia and ignorance coming to a boil within certain segments of the population. Either way, over the last year it seems as if all logic and reason within the Republican party and its champions on talk radio and Fox News has gone completely out the window. It's like these people have lost their fucking minds. I'm not simply talking about their tendency to embrace and perpetuate half-baked conspiracy theories of the most mind-bogglingly outlandish variety; I mean their lack of shame at making arguments that not only don't hold up within the context of an extended timeline -- the kind of bewildering shit that can easily be proven hypocritical by comparing it to their comments of just one year ago -- but make no sense at face value.

Last night on Fox News, Sean "I Can Put You Into a Car Regardless of Your Credit History" Hannity made a comment and an implication so inflammatory and absurd that it's shocking his brain didn't rip the top of his head open to get some air. He pondered, "What does (it) say about Barack Obama and our government," that apparently the U.S. military knew that Major Nidal Nasan had contacted al Qaeda and was a growing threat yet did nothing to stop him? In other words, Hannity tried to link the fact that the military may have dropped the ball in devastating fashion on the Fort Hood shooting to the fact that Barack Obama is in the White House.

Do I need to remind you -- since reminding an obviously thick-headed ideologue like Hannity wouldn't do a damn bit of good -- that in the months leading up to 9/11, there were intelligence failures left and right within the CIA, the FBI and the Bush administration, including one in which Bush himself seemed to flat-out ignore the warnings of an intelligence report that all but spelled out the coming attack? I'm not saying that governmental agencies shouldn't be held responsible for their failures when a national tragedy happens that could have been prevented by them; I'm saying that you can't keep a straight face and castigate one president of the United States for an avoidable catastrophe that happened on his watch after singing the praises of another who was much closer to the fuck-ups that led to the avoidable catastrophe that happened on his. Well, you can't keep a straight face unless you're either a modern right-wing pundit or the lead character from Memento.

This is just another example of the kind of bald-faced, completely-detached-from-reality hypocrisy that the people who've hijacked the Republican party have trafficked in now for months into years -- the same people who spent almost eight years ranting and raving about how criticizing the president during a time of war amounted to treason, but who now conveniently add the caveat "Unless that President is Barack Obama -- That's Alright."

Crackpot conspiracy theories, circular reasoning, selective memory, insane arguments that go nowhere, the complete abandonment of logic and reason, the canonization of the craziest and most farcical among its lunatic fringe -- this is why it's become impossible to defend the GOP these days. It's gotten so bad that even taking an occasional stand for the ideals of conservatism, some of which I happen to agree with, makes me feel like I need a shower -- because those who are supposed to be advancing these ideals have instead allowed their party to meltdown from the inside out.

It's almost impossible to imagine that conservatism was once the domain of unapologetic intellectuals like William F. Buckley.

Now look at it -- it's the soapbox from which Michele Bachmann shouts gibberish.

Who with a brain wants to in any way be associated with that?

From Shameless to Spineless

For everyone who thought to him or herself following the decisive ass-kicking Barack Obama gave the Republicans on national television last week, "Gee, now if only he'd do that to the Democrats, too," your prayers have been answered.

The Huffington Post: Obama Does Another Q&A, This Time With Democrats/2.3.10

Ten bucks says Fox News doesn't cut out of this one early.

Ballot Proof

I'll make this quick.

The Democrats got their clocks cleaned last night -- got them cleaned by an airheaded former nude model who seems to have an unnaturally intimate relationship with his pick-up and who immediately upon winning tried to pimp his two hot daughters out on national television. In other words, they got their asses kicked by a punchline -- the male version of Sarah Palin.

And you know something? They 100% deserved to.

Blame Martha Coakley's inept campaign, non-existent personality or generally smug sense of entitlement -- blame it all you want -- the loss of a Senate seat in the bluest of blue states, one held by Ted Kennedy for nearly half-a-century, is something the Democrats have had coming for quite awhile. It's a shot across the bow of epic proportions.

