Paranoia The Destroyer

As if we needed further proof that a key requirement to being a prominent conservative is acute paranoia, Roger Ailes gives us a shining example:

In 2008, Roger Ailes purchased the Putnam County News and Recorder in rustic Putnam County, New York to start feathering his retirement nest. The idea was that he and Elizabeth would retire to their 9,000-square-foot redoubt in nearby Garrison, N.Y., and Roger would live out his days as the gentleman publisher of a sleepy small-town newspaper. (He bought another paper, the Putnam County Courier, a year later.)

But it was not to be. Ailes—who installed Elizabeth as the day-to-day manager of the papers while he finishes his tenure at Fox News Channel—has run the papers with the singularly paranoid and abusive management style he brings to all his projects, resulting in the defection of his hand-picked editor and two top reporters earlier this month after Ailes told them he'd had them followed, and their private conversations surveilled, to catch them saying mean things about him. The spying followed years of intense weirdness between the editor and the Aileses, who once asked him to personally stop a break-in at their home and who implied that, after Roger's death, he'd be expected to replace him in their marriage.

Go read the whole piece because, believe it or not, it gets weirder.

Though Ailes’ alleged surveillance is bizarre, it’s worth noting that NewsCorp is in trouble in the U.K. over a phone hacking scandal. Not quite the same as the Ailes story -- these were NewsCorp’s News Of The World editors hacking the voicemail of celebrities so they could gather tabloid dirt. Ailes appears to have been indulging in a private sociopathy. But still, what is with the conservative jones for playing spy?

Memory Hole: Deficit Edition

While some lefty bloggers have noticed similarities between our punditry’s embrace of the Iraq invasion and the media’s current blind belief in right-wing “ZOMG the deficit is gonna kill us allll!” messaging, I’m taking a far less nuanced approach.

As the 2012 budget forces us all to go ‘round the hamster wheel for another insufferable bullshit national debate, I’d like to remind people of one thing: deficits don’t matter.

That wasn’t just Dick Cheney’s wishful thinking when trying to shove tax cuts for the uber-wealthy down our throats in the middle of wartime, that was a Weekly Standard column by none other than the august Irwin Seltzer, of the conservative Hudson Institute (Hudson is one of those places that preaches the glories of the free market and individual responsibility):

Which brings us to the economic level. The deficits that Bush ran up in the years in which the country was teetering on the verge of a serious recession had the beneficial effect of righting the economy. In that sense, deficits not only didn't matter, but were a force for economic good.

Yes, kids, once upon a time conservative thinkers actually believed that deficits not only didn’t matter, but that they were a “force for economic good.” Go on and read his column: his whole argument is that operating a deficit to right an economy in the recessionary doldrums is not just good, but essential (cue maniacal Dr. Strangelove grin).

Call me a cynic, but I have a feeling deficits really only matter based on which political party is having fun with the Chinese credit card. Maybe it's just me. But I can't help but laugh at the Republican hypocrites now calling for the fainting couches because Democrats--gasp!--want to cut the Pentagon's NASCAR sponsorship! This just proves what haters they are!

It is also a clear indication that Democrats think that the NASCAR voting bloc is not voting with them now or anytime in the future.

Yeah, I think when you start going down that road, you've conceded the argument. I mean gosh, it's not like PBS viewers are staunch Republicans, right? Isn't that what you're saying? That Obama's budget cuts are politically motivated? Thanks for playing.

We so easily forget our country’s history of just two months ago, when tax cuts for the wealthy were extended, let alone eight years ago, when the Bush Administration enacted the country’s first-ever tax cuts during wartime. For over 200 years we had paid for our wars, but Bush took the unprecedented approach that war could be paid for by future generations. Let that one sink in.

Conservatives cheered both moves, talking about how these things would stimulate the economy and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. Our media for the most part has acted blithely unaware of the hypocrisy at play beneath their noses. And what this should tell everyone, including our glorious media lapdogs who eat up every nugget of Republican messaging like it's filet mignon, is that these people are dishonest brokers. They really don’t give a shit about the national deficit, they just want their failed policies of tax cuts and deregulation and they will lie to anyone to see that this happens.

So please get a clue, already. Next time some Republican Congresscritter like John Boehner gets all teary-eyed about how the deficit is ruining this country, please ask them why they cheered the deficit six, seven, eight years ago. Please hold them to account. You just can't keep letting one political party hit the reset button as soon as they come into power, while still holding the Democrats to account for shit that happened 40 years ago.

In the meantime, another blogger points out that our budge debate should really be a healthcare debate, because that is where the money goes.

