Assistant Quote of the Day

"We’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party... And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal, to just shove us into the dustbin of history."

-- John Boehner in a closed speech yesterday to the Ripon Society, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC

If the Republicans weren't one of this country's two major political parties it would be hysterical how utterly lost they are.

No, Boehner, you blubbering idiot, Obama isn't out to "annihilate" your party because he doesn't have to -- you're doing that just fine on your own. Your version of outreach in the face of assured demographic extinction is this kind of horseshit: continuing to fear-monger in the hope of somehow -- what? -- encouraging your dwindling base of bitter, resentful white men to breed more? Yeah, good luck with that.

You're right about one thing: You are being slowly relegated to the dustbin of history. But for that you have no one to blame by yourselves.

By the way, Matt Taibbi has a great post currently up at Rolling Stone that takes a look at what he amusingly calls the "worst week ever" for conservatives. As you might expect it's worth a read.

An Offer They Can't Refuse

During the second leg of my flight home today, from Dallas to L.A., I managed to crank out a quick piece -- one inspired by Chris Christie's "holy shit" news conference earlier today, the one in which he pretty much threatened to have John Boehner and the House Republicans whacked.

Here's an excerpt:

"The fact that an attack this visceral came from Christie is what makes it so damaging. Sure, Christie’s never been one to mince words but that’s part of what’s made him such a political powerhouse and star within his party. The thing is, though, it’s Christie’s willingness to put country and the actual governing thereof over partisan politics when the situation demands it — as in when he effusively praised President Obama’s initial response to Sandy — that’s made him a political star in general, irrespective of party. People like Christie. He commands attention and respect from both sides of the aisle and is that unique figure in American politics who can call out childish antics in Washington with plainspoken anger and have that criticism be truly withering and resonant. I may not love Chris Christie’s policies for the most part, but there are times I can’t help but like him."

Read the Rest Here

Assistant Quote of the Day

"This isn’t the first unprecedented Republican insult to the presidency under Barack Obama (but it is, by far, the worst), and it isn’t even the first time John Boehner has tried to make the President 'heel' with his datebook. It ought to be the last. Every American who has an appropriate respect for the office of the presidency should demand that John Boehner resign, and every legislator should amplify that demand. The problems facing this country are too great to be left in the hands of someone with such contempt for its highest office... The media, meanwhile, ought to abandon its fetish foe false objectivity, and recognize the facts. All parties agree the President gave the Speaker sufficient notice, and I cannot think of another president in history whom the media would suggest should have been preempted by a routine political debate, certainly not in a time of national crisis. The media is complicit in the insult through its failure to recognize this."

-- Mediaite's Tommy Christopher, in a piece called "Speaker John Boehner Should Resign For His Unprecedented Insult To The President"

Suffice it to say, Christopher nails it.

Will and Disgrace

These days, particularly with the political divide in Washington as substantial and insurmountable as it is, there's very little that's more offensive than a politician arrogantly invoking the supposed will of "the American people." Think about how often you've heard that phrase in just the past few weeks, from dozens of different leaders from both sides of the aisle. It's generally the worst kind of cliché: a pompous politician claiming to speak for the entire republic and to be doing its collective bidding. But recently it's become flat-out insulting, given that it's impossible for any representative from either party to bridge the gap between the highly polarized political extremes and only the most lunatic among the electorate actually want to see government gridlocked to the point of threatening the world.

Still, if you needed confirmation of that which you very likely already knew, a new poll proves unequivocally that when guys like John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell and Jim DeMint claim that their intransigence is nothing more than a case of succumbing to the will of the people, they're basically full of shit. The Tea Party and the ever-widening extremist wing of the Republican party may be loud, but they're not very big. According to a CNN/Opinion Research survey, just 33% of the American public currently hold a favorable view of the Republican party, compared to 59% who have an unfavorable view. If you're looking for context, yes, those numbers are as dismal as they sound. The Democrats, meanwhile, are holding relatively steady -- and even -- at 47% favorable and 47% unfavorable.

Both sides have played a role in creating a profound nationwide distrust of and distaste for our current government, but make no mistake -- the Republicans are rightfully getting most of the blame. What's most noteworthy about this, though, is that as of this morning the usual suspects within the GOP are continuing to tout their absurd stance on slashing entitlement and social programs while waiting in line to slavishly get on their knees and blow Grover Norquist as a simple case of doing the people's work. And you can be damn sure this will continue unabated.