A couple of years ago, the Democrats managed to even things out in Congress after years of being trampled under the boot of the GOP; then last year, after enduring eight years of an entirely or largely Republican government that ran this country head-first into the ground, the American electorate made a decision to hand the reins over to the Dems completely -- and what have they done with it since? Sure, there have been legislative victories, necessary reversals of God-awful GOP policy and baby-steps in the right direction, but considering the amount of power the Dems have had over the past year, it's shocking how little has gotten done. This is mostly because the Democrats have behaved, by and large, as if our ostensible two-party system is really just a couple of slight variations on one-party. They've bitched and moaned and obfuscated and delayed and generally allowed an opposition party that hasn't simply been in the minority, it's been a deranged and disorganized pack of chimps hurling shit at anything and every little thing that scares the hell out of it, to stand in the way of progress. The Democrats have had the numbers to advance their agenda by faster-than-light jumps -- this in spite of the eight years of damage that's needed to be undone -- and yet they've behaved as if they have time to dawdle.

Well, good going, guys. The people just let you know in no uncertain terms that they won't wait -- they'll even put a Birther-backed male bimbo in office as long as what he offers is different than the crap they're seeing right now. What's worse, those people just made your lives that much more difficult: You couldn't quickly push your legislation through before, when you had all the pieces in place -- you think it's gonna be easier now?

Look, I'm still a fan of Barack Obama, mostly because I believe in what he hopes to accomplish, but even I understand that a one-man political movement will never hold. During the Bush years, there were plenty of Republicans who couldn't name a damn thing W's administration had done that benefited them -- but it didn't matter because they believed that he was somehow generally "a good man." He shared their beliefs. This is a ridiculous way of thinking, and that's true no matter what side of the political fence you're on. A person is only as good as his or her policies. It's not who he or she is -- it's what he or she does. Obama's taken a couple of bold steps forward while in office, to be sure, but if he and the Democrats don't take this upset in Massachusetts for the wake-up call that it is, they're gonna be out on their asses in no time.

The Democrats rode in on a wave of populist rage, and if they don't start recognizing the ramifications of that, they're gonna ride out on exactly the same wave. The people are still pissed, and in the absence of effective leadership they'll turn to anyone. Even clowns like Scott Brown.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

I've been really happy to shy away from politics lately, mostly because the intensely polarizing mindlessness that political debate in general has devolved into in this country just wears me out. It's the kind of thing that's barely possible to even be funny about anymore because things are just so fucking insane out there. I certainly don't want to bury my head in the sand and simply hope for the best, but dwelling on it makes me long to find a doctor willing to dole out Vicodin like a human Pez dispenser.

That said, what's happening today in Massachusetts is something all of us have no choice but to pay at least a little attention to, mostly because it has the potential to be a game-changer in Washington. For those who've chosen to remain blissfully ignorant, a special election is being held today that will determine who fills Ted Kennedy's former seat in the Senate -- and it looks as if it's entirely possible that a one-time Republican nobody named Scott Brown could thwart the entirely lackluster campaign of Democrat Martha Coakley. Scott's an empty suit and an empty head of the highest order; Coakley's a smug dumb-ass whose own sense of entitlement has put her in the position she's now in, basically neck and neck with a guy who never should've been a threat but whom she always should've considered one. What makes this election a big deal is that if Scott wins, the balance of power tips slightly in the Senate, at least enough for the GOP to successfully filibuster any Democratic initiative, like, say, the massive health care reform package that lawmakers have been debating, according to my calculations, since 1833.

Like everything involving partisan politics these days, this race is an amalgam of toxic components that seem all too familiar by now: There's been the Tea Bagger crowd at Scott rallies shouting that Coakley needs somebody to "shove a curling iron up her butt"; obnoxious and pompous posturing from both sides; a lot of invoking and revoking of the memory of Kennedy; the Schadenfreude of far left progressives, who seem to now delight in the prospect of President Obama failing outright as some sort of object lesson to those who "sell out" the supposed base; you get the picture. If you've been reading this site regularly over the past year or so, you know that it's this last curiosity -- the confounding narrative that has some on the left suicidally reveling in their erstwhile candidate's political setbacks -- that's entertained and infuriated me in equal parts. The all-or-nothing mindset that pervades left-wing politics is so laughably self-defeating that I've actually reached the point where I'd almost like to see Obama's agenda go down in flames, not as a rebuke of his occasional willingness to compromise but as a rebuke of the hardliners' vow never to. Call it "meta-failure."