The Wingnut Welfare Gravy Train Rolls On

Judith Miller, once of the lofty New York Times, is now a correspondent for ... wait for it ... Newsmax. You know, the conservative rag peddling black helicopter conspiracy theories funded by Richard Mellon Scaife. It’s only slightly more credible than WingNut Daily -- but not much.

This news has prompted me to wonder what happened to the rest of the Iraq War boosters.

• Dick Cheney and Halliburton narrowly skirted bribery charges in Nigeria by forking over a cool $250 million the day before Christmas:

Meanwhile, the Nigerians still wanted a pound of flesh, and because it appears to be easy for a multibillion-dollar energy company like Halliburton to throw money at problems, that's what they seem to have done. Halliburton and KBR will pay $32.5 million to the Nigerian government and $2.5 million to the Nigerian lawyers, and release some frozen assets in a Swiss bank account to the Africans. Total payout: about $250 million.

In return, Cheney, Halliburton, and KBR can walk away from the situation, and the Nigerians get even more than the original $180 million from the former vice president's company.

Remember: Halliburton and KBR already pled guilty to those $180 million bribery charges in a U.S. court. I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that someone is able to avoid jail time for bribing Nigerian officials with $180 million by .... paying Nigerian officials $250 million. Oh well, nothing to see here, move along folks ....

• Donald Rumsfeld is doing the rubber chicken circuit/book tour that is part of the Wingnut Wurlitzer. He (or, more likely, his publicist) has been teasing his pending memoir with coy Tweets which the neocons at the Wall Street Journal have been eating up like ice cream. When the book comes out it will be promoted heavily at conservative media outlets like, well, Newsmax, which frequently offers subscribers tomes such as this one at steep discounts. Neat how that works.

• John Bolton returned to his office at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank, and in that capacity is spouting his nonsense on the Wingnut Wurlitzer. Serving just 16 months as United Nations ambassador -- too crazy even for Republicans like George Voinovich and John McCain, his nomination was filibustered and he was a recess appointment -- it seems the conservative media has found Bolton a useful stick to poke at the Obama Administration. His frequent criticism of things like the START treaty and defense spending cuts are dutifully reported across the Fox landscape. Falling upwards, indeed.

• The disgraced/disbarred Scooter Libby appears to have disappeared into a black hole, though with the new Valerie Plame flick soon to hit theaters, I’m sure someone will drag him out of his undisclosed location. The Wingnut Wurlitzer is always looking for fresh meat.

• Paul Wolfowitz always creeped me out. The whole comb-licking thing just made we want to throw up in my mouth. Forced to resign from the World Bank in 2007 after some serious ethics breaches were discovered, he has also joined his buddy John Bolton at the American Enterprise Institute as a “visiting scholar,” where at least one observer noted his lack of productivity. In his position he pens the occasional op-ed for papers like the London Times and Wall Street Journal, all part of the glorious Bush Administration Whitewash Campaign designed to protect the legacy of the most disastrous Administration in this country’s recent history.

If you’re detecting a pattern here, well, join the club. Conservatives through their “non-partisan (wink wink) think tanks” and established media outfits like Fox News and Newsmax are able to get their message out across the world. This is the Wingnut Welfare Gravy Train, where no fail is too big, no embarrassment too great, no policy too disastrous to keep the conservative family from closing ranks and enveloping their failed leaders in a warm, fuzzy embrace.

You can always go home again, if you’re a neocon wingnut (Scooter Libby being the sole exception). The American Enterprise Institute will give you a home and get your op-eds published in the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, London Times, New York Times, not to mention conservative outfits like the Weekly Standard. Your memoirs will be published and your name will be in the Rolodex of every Fox News booker. Your appearances on Hannity (and even the occasional network bobblehead show) are a given. This is how the legacy is protected, even promoted.

The right-wing has this established, well-funded infrastructure which assures the continued influence of people who by all rights should have been tossed away when they were discredited. I mean, you started a fucking war based on lies, misinformation, faulty intelligence. You were colossally wrong and people died and the national treasury was raided. We have spent and will spend trillions of dollars on your fuck-up. Some folks think you should be in jail; at the very least you should be kicked out of the club. But that’s not how it works in Wingnuttia.

Meanwhile, we’ve kicked Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod off Liberal Mountain for ... well, what, exactly? If these folks were conservatives their calendars would be full of speaking engagements, television appearances, and their op-eds would be in every influential newspaper in the English-speaking world. They’d be working on their memoirs and they’d have regular features in The New Republic and The Atlantic. But Google “Van Jones” and all you get are attacks from conservative blogs like Hot Air.

There simply is nothing comparable on the left to the Wingnut Wurlitzer. I don’t know why that is, except perhaps the perpetual myth about “liberal media” and so forth. I think this more than anything is the biggest challenge the left faces moving forward. And while I'm not the first to observe this, I can't for the life of me understand why no one has done anything about it. You can't win the argument if you can't even get your message out.