The people have spoken loud and clear, saying that they overwhelmingly want to see corporate tax breaks ended, loopholes closed, and the wealthy forced to pay their fair share -- but if you think for a moment that something like verifiable reality will stand in the way of the Republicans' agenda and a lot of propagandistic nonsense about how it's all being done under the direction of the masses, you're crazier than one of those old people sitting in a lawn chair cheering the U.S. credit downgrade.

That's because they don't work for the average American. They don't work for you, and they never have -- not lately anyway.

Salon: Could the Tea Party Actually Be Obama's Salvation in 2012?/8.11.11

Assistant Quote of the Day

"The greatest concern to the Cut, Cap and Balance Coalition is the integrity of the Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge that was signed by 39 House Members and 12 Senators, and whether voting for the proposed deal constitutes a Pledge violation... We hold that is does violate the pledge, on several grounds."

-- From a declaration issued today by a coalition of more than a hundred Tea Party groups which warns that any vote for John Boehner's debt ceiling proposal constitutes a violation of a pledge signed by dozens of Republican lawmakers

This is what it's come to. The Republican party is completely beholden to these people and terrified of the threats made by them. And these people are blithering idiots who honestly don't think that a U.S. default would be a big deal -- that it's some kind of hoax like climate change, evolution or the death of Elvis.

They'll willfully cause this country to be plunged into economic catastrophe if the GOP doesn't immediately disavow their insanity. This cannot be allowed to happen.

Ceiling Our Fate

From a good piece by John Avlon in the Daily Beast today:

"This is a political crisis manifesting itself as a fiscal crisis. Deficit reduction is no longer the real goal. Principled differences have been abandoned. Instead, there is just the struggle to survive politically without taking the nation off a cliff. It is a failure of divided government, and that’s why the two prime time speeches last night offered a preview of campaign 2012...

As you watch this drama play out over the next seven days, don’t forget that this is an entirely forced fire-drill. The debt ceiling has been raised more or less automatically in the past -- 77 times since JFK, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan and 7 times under George W. Bush. Republicans were not rushing to the ramparts then -- consistent with their heightened concern over deficits that comes only when Democrats are in the White House...

Nonetheless, this is the first time in American history that the debt ceiling vote has been held hostage by hyper-partisan politics. It won’t be the last. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to put this genie back in the bottle."

Avlon's final point is something I've grappled with quite a bit over the past year or so -- the idea that there's really no way back at this point and what we're witnessing right now is the new model of politics. Get used to this kind of dysfunction on a massive scale because the often civil -- and occasionally begrudging -- compromise that was the hallmark of the political system of our parents' generation has been shot full of holes and now lies bleeding on the ground, I think well past the point of resuscitation.

The question is, why? What created the furious polarization that's so intransigent that it honestly, as we're witnessing right now, has the potential to flat-out drive this country off a cliff? I realize I've worked in the media for years so I tend to see things through this prism, but I really do think it's the sheer volume of ostensible "press" outlets that's to blame. I've said this more than once but it bears repeating yet again: The internet has made everyone a king, turned the whole world into wannabe journalists and the problem has become that you can't tell who's full of crap and who's actually telling the truth anymore; what's more, it's that constant flow of information from everywhere you look that's rendered the truth, seemingly, more or less moot. Everyone presents their view as fact; each person or outlet uses those kinds of "facts" to further bolster his or her views; the noise grows louder and louder; the sides diverge and every single subject becomes politicized, able to be regarded as a this-or-that fight and fiercely argued over by an endless, ever-increasing supply of partisans; no one even hears the other side anymore because it's now possible to get your news in ways that do nothing but confirm your already intractable biases; objective reality vanishes.

Put it this way: Nothing Lawrence O'Donnell says on MSNBC matters one bit in the big picture because no one but those who already subscribe to the beliefs he espouses are watching and if they are they don't believe a word of it. He's wasting his breath for an hour every night. Fox News? Don't even bother going there. It's an entire network created for the sole purpose of and thoroughly devoted to preaching to one very specific choir -- which is why no matter what happens in the real world, viewers of Fox will never see it, at least not the way it really happened. They'll get the funhouse mirror version of events as filtered through the talking points that come down from the top and trickle directly into the mouths of Sean Hannity and Steve Doocy.