I obviously don't want to see anyone sacrifice his or her ideals or throw campaign promises on the fires of absolute appeasement, particularly not to an opposition party made up of howler monkeys that have made it perfectly clear they'll never be appeased. But the tendency of liberals to instantly and impetuously turn on anybody who doesn't conform to whatever pie-in-the-sky image they've created in their own grad school-educated brains -- that's earned them a serious whack on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. And if the Republicans were to retake Congress and eventually the White House, it might finally wake them the fuck up to the reality that the Naderization of progressive politics may look wonderfully Utopian on paper, but sorry, it ain't gonna win elections.

Of course it's a nation's responsibility to hold its elected officials' feet to the fire when it comes to promises they've made and positions they've espoused. But pitching a hissy-fit and pushing for the failure of a president and a party just because they're not giving you everything you want usually leads to a president and party taking over who will give you nothing you want.


"With Friends Like These..." (Originally Published, 8.21.09)

"So progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it. And now he needs to win it back."

-- Paul Krugman in an editorial in today's New York Times

I'm not one of those people who listens to right-wing radio, even occasionally, looking for something to piss him off. If I wanted to make myself angry for no good reason, I'd call my estranged wife -- or maybe put on a Phish record.

That said, I was flipping through Sirius XM radio a couple of days ago when I stumbled across the America Right or "Patriot Radio" channel. The show that happened to be on at the time was something called The Wilkow Majority (I'll give you a minute to shake your head at the right's ongoing and obligatory need to cast itself in the most muscular terms possible) hosted by a guy named Andrew Wilkow. What separates Wilkow from the rest of the crazy-come-latlies out there in conservative radioland is his belief that he's, well, a punk.

I'm not kidding.

Both Wilkow and his producer, an at one time faux-hawk-sporting kid named Nick Rizzuto, have gotten it through their heads that they're the personification of the right's new school -- and that the new school they represent also happens to be the logical next step in the evolution of punk. They've even started a website called "Conservative Punk." If this sounds fucking laughable, believe me -- it is. Do yourself a favor and don't think too hard about trying to fit the square peg of punk rock culture into the round hole of unabashed capitalism and conservatism; I tried for awhile and it only made my head hurt. Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins are turning over in their graves at this ridiculous conceit and they're not even dead yet. You almost have to give credit to the right's lack of shame when it comes to attempting to co-opt some of the better trends of the left while forcibly trading off its own misdeeds, clumsily trying to shove them under the banner of its enemy and hoping that no one notices how full of shit the whole notion is (Hitler was a leftist, racism is a liberal ideal, etc.).

Needless to say, neither Andrew Wilkow nor his remora, Nick Rizzuto, is a punk. To twist a somewhat legendary phrase: Boys, I grew up with punks. I was good friends with punks. I was a punk (and according to some, still am). You're no fucking punks.

The reality is that, after taking a quick glance at his website, Wilkow looks like he could be just about any other right-wing talking head. This is especially amusing when you consider the fact that he is actually quite a bit younger than the usual suspects and yet still looks like your basic perpetually middle-aged white guy who hasn't been blown since college. I guess that's what being Sean Hannity's hand-picked protege does to you. (Now's a good time to once again remind you that a guy who counts his introduction to Hannity among the greatest moments in his life also considers himself an up-the-establishment standard bearer of punk rock's new blood. You've gotta be fucking kidding me.)

All very easy shots at Wilkow and his show aside, though, I have to admit that while listening to him for a few minutes the other day, he made a surprisingly good point -- one that I sort of made here earlier in the week. I guess we're both on the same "Punk Rock Manifesto Weekly" mailing list.