Jesus Save Me From These Morons

Another wingnut tries to claim Jesus was a conservative, in fact, “The Perfect Conservative.”

How does he know this? Because:

He helped the poor without one government program. He healed the sick without a government health care system. He feed the hungry without food stamps. And everywhere He went, it turned into a rally, attracting large crowds, and giving them hope, encouragement and inspiration.

For three years He was unemployed, and never collected an unemployment check. Nevertheless, he completed all the work He needed to get done. He didn’t travel by private jet. He walked and sailed, and sometimes traveled on a donkey.

It goes on in this vein. I’ll spare you.

So, the moral of this story? You, too, can succeed in life without the government ... if you are the Messiah! The rest of us who are not the Messiah might need some government services at some point. Now fuck off.

This is almost as great as the news that Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wishes to disband the Methodist Church (apparently the denomination’s support of the DREAM Act put him over the edge. Not that it wasn’t a short trip). Glenn Beck has been famously at war against social justice pastors for years. And there’s the hilarious Conservative Bible Project.

Hmm .. as I’ve said, oh, only a hundred thousand times already ... but it seems quite a few conservatives have noticed their politics is at odds with their religion ... and concluded that it’s their religion which is wrong.

Typical.

This Too Shall Pass

I think pretty much everything that needs to be said about Juan Williams’ firing by NPR has been said, from Sarah Palin’s ghost-written Tweets to more sane commentary from real media analysts. I just want to remind everyone that this latest hissy fit will be forgotten as soon as the next shiny-sparkly thing comes along to divert everyone’s attention, probably a wardrobe malfunction or celebrity tweet or stupid thing from Christine O’Donnell, Carl Palladino or another car in the Teanut trainwreck.

I need to go through my blog archive to remember what the last big fauxtrage was about -- and I don’t even write about most of them. Let’s see: three weeks ago it was CNN dumping Rick Sanchez. Gosh I’d already forgotten about that.

Anyone remember the Great Laura Schlessinger Debate of August 2010? All of that “Don’t retreat: reload!” advice from the Sage of Wasilla? Of course we've forgotten it! Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of what happens in the media fishbowl is irrelevant to everyone who is not in the media, and therefore it's forgotten within a week.

Anyone remember the furor over Dave Weigel being forced to resign from the Washington Post? David Frum’s firing from the American Enterprise Institute? CNN hiring right-wing hack Erick Erickson?

I mean seriously. The way the media covers itself is indecent. So many politicized outrages over media personalities losing (or getting) jobs, and they all follow the same pattern. Something happens, Sarah Palin Tweets about it, conservatives get up in arms, liberals get up in arms, there's endless analysis on blogs and news shows like Moanin’ Joe, and then in a week it’s gone. (Though I must say: the national media is far less likely to be interested in something when it pisses off the Left. I don't recall nearly as much media interest in the Weigel and Erickson stories. I still haven't figured that out.)

Anyway, I’m tired of the bullshit, and it occurred to me that so few people have come out and said that this is bullshit. So I will: it's all bullshit, people. It matters not one iota to anyone's life, save the man who just landed a $2 million contract at Fox. Heh heh, who could have seen that coming -- besides everyone, that is!

Let me just offer conservatives like Andrew Breitbart and Mike Huckabee a tip: saying you will now boycott NPR is seen by the left as a win. Just sayin’.

Today’s IOKIYAR

George Soros has finally donated $1 million to Media Matters and right-wing heads are exploding:

George Soros announced today that he was making his first-ever contribution to Media Matters, in the amount of $1 million.  Rush Limbaugh denounced this as "foreign money in American politics" and called Soros "a foreigner."  Right-wing bloggers echoed this claim ("Foreign Money in Politics: Soros Donates $1 Million to Media Matters"), and the comment section of right-wing blogs discussing this donation are filled with accusations that this constitutes "foreign money in politics."

Problem is, Soros is an American citizen -- has been since 1961. Ooops.

Yeah, I know: they were probably thrown by the funny accent.

Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand, became a U.S. citizen in 1985. I don’t recall any of these right-wing blowhards decrying Murdoch’s “foreign money” donations to the Republican Governors Assn. and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

IOKIYAR.

So, am I the only one who thinks the Democrats' slamming the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its foreign donors has struck a raw nerve? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Conservative Psychosis

Yeah I know we’re all supposed to be really dumbfounded by Virginia Thomas’ bizarre voicemail message to Anita Hill. I admit, my first reaction was, “Really? After all of these years? And demanding an apology, too?”