Last night, President Obama called for compromise, a position for which he's taken plenty of heat from his own party -- maybe fairly, maybe unfairly. John Boehner, on the other hand, did exactly what his base expected him to do, what it demanded of him. He stood frozen in place, a man determined to burn America to the ground if that's what it takes to make his political point, protect his base's perverted values when it comes to taxes for the ultra-wealthy and ultimately return a Republican to his rightful place in the White House. He knew he could do it because he knew he could blame the president for it and his base would never know any vividly contrasting reality because all it would hear is the version of the story presented by Fox News. Which is why the people Obama spoke to were those Americans he called "collateral damage" in this ridiculous battle between the two extremes -- the independents who are fed up and who've had enough of this crap.

The problem is, they'd better get used to it. It's not going to get any better. This is just the beginning.

A Debt of Attitude

I'll make this quick.

There's no arguing with the fact that what we all just witnessed outlined in pretty clear terms the dynamic that's been going on in Washington for the past several months in regard to the debt ceiling fight. Obama was not only reasonable, measured and -- I can't believe I even have to say this -- mature, but he made it clear that he was a man so willing to compromise for the good of the country that he's consistently fending off fire from many in his own party who feel like he's somehow selling them out. Boehner, meanwhile, was a petulant, haughty adolescent, someone not the least bit interested in genuine compromise and who's more than willing to forgo honest dialog in the name of cheap theatrics, bad jokes and brutish partisan intransigence because he knows it's what his party demands at this point.

I tweeted this a little earlier but it can pretty much be broken down like this: Obama: "We need to compromise and stop being petty children for the sake of everyone." Boehner: "Fuck you."

Interestingly, though, it was an aesthetic point that caught my eye almost immediately -- and one Chris Matthews pointed out on MSNBC a little while ago during the wrap-up coverage of the speeches. It was in bad taste enough, I thought, that Boehner chose to speak minutes after the president, despite the fact that it was always sure to prove Obama's point flawlessly that thanks to the House Republicans and their tea bagging overlords, DC has turned into nothing more than an embarrassing and endlessly mock-worthy circus. But there was something specific about the way Boehner spoke -- the surroundings he set for himself -- that bugged the hell out of me. He stood at a podium, with flags behind him -- a similar setting to the president's own speech. The implication was inarguable and thoroughly offensive: it gave the impression that the Speaker of the House was somehow on the same level as the President of the United States -- that this was a battle of equals.

Since the very beginning, the right has sought to utterly diminish and delegitimize this president; as a collective movement, it's treated him with disrespect and derision, called him an anti-colonialist-Marxist threat to the country who isn't even from this country and who wants to indoctrinate our children into the cult of socialism. They've made up lie after lie about this guy, and they've showed him and the office he occupies so little respect that they've felt they can stand up and call him a liar during a State of the Union address.

And tonight, in yet another breathtaking insult, John Boehner stood there as if he held the same authority as Barack Obama. As if he were America's other president.

I'll say this one more time for the cheap seats: I don't approve of everything Barack Obama has done during his presidency. He's by no means perfect. But what we saw tonight put into perspective the monumental differences not simply in vision but in sheer seriousness between Obama and the people he's up against.

Sorry, but at this moment every American has no choice but to take a side -- and I'm on Obama's side on this, 100%. Ironically, that is the compromise position. As for Boehner, screw him and the disgraceful bunch of uncontrollable babies under his purview who are holding this country hostage. Enough is enough.

Quote of the Day Next Two Years

"The only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things."

-- Senate Minority Leader and white sleestak Mitch McConnell, basically telling President Obama where he can stick his bipartisan cooperation and spelling out in no uncertain terms what the goal of every single thing congressional Republicans do over the next 24 months will be

As Cesca basically said in his latest piece over at HuffPo, get ready for the Age of Issa -- for government to grind to a halt while the House GOP launches ridiculous investigation after absurd official inquiry, all aimed at forcing Barack Obama out of office one way or another.

I've never been one of those people who feels that he's in a position to lecture the President of the United States -- particularly this very smart president -- on what he should or shouldn't do. But I do think we've finally reached a point where someone needs to take Obama aside and remind him that he and his party still have two of the three centers of power in our government.