The Wilkow rant in question had to do with the tendency of liberals to seemingly revel in martyrdom and self-sabotage -- their propensity to almost embrace their roles as losers and to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of even the most assured victory. The crux of his argument was this: The Democrats have near-complete control of the government right now -- from the White House to the Hill. Legislation-wise, they can accomplish practically anything they set out to, and yet they're somehow content to bitch, moan and blame Republicans for standing in the way of progress when in reality no one's completely blocking their path. Worse than all of that, and this is something Wilkow didn't broach but I will: Liberals can't help fighting amongst themselves. It's as if it's ingrained in their DNA to never completely agree on anything. And we've all seen how well that strategy works when it comes to pushing through an agenda or, you know, winning elections.

A couple of days ago I published a piece decrying the Democrats for not being willing to take off the gloves and get their hands a little dirty when it comes to battling the Republican noise machine trying to thwart them at every turn. My point was that there won't be much solace in being able to say, "Well, at least we stuck to the ideals that make us better than the GOP automatons," four years from now if nothing got done and a Republican president is back in office. I'm not saying that there can't and won't be disagreement and dissent; I'm saying that in order to get the job done and give Barack Obama the clout he needs to move his agenda forward by leaps and bounds, there has to be, to a large extent, a united front to face the consistently united front staring you down from the other side of the aisle. To paraphrase The Godfather, as far as outsiders are concerned, you never take sides against the family.

Sure this is slightly robotic and seems to stand against everything left-wing America stands for, but guess what? It fucking wins.

Sometimes you've gotta look at the big picture -- and if there's anyone who can't seem to do that because they're too busy picking every little thing apart just to prove how intellectual, analytical and multi-faceted they are, it's liberals.


Case in point: today's New York Times editorial by Paul Krugman.

First of all, let me state unequivocally that Krugman's a genius; he's one of the smartest people around, and his views are always worth listening to. Let me also make it clear that I'm not suggesting that any side of the political spectrum let its leaders get away with anything and everything. The good of the nation should, for all intents and purposes, trump the good of the party. My argument is that the battle lines are so clearly drawn these days, the alternative for either party is so far removed from its own desired reality for the country, that each side has to be willing to accept that a big picture victory, even a partial one, is infinitely better than a complete loss. The Republicans realize this; the Democrats seem not to. Krugman's editorial, which takes President Obama to task for supposedly betraying the progressive base that helped put him in office, is a perfect example of the self-defeating splinter cell tendency of left-wing politics. Yes, Barack Obama seems to have slipped comfortably into a more middle-of-the-road stance than much of the left-leaning electorate would've liked, but make no mistake: a New York Times editorial from one of the leading liberal voices in America declaring that Obama has lost the support of progressives and now has to earn it back accomplishes nothing aside from doing the job of Republican strategists for them.

An editorial like Krugman's is every conservative's wet dream -- because those on the right know that any well-publicized dissension within the Democratic ranks makes Obama look weak and proves their point to those on the fence: that even when the Democrats have what they need to run the government their way, they can't make it happen. They can't seal the deal, despite having everything on their side.

As Wilkow said, they're born losers.

Right about now, the Democrats need to take a hint from a recent song by Green Day: Know Your Enemy. At the very least, know who he is.

Of course, Green Day actually have something in common with Andrew Wilkow: They're not real punks either.

Partisan Crashers

If you've read this site long enough, you probably know that it hasn't always been this way.

I used to put a very high value on my ability to evaluate each issue on its own merits. Although I often tend to be center-left in my politics -- rarely if ever going the extreme liberal route -- I spent many years frequently siding with the right on a whole host of topics. I'm all for being strong on defense; I could care less about the political correctness that was a ridiculous liberal cause celebre for quite some time; I don't believe capitalism to be inherently evil; I want to see the poor and helpless in this country treated with dignity and everyone afforded good health care, but I think it requires a more efficient and vigilant government -- not a big one willing to just throw money around; I think that paying extra attention to certain ethnicities at airports is a natural concession to reality in this day and age and amounts to basic police work; I hate hippies; I can occasionally be as jingoistic as your average Toby Keith fan and freely admit that right after 9/11, I too had the knee-jerk reaction that wanted to see us annihilate a random city in the Middle East, just as an object lesson; I pretty much laughed out loud when those Navy snipers took out the Somali pirates who held an American captain hostage back in April.