This morning on MSNBC journalist Karen Hunter opined that Mrs. Thomas was either “in an Ambien haze or filming a reality TV show.” Which I thought was pretty hilarious, though Hunter might get a Saturday morning demand for an apology from Mrs. Thomas for her trouble.

But really: filming a reality show? Yes of course she is. Ginni Thomas is a Tea Party activist. And hasn’t our modern political discourse become just one giant non-stop reality show?

I understand Ginni Thomas’ behavior perfectly. She is a member of the Teanut cult, a group of people defined by their victimhood. Poor conservatives, they are perpetual victims at the hands of big mean liberals: Katie Couric was so mean to ask Sarah Palin a “gotcha” question like which newspapers and magazines she reads! How dare anyone call Carrie Prejean mean names like “hypocrite” for taking her top off in a modeling session, then pretending to be Miss Purity & Moral Values? Christine O’Donnell is a victim of “character assassination” because tapes of her saying stupid things have resurfaced now that she wants to be a U.S. Senator. That is so mean, you guyz!

Conservatives have been calling for the whaaambulance for years now, a neat little turning of the tables: these are the folks who have railed against “liberal victimhood” forever. Minorities, women, the disabled, the poor ... those folks need to stop demanding special treatment and buck up, already! Quit yer whining and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!

But it’s always IOKIYAR in conservative land. They’re always the oppressed ones, unable to understand why they can no longer be assholes and not get applauded for it. The liberal media and culture of political correctness oppresses them every day. There are gays out in the open, demanding that their “lifestyle” be sanctioned by the government, fer crying out loud!

As a Tea Party activist and founder of Liberty Central, Ginni Thomas drinks this victimhood Kool-Aid every day. Of course she’s held a grudge all of these years. Of course she hasn’t forgotten all of those mean things Anita Hill said about her husband so many years ago. Of course she sees herself as the real victim here.

Thomas is the perfect Teanut standard-bearer for this cult of victimhood, since she can’t be accused of being a racist as her husband is African American. I’d say she knew exactly what she was doing stirring up this pot after so many years. She’s reminding her fellow cultists of a divisive time in our nation’s history where mean liberals demanded special treatment and attacked one of their heroes (anyone who doubts Clarence Thomas is a hero to the right wing need only remember he officiated at Rush Limbaugh's third wedding -- which was held at the Thomas home.) She’s telling her fellow Teanuts that if tyrannical liberals are allowed to win, honest American patriots will continue to be oppressed by Commie idealists who demand everything handed to them on a platter, instead of working hard for what they want, like they do.

It’s the mother of all dog whistles, people. Don’t think Ginni Thomas blew it by accident.

Pat Say-WHAT?

Pat Sajak, one-time Nashvillian, current Wheel Of Fortune host, and modern conservative pundit thinks public employees shouldn’t be allowed to vote because he thinks they have a larger stake in the outcome, which is just the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

I think someone needs to go to a Tea Party rally and learn about taxation without representation.

Moron.

They Will Never Like You

Jonathan Bernstein's alarm bells go off in response to rumors that President Obama will replace Lawrence Summers “with somebody from the business community--i.e., a current or former CEO” in order to “disarm critics.” Bernstein writes:

But getting back to the main point here: this is a remarkably stupid plan, if true. It will not "disarm" critics who say that Obama is reflexively anti-business, any more than having Bob Gates at Defense "disarmed" critics of Obama's approach to terror -- indeed, actually expanding the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and killing a lot of terrorists didn't slow down those who were intent on claiming that Obama was some sort of secret bin Laden sympathizer.  It doesn't work like that.  Critics will say what they will say, and it mostly doesn't matter, and at any rate there's nothing you can do about it.  What you can do, however, is have a well-run White House and do your best to have a well-run government.

This cannot be stated often enough, loud enough, or broadcast widely enough.

Let me point out something very obvious which Bernstein missed: the "critics" which the Obama Administration is supposedly trying to disarm are conservative ones. Apparently no one gives a crap about left wing critics. I know, y’all are shocked.

And yes, this is incredibly, stunningly stupid. Dear, sweet Democrats: conservatives will never, ever like you. NEVER. EVER. Quit trying to “please” them with your policies. Just do your shit and be done with it.

Bernstein writes:

Now, if these reports are simply a nod to an important constituency on the way to choosing whoever is the best available man or woman for the job, well, no harm done.  But if the administration is really more concerned about the short-term reaction to the selection -- how it plays in the press, rather than how it will help the president govern as well as possible -- then it's both a terrible mistake and a sign of real screwed up priorities.  It will certainly be interesting to see which it is.