What that means is that, for God's sake, enough is enough. Fuck McConnell -- and that orange prick Boehner. Grow a pair of giant brass balls, take a stand, take back the narrative, and slam dunk their asses.

This is a street fight. It's time to start acting like it.

Quotes of the Day

"This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise."

-- John Boehner

"Look, the time to go along and get along is over."

-- Mike Pence

The hilarious thing about these statements is that they imply that up until now the Republicans in Congress have been the picture of bipartisan cooperation, rather than the deranged pack of obstinate howler monkeys they've actually acted like.

The depressing thing, of course, is that these statements all but guarantee that once these children take the House, the government will grind to a crushing halt.

As Taibbi said so beautifully recently -- man, they really broke the mold when they created these assholes.

Fear Itself

In the wake of Thursday's health care summit in Washington, orange Republican Senator John Boehner took to YouTube to answer a series of questions on health care reform that had been pre-submitted by YouTube users. For the most part, Boehner rattled off the standard litany of GOP talking points -- move along, nothing to see here -- but Breitbart's Big Government site allowed him to do a quick write up on the exchange, which means that Breitbart's audience was given the opportunity to comment on Boehner's points and the health care debate in general.

And that's where things get interesting.

Look, as I've been saying lately ad nauseam, read through the comment section of any partisan online outlet -- either side, left or right -- and it's impossible to ignore how nearly interchangeable the two sides of the political divide are when it comes to their rhetoric. There's the childish derogatory wordplay -- "DemocRATS" and "Rethugs" -- the specious accusations, the kind of blather that makes you wonder if the commenter is arguing simply to hear him or herself argue. But where there are differences, they're vast and impossible to ignore -- one of the major ones being the incendiary, irresponsible and absolutely fucking dangerous calls to arms you hear on the right, proving the point that it's not so much that side's loutish carnival barkers that anyone should worry about -- since their shtick is largely about making money or getting votes -- but the True Believers who hang on every word from these clowns like it's gospel and use it to fuel their already raging paranoid psychopathy. There have always been violent activists on the far left, but they've never been given the kind of encouragement and legitimacy that the batshit crazy anti-government crowd is currently enjoying on the right. In other words, what used to be the fringe right isn't really relegated to the fringes these days -- the "far" right ain't so far anymore.

Case in point: One commenter to the Breitbart-Boehner post writes this, and receives a series of replies like "Here, here fellow patriot!" (which is as frightening as it is grammatically incorrect):

"Mr. Boehner,

Just curious when you and the rest of the Rep party will get a spine? You guys are no different than the other side you run your mouths about how bad things are BUT what have YOU done? Did you scream out in session and bring proceedings to a halt? Did you organize a walkout at the health summit yesterday? We the people all know it was nothing but a patronizing show orchestrated by his majesty BHO better yet the three stooges after complaints about transparency and opening debate up to the public...

Do us all a favor Mr. Boehner, you and the rest of the DC Rep. inept either grow a spine or a set of b___s and physically do something (walkout, bring govt to a halt) vs the daily rants, should I say whining, we are oh so tired of...

Go read the Constitution, words of our founding fathers and really do something or stand down and let someone who is ready to truly take them on in! Maybe you haven't realized but the old piece of paper called the Declaration of Independence was pretty much those men signing their own death warrant if what they planned failed? Can you do that? Are your ready to do that? If not get out of our way WE WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK! "

The commenter then posts a link to this YouTube video. I'm pretty good at shrugging off inconsequential crap, but its message is 100% clear -- and it's scary as hell.

This is what's fulminating on the right these days: The belief that the country white Christian men have always been entitled to was illegitimately stolen away from them -- despite the overwhelming disagreement of the electorate, which more than ever represents the changing face of America -- and must now be retaken by any means necessary. This is the kind of shit being spewed by conspiracist whack-jobs like the Oath Keepers -- who are bestowing upon themselves the blessing of the invoked-to-death forefathers, arming themselves and making ludicrous promises to stand against the creeping socialist threat, the one that's nothing more than a fucking paranoid delusion. This is what's being fomented by irresponsible little turds like Glenn Beck. They're creating a dark fantasy land of hidden terrors and outlandish boogeymen that has zero basis in reality.

And this is what's wrong with the right these days.

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DXM: Revolutionary Goad/4.7.09