Yes, sometimes I'm the first one to get all "America, fuck yeah."

For months and months on this site, I skewered Democrats in much the same way I skewered Republicans, believing that working backward in any argument to make the "facts" fit a predetermined point-of-view -- no matter that point-of-view -- was the most intellectually dishonest thing imaginable. I still think that I'm capable of sticking to that ideal, because if I don't, then my already somewhat inconsequential opinions are rendered utterly worthless since they're the product of nothing more than partisan prejudices.

But lately it's no secret that I have actually been more outraged by the actions of the right as a whole than those of the left. And I think the reason for that can be summed up in one simple question that may seem trite but which kind of needs to be asked: When did the primary voices of the American right become so shockingly dumb -- so shamelessly willing to jettison every last vestige of rational thought? True, during the Bush years stupid seemed to reign -- but the reality was always that those at the top were very smart people using very gullible people as stage props to further their agenda. I also get that this still happens regularly -- on both ends of the political spectrum.

But something has changed recently; maybe it started with the introduction of Sarah Palin to an already toxic mixture of paranoia and ignorance coming to a boil within certain segments of the population. Either way, over the last year it seems as if all logic and reason within the Republican party and its champions on talk radio and Fox News has gone completely out the window. It's like these people have lost their fucking minds. I'm not simply talking about their tendency to embrace and perpetuate half-baked conspiracy theories of the most mind-bogglingly outlandish variety; I mean their lack of shame at making arguments that not only don't hold up within the context of an extended timeline -- the kind of bewildering shit that can easily be proven hypocritical by comparing it to their comments of just one year ago -- but make no sense at face value.

Last night on Fox News, Sean "I Can Put You Into a Car Regardless of Your Credit History" Hannity made a comment and an implication so inflammatory and absurd that it's shocking his brain didn't rip the top of his head open to get some air. He pondered, "What does (it) say about Barack Obama and our government," that apparently the U.S. military knew that Major Nidal Nasan had contacted al Qaeda and was a growing threat yet did nothing to stop him? In other words, Hannity tried to link the fact that the military may have dropped the ball in devastating fashion on the Fort Hood shooting to the fact that Barack Obama is in the White House.

Do I need to remind you -- since reminding an obviously thick-headed ideologue like Hannity wouldn't do a damn bit of good -- that in the months leading up to 9/11, there were intelligence failures left and right within the CIA, the FBI and the Bush administration, including one in which Bush himself seemed to flat-out ignore the warnings of an intelligence report that all but spelled out the coming attack? I'm not saying that governmental agencies shouldn't be held responsible for their failures when a national tragedy happens that could have been prevented by them; I'm saying that you can't keep a straight face and castigate one president of the United States for an avoidable catastrophe that happened on his watch after singing the praises of another who was much closer to the fuck-ups that led to the avoidable catastrophe that happened on his. Well, you can't keep a straight face unless you're either a modern right-wing pundit or the lead character from Memento.

This is just another example of the kind of bald-faced, completely-detached-from-reality hypocrisy that the people who've hijacked the Republican party have trafficked in now for months into years -- the same people who spent almost eight years ranting and raving about how criticizing the president during a time of war amounted to treason, but who now conveniently add the caveat "Unless that President is Barack Obama -- That's Alright."

Crackpot conspiracy theories, circular reasoning, selective memory, insane arguments that go nowhere, the complete abandonment of logic and reason, the canonization of the craziest and most farcical among its lunatic fringe -- this is why it's become impossible to defend the GOP these days. It's gotten so bad that even taking an occasional stand for the ideals of conservatism, some of which I happen to agree with, makes me feel like I need a shower -- because those who are supposed to be advancing these ideals have instead allowed their party to meltdown from the inside out.