Oh, I’m pretty sure we know which one it is. I think we’ve seen politics trump policy pretty much repeatedly, on everything from GITMO and terror trials and the anemic stimulus to the bungled healthcare "reform" and Wall Street "reform." And this is the great failure not just of President Obama but the Democratic Party in general.

Look, people: You cannot govern under a fear of criticism. The Republican Party wants back in power. They twisted the president’s Nobel Peace Prize into a negative. Conservatives criticized the president partaking of Sunday communion. Does that not tell you something?

Rush Limbaugh will NEVER like you! Sean Hannity will always say mean things about you! Mitch McConnell will always cast aspersions on your motives and character. This is as sure as the sun rising in the East each morning. And if there isn’t something real these people can criticize, they will make shit up. Hell, they’ll make shit up anyway. So quit trying to please the very people whose entire relevance as a political force is based on hatred of you. President Bush did whatever he wanted because he was resolute, and resolute trumps wrong every single time. Learn a lesson here, people.

During the primaries my biggest concern about Obama was that he wouldn’t have the spine to fight off conservative criticism and fulfill his campaign promises. My biggest concern about Hillary Clinton was that Clinton Derangement Syndrome would dominate our politics once again -- the “Clinton is a serial rapist” and "they-killed-Vincent-Foster" conspiracy crap. Turns out I was right about the former and wrong about the latter. The conspiracy crap is just as bad if not worse than it was in the Clinton years, but the Obama Administration has shown itself completely unable to deal with it.

The Horror & The Stupidity

Hey, conservatives:

Just because they didn't use a rope, that doesn't mean it wasn't a lynching.

I can't believe we have to explain this to you people.

Hands Off My Cultural Icons

Hey, Tea Baggers: No, you cannot call your gathering of angry nutballs a "conservative Woodstock.” You have no clue what Woodstock was about (just as you have no clue what the Boston Tea Party was about.) And while we're on the topic, free market advocate Bruce Bartlett, an advisor to both Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, says you folks don’t know anything about taxes, too.

You are not now and never will be counter-culture hippies. Here’s a hint: if you are showing up to protests with signs that read “We Came Unarmed--THIS TIME" then you are not a hippie. THIS is not a hippie:


Cripes, how many times do I have to tell you people this? Get your own damn cultural icons. The fact that you have to keep stealing ours is very telling.

(Bonus round: Mayor Bloomberg, while not a Tea Bagger, is also not a hippie.)

Chumps

[UPDATE]: Ralph Reed jumps on board the gravy train. Of course he does.

----------------------------

Don’t know how I started getting these “Conservative Action Alerts” from AmeriPac AmeriPAC: American Political Action Committee (not to be confused with AmeriPAC: The Fund For A Greater America, which supports Democratic candidates) on the e-mail, but today’s has the subject line

ObamaCare Imposes $2.5 Trillion In New Taxes

Yikes!

The e-mail quotes an analysis by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, John McCain’s economics advisor. He is also president of the American Action Forum, a “think tank” set up by Republicans to counter the left-leaning Center For American Progress. So excuse me if I don’t take his word for it.

Anyway, the thing is filled with lots of EXCLAMATION POINTS! and SHOUTY ALL CAPS and UNDERLINING like those Publisher’s Clearinghouse solicitations I get. It felt “scammy” so I clicked through the “Select Here SEND YOUR FAXES NOW! ” link and saw this:

For less than what it would cost you in time and telephone charges, you can send Blast Faxes to:

ALL 59 Democrat/Independent Senators AND President Obama for just $19
ALL 41 GOP Senators AND President Obama for just $19
ALL 100 Senators AND President Obama for just $29
ALL 261 Democrat/Independent Representatives AND President Obama for just $59
ALL 174 GOP Representatives AND President Obama for just $55
ALL 435 Representatives AND President Obama for just $99
ALL 535 Senators & Representatives AND President Obama for just $119

Really, AmeriPac? $119? Talk about a scam.

I dimly remember receiving one of these things last year, in fact I may even have thrown up a blog post about it (can't find it now). I just wonder how many people receiving this blast e-mail will shell out big bucks for something that actually costs just pennies. And they accuse us of lies and misrepresentation? Oh, the irony!

The fax itself is full of lies about government rationing and other nonsense. The funniest part? This:

When All Else Fails Lie, Cheat & Deal

Uh, yeah. Well, y'all would know.

What Do Conservatives Want?

This has been making the rounds of blogs:

This chart comes from John Sides, who gathered information from the 2008 American National Election Study about spending priorites. Self identified conservatives, it turns out, aren't actually in favor of cutting spending on much of anything. Child care scored the worst for some reason, getting more hostility than even perennial bogeymen like foreign aid and welfare. Still, even at that, only 20% of conservatives wanted to cut child care spending, and scores dropped precipitously from there.

Drum goes on to say that the 12 programs listed account for about 95% of the federal budget. He concludes that conservative politicians are actually representing their base rather well:

They like to yammer endlessly about cutting spending, but when push comes to shove, there's not much they really think we're spending too much on. It's all just venting.

I touched on this yesterday when I questioned why Republicans keep yammering for tax cuts, then threaten to filibuster a bill that is nothing but tax cuts, then vote for the bill anyway when the filibuster fails.

It is indeed all just venting.

So, you folks are pissed off, we get that. Join the club. But until you can figure out what exactly it is that you want, please take some happy pills.

This chart has prompted much head-scratching among liberals as we try to figure out what the hell is going on in the conservative brain. Digby has an idea:

Maybe we could be a bit more polite and just call them "magical thinking" conservatives, but "conflicted" would imply that they feel some sort of dissonance, and it's quite clear that they do not. They truly believe that government should provide all the services they use but that nobody should have to pay any taxes to support it.

I believe it's the central economic difference between liberals and conservatives. We all like the welfare state and want more of it. They just think it should be paid for with fairy dust and we think progressive taxation is the more logical choice. Sadly, the political system has chosen to go with fairy dust. It's more marketable.

I’m going to offer a different interpretation. I don’t think they believe no one should have to pay for the services everyone says they want. They just think someone else should pay for it. They think they personally are taxed enough as it is (Lord knows we hear that often enough from conservatives, right?). They happen to think they’ve already paid their fair share.

And if that’s the case, then I don’t understand why they don’t think the wealthy shouldn’t pony up and pay more. Maybe it’s a mistrust of the system (“First they came for Paris Hilton, but I wasn’t Paris Hilton so I said nothing ...”). Maybe they aspire to be Paris Hilton someday. I dunno.

Often enough I’ve heard right here on my own blog that conservatives want “charity” to pay for things like healthcare or welfare programs. Well that’s great but who is going to pay the charity? Where are they going to get their money from? Everyone thinks they pay enough taxes and I guarantee you everyone thinks the $100 or $500 donation they made to charity is enough, as well.

It’s the unique conundrum of living in the wealthiest, most privileged country in the world. Wealth inevitably breeds fear; it’s a universal law, a flaw of human nature. Those who have much have a tendency to be closed, to want to hold on to what they’ve got, to hoard. That’s why the Bible is full of verses about giving your wealth away; even the ancients understood human nature and our tendency to think we've given enough. It's why the Old Testament is full of ideas like debt forgiveness every seven years, a 20% production tax during times of plenty to prepare for times of shortage, leaving a portion of your harvest aside for the poor, etc.

So, nothing has changed. People want services but they want someone else to pay for them. Yawn.

Anyway, the good news is that apparently most of us all agree that programs like bridges and highways, aid to the poor, Social Security, and environmental protection are worthwhile programs. That’s a starting place.

It’s Not All About You Though, Is It?

Atrios has suggested that a lot of the right-wing global warming stupidity which surfaces every time it snows--gasp! In WINTER!--is really just about pissing off liberals; they know better, Atrios claims, they just want to poke a stick at the icky DFH.

I dunno. I do think that’s where a lot of Sarah Palin’s “how’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya” rhetoric comes from. It’s not about making a point or being a leader or having ideas, it’s about directing anger at a politically expedient target. People are besieged on a variety of economic fronts, their kids are having to deal with crap they never had to worry about at that age, our major systems and institutions have all failed, yada yada. Easy to point at the DFH and say it’s all their fault.

But on the climate change thing, I really think ends up being about narcissism. Hey, says Sean Hannity, it’s cold in MY yard so therefore it must mean Al Gore is FAT! Ha ha! Seriously, these folks have such tunnel vision, they can't think beyond their little circle of sycophants, let alone stop to consider why it's called global climate change.

You know, never mind that Vancouver is experiencing record warm temperatures and lack of snow, just in time for the Olympic Winter Games.

Or that record heat and drought in Australia is causing massive crop loss--this after last January’s heat wave which claimed 37 lives. Meanwhile, a heatwave in Brazil has killed 32 people, and over in South Africa, folks are also suffering under oppressive, record heat.

Of course, it’s summer in most of those places (well, not Vancouver ...) which is why we DFH’s always say: there’s a difference between weather and climate. And all of these bizarre weather patterns, from wild and wooly winter in Washington, D.C., to searing drought in the Southern Hemisphere, confirm that things are changing.

The World Meteorological Organization reported at the end of 2009:

This year above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents. Only North America (United States and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average. Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have the warmest year on record.

But to Hannity, Inhofe, Beck and the rest, only what happens in North America matters.