It's almost impossible to imagine that conservatism was once the domain of unapologetic intellectuals like William F. Buckley.

Now look at it -- it's the soapbox from which Michele Bachmann shouts gibberish.

Who with a brain wants to in any way be associated with that?

The Divided State

Do you think this country is headed for all-out civil war?

Sure, it's a loaded question, and a somewhat overly dramatic implication. But with everything we've seen over the last few years -- the growing and seemingly unnavigable rift between left and right -- culminating in the frightening level of anger and insanity out there since the election of Barack Obama, well, does it really sound all that far-fetched?

More than ever these days, I find myself kind of shaking my head and thinking -- even fleetingly -- that America's Great Experiment in Democracy may have failed. I do this because there are now people out there who put the good of their respective parties over the good of the country. People who want to see our president, and therefore the country that elected him overwhelmingly, fail outright. They have a singular, deafening voice that's righteous in its certitude. They carry guns. They irresponsibly call for revolution. They seem to have no shame and no appreciation for the possible consequences of the shit-storm they're stirring.

Or do they?

I certainly don't want to fear-monger from the ostensible opposite side of the fence, but a piece in Open Salon today kind of got me thinking about the possibility that everything we're seeing right now really will culminate in some sort of violent upheaval. One of the things I appreciate about the column, by writer David Brin, is that it deftly points out what I think has been the cancer festering at the core of our eroding national discourse for sometime now: the fact that the conservative movement -- once pioneered and propagated by men and women of incredible intellect and patriotism -- has been hijacked by stupid, demagogic idealogues who furiously espouse a goal of eliminationism. In other words, they don't want to negotiate with their political counterparts and adversaries; they want to see them utterly crushed underfoot.

Admittedly, a lot of the people driving this rhetoric -- the ones with the biggest populist bullhorns -- are riling up the right-wing masses mostly because doing so makes them a hell of a lot of money. That's the ironic dishonesty about this so-called revolution: Its leaders are largely using the little guy as a stage prop to make themselves rich. But selfish intentions won't change the devastating nature of the potential outcome here -- not if violence really does erupt.

From the piece:

"And so we have circled back to where we started -- the sad decline of American conservatism into cartoonish idiocy. The puppeteers may be rich. They may be talented provocateurs and con artists... but talent does not equate to brains. Not when the GOP has driven off almost everybody in America who actually knows stuff, including nearly all the scientists, the skilled innovators, and most of the U.S. Officer Corps.

Alas. This is no longer even about "conservatism" anymore. Barry Goldwater lived long enough to denounce what he saw happening to his beloved movement, and things have plummeted even farther, since that great man died.

Nowadays, bottom-to-top -- and especially at the very top -- it is all about stupidity."

Read on:

Open Salon: "A Rant About Stupidity... and the Coming Civil War" by David Brin/10.4.09

Wasted Youth

How to doom America, in eight easy steps.

Cracked: 8 Insane Ways Parents are Politically Brainwashing Children/9.8..09

Their Own Worst Enemy

One of the reasons I link to Bob Cesca quite a bit is that he and I seem to think alike on a whole host of topics. He's a little further to the left overall than I am, I'd say (although even that's up for debate), but he knows that being too far in either direction on every single issue renders your opinion null and void because it proves that you're probably working backward in your reasoning. I get the feeling that this is one of the points he's trying to make in his criticism of Salon's Glenn Greenwald and the tendency of some on the left to throw the baby out with the bathwater in their attacks on the current Democratic power structure.

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!: Begging Self-Destruction/8.30.09

Related:

DXM: With Friends Like These.../8.21.09

Fighting Words

There's been quite a bit of controversy throughout the liberal blogosphere pegged off a couple of comments made recently by Rolling Stone columnist and avowed prick Matt Taibbi. As a writer Taibbi's always had strong opinions, and despite being regularly left-leaning, he's never shied away from taking those who typically embrace him to task when he thinks their adherence to stereotypical dogma amounts to shooting themselves in the foot. This is one of the qualities I've always admired in him: He's an honest-to-God individual and doesn't really give a crap what either side of the aisle thinks of him; he seems to revel in pissing down the back of everyone.