That's just so typical of conservatives, isn't it? Conservative ideology is all about IGMY-ism (I Got Mine, Y’all) -- it denies everyone else a shot at healthcare, jobs, clean air, clean water, a decent education for their kids. It's a drawbridge mentality: as long as they and theirs are OK, forget about letting anyone else into the party.

So I think Atrios is being too generous in regard to conservatives like Hannity and Limbaugh. It's not about pissing off liberals, it's about a "world" view that can't see past its own nose.

[UPDATE]:

As usual, I write something, schedule it to post the next morning, shut down the computer, then watch The Daily Show say what I was thinking a thousand times better than I ever could. For your viewing pleasure:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Unusually Large Snowstorm
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Let’s Talk About ACORN Some More

Please, let’s:

The FBI, alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in downtown New Orleans, arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

FBI Special Agent Steven Rayes alleges that O’Keefe aided and abetted two others, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who dressed up as employees of a telephone company and attempted to interfere with the office’s telephone system.

A fourth person, Stan Dai, was accused of aiding and abetting Basel and Flanagan. All four were charged with entering fedral property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.

Absofucking hilarious. Did these conservaclowns actually think they could wiretap a Senator’s office and not get busted?

Can’t wait to hear more.

[UPDATE]: There’s more! Already! Just read at MSNBC that Robert Flanagan is the son of William J. Flanagan, the acting U.S. attorney for western Louisiana.

[UPDATE 2]: Memory Hole: 31 House Republicans Supported resolution honoring alleged felon James O'Keefe...

[UPDATE 3]: Some folks are smelling a ratfucker...

(Via Wonkette.)

Hate-y

So, let’s say your neighbor, the most impoverished person in the neighborhood, suffers a disaster. Let’s say their house catches on fire and burns to the ground. Is the first thing you do:

A) Help your neighbor in whatever way you can;

B) Tell the world that any financial assistance sent to your neighbor will just get stolen, and conclude your neighbor "needs discipline”;

C) Assert that the mayor of your town will just use the disaster to pander to certain voters;

D) Claim your neighbor is paying for a pact they made with the Devil years ago to oust their French landlord. "True story!"

If you are an American conservative with your own TV or radio show, guess which of these scenarios you did yesterday?

International aid organizations and religious organizations have offices in Haiti and staff on the ground coordinating relief efforts. For a more productive response, check out this list of legitimate groups responding to the Haiti disaster. They will not steal your money.

Your Modern Conservative Inferiority Complex

Quite possibly the best thing I’ve read on politics in a long, long time. It’s old and I don’t know how I missed it. But go read it. Now. I’ll wait.

{waiting ... waiting ... waiting ....}

Okay, I think there’s a lot of truth to what Sanchez says. And conservatives are not gonna like it. But too bad. There is so much incoherence running through the conservative base right now that when trying to make sense of what those folks are complaining about, all we can conclude is that the problem is not political but psychological.

A big chunk of you folks live in an alternate universe. We’ve got Tea Party ralliers saying they want to “take their country back” (From what? And from whom?). They want to “stop government control of (fill in the blank),” when they had one branch or another of the government for over 15 years. They want to stop “socialized Obamacare” when the proposed healthcare bill is so far removed from anything resembling government-controlled healthcare that those of us who pay attention to the facts not the spin are just going, “huh?”

There’s been talk of death panels and FEMA re-education camps and all sorts of wacko stuff that’s way off the radar (the latest is Obama--aided by ACORN--intentionally ruining the economy. No one seems to remember that the economy tanked while Bush was still in office.) You’ve got folks like Michelle Bachmann wishing you a Merry Christmas as “a federal official”, as if there’s something subversive in that (and the Tea Party Nation, on cue, cheers.) You’ve got Carrie Prejean acting like some persecuted Joan of Arc because people happened to notice she made a sex tape and posed topless and campaigned for a political group, all in violation of her pageant contract. But Larry King asks why she dropped her libel lawsuit and he’s being “inappropriate.” Sarah Palin, well, just about everything she says is beamed in from some alternate reality.

Here in Nashville we’re gearing for an onslaught of wackadoodle when the Tea Party folks hold their convention in early February. And let me just say right now: it’s like you guys are speaking some kind of secret language of disaffection and alienation that the rest of the country (including a lot of Republicans) just don’t get. You folks need to broaden your messaging beyond the bumper sticker bromides and develop some coherent, substantive, arguments so we can all figure out what you folks are so mad about. Because right now it looks like you're just pissed off about being pissed off. I'm trying to understand you, really I am, but I can't get past the placards that use words like "socialism," "communism" and "fascism" as if they were interchangeable.

There’s been this sense of persecution from the right going back even into the Bush years and it’s truly puzzling to those of us in the reality-based community because we don’t understand what folks who have been in control of everything since forever are complaining about.

So I think Sanchez has hit the nail on the head when he writes:

What we saw in ‘04 was fury at the realization that ascendancy to political power had not (post-9/11 Lee Greenwood renaissance notwithstanding) brought parallel cultural power.  The secret shame of the conservative base is that they’ve internalized the enemy’s secular cosmopolitan value set and status hierarchy—hence this obsession with the idea that somewhere, someone who went to Harvard might be snickering at them.

Harsh, yes, but I also think there’s truth to that.

We saw it in the right-wing attack on the Dixie Chicks and we see it in the right-wing hissy fit over the film “Avatar.” As Salon.com’s Andrew Leonard noted, the free hand of the market has spoken and it’s got right-wing knickers in quite a twist:

Simplistic left-wing environmentalist propaganda, as realized by Cameron, turns out to be spectacularly popular! Ouch! That's gotta hurt. For right-wingers convinced that a cap-and-trade mechanism to restrict greenhouse gases is an affront to American values, it must be extraordinarily galling to see  the explicit environmental message of "Avatar" embraced so heartily.

Nothing says "fail" louder than a conservative "backlash" against a film that's already grossed over $1 billion worldwide. The problem for conservatives, says Sanchez, is a psychological one, not a political one. This means there is no cure for what ails them in mainstream Republican circles. Because what you are looking for is a cultural impact, and that’s not happening, no matter how many branches of government your fingers are on.

We saw this national inferiority complex manifest last year when the National Review released its Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs list and "Best Conservative Movies of the last 25 Years" list. At the time I wrote:

The poor dears. For years the conservative movement has tried desperately to prove their ideology has some kind of cultural relevance beyond the tiny clique of like-minded souls sequestered away in their alternate universe so aptly named "The Corner." Meanwhile, the rest of us just scratch our heads in puzzlement.


So now they've got a "movement" which David Broder compares to the hippies of the '60s and the feminists of the '70s. Can the movement be sustained? Even Broder doesn't know for certain because, as I said at the beginning of this piece, anger for anger's sake is not a movement that will be sustained.

Sanchez calls the Tea Partiers a "doomed project":

Even if conservatives retook power, they wouldn’t be able to provide a political solution to a psychological problem, assuming they’re not willing to go the Pol Pot route. At the same time, it signals a resignation to impotence on the cultural front where the real conflict lies.  It effectively says: We cede to the bogeyman cultural elites the power of stereotypical definition, so becoming the stereotype more fully and grotesquely is our only means of empowerment.

And no, I don't think remaking "Red Dawn" is going to satisfy you. Because your modern conservative base suffers from a vast inferiority complex. You don't want political power -- you had it for years! For nearly an entire decade. What you want is cultural power. And unless you dial back the crazy, I don't see that happening.

It’s Not About You

How desperate do you need to be for a victory that you celebrate Chicago’s failure to get the 2016 Olympic Games?

Truly, what I find most striking about the fist-pumping and high-fives and general elation from conservatives over Chicago’s ouster in the first round of voting is that it’s happening at all.

“Enjoy this -- savor this moment,” said Glenn Beck on his radio show.

Gloated Rush Limbaugh, “For those of you on the other side of the aisle listening in who are upset that I sound gleeful -- I am. I don't deny it. I'm happy.”

The news was met with cheers at The Weekly Standard newsroom.

So apparently after an entire summer of astroturfed Town Hollers and a march on Washington D.C. that drew a quadruple gazillion trillion protesters (or thereabouts), conservatives' best political victory is Chicago not getting the Olympics.

This just speaks volumes about the irrelevance of American conservatives. Think about it: after the millions of dollars spent to derail the economic stimulus, healthcare reform and cap-and-trade; after all of the bandwidth devoted to spreading crackpot “birther” theories, FEMA detention camp scams, and fearmongering about socialist indoctrination; after the stacks of Tea Party signs warning of Socialism and Fascism and "Oligarhy”; after literally months of this bullshit, their big victory is something they had absolutely nothing to do with.

What does that tell you?

Let me give my conservative friends a little reality check: American politics does not, in fact, occupy the rest of the world’s attention 24/7. Our Democrat v. Republican hissy fits do not, in fact, drive decisions made by international bodies like the IOC. Not every decision has to do with America, and not every decision that affects America has a poltical component. In short, it's not always about us, and it's not always about you.

Try as you might to make the decision a statement about the world rejecting Obama, that makes about as much sense as saying it’s the world rejecting AT&T, Bank of America, Archer Daniels Midland, Kraft Foods, Boeing, or any