The comments that have some of the usual suspects on the left in such a tizzy come from Taibbi's blog (which as far as I'm concerned is required reading) and have to do with the current battle over health care reform. At first glance, they seem to defend the tactics of the Bush Administration.

The most recent:

"I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?"

Then there's this one (posted here last week):

"Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, or anyone else. If the Obama administration wanted to pass a real health care bill, they would do what George Bush and Tom DeLay did in the first six-odd years of this decade whenever they wanted to pass some nightmare piece of legislation (ie the Prescription Drug Bill or CAFTA): they would take the recalcitrant legislators blocking their path into a back room at the Capitol, and beat them with rubber hoses until they changed their minds."

It goes without saying that to think Taibbi is suggesting that the Bush White House had its merits is to miss the point completely. What he's expressing, rightfully and angrily, is frustration.

For eight years we watched George W. Bush and his band of corrupt cronies get away, almost literally, with murder. When the GOP held absolute control over every arm of the government, it abused that authority thoroughly -- not only cutting out but publicly belittling the political minority that it knew didn't have the numbers to make a successful stand against it. The Republicans truly were the Evil Empire in Washington, DC; they treated the Democrats as a non-entity, annoying gnats to be swatted away with the wave of a fat, sweaty hand. Here's the thing, though: Like it or not, agree with their sickening platform or disagree, the Republicans got things done. They got things done because they did what they always do: get behind a person or simply a set of obscene and ridiculous talking points and stay there. True, if you were on the other side during this dark period in our nation's history, you likely shouted to the heavens about how unfair the whole thing was -- how unconscionable repugnant turds like, say, Jim Sensenbrenner were for literally standing up and shutting off the lights and walking out of the room while their Democratic counterparts were trying to speak on the Hill. You no doubt despised the special brand of GOP thuggery.

Once again, though -- these tactics, as deplorable and antithetical to the spirit of the American political system as they were, pushed the Republican agenda through with unsurprising ease.

It's not right, but it worked -- in the sense that it accomplished what it set out to.

And to this day, there have been no negative, lasting repercussions for those who chose to undertake this course. Bitch all you want, these assholes are still walking around free -- and they will be from now until they die fat and happy on a set of 1,000 thread count sheets somewhere. George W. Bush is already preparing his memoirs; Dick Cheney isn't up against a wall behind the Hague; Tom DeLay's on Dancing with the Stars for fuck's sake. They got away with it.

And now that the tables are turned and the other side has near-complete control of the White House and the Hill, what do we get?

We get spineless waffling, pathetic half-measures, a supposed push for bipartisanship in deference to a group that giddily trampled its political opponents underfoot for nearly a decade and have no compunction about continuing to, despite the fact that it's in no position whatsoever to exert such force -- not anymore.

And that's what Taibbi's getting at. His comments pose an interesting question: Is it better to be able to say that you were completely "fair," or that you got things done? This becomes especially thorny when you consider that, despite all your attempts at being obliging and conciliatory, the other side isn't really interested in bipartisanship. The Republicans are only pretending to give a shit about fairness; the reality is that they'll never bend to the will of the Democrats -- they'll block Obama at every turn and by any means necessary. Try to appease them all you want, it'll get you nowhere.

By now, the Democrats should've realized this and should be rolling over the GOP obfuscation, misdirection and conspiracy machine with a tank. They have the power and the numbers, and yet they continue to behave as if the other side would show them the same courtesy were the roles reversed -- as if the last eight years never happened.

It's time to lay down the gauntlet and not fight back -- since the Democrats should in no way be on the defensive right now -- but fight.

This is what Taibbi's getting at, and he's 100% right.

Being able to say that at least you played fair will be little consolation four years from now when nothing's been accomplished and a Republican president is back in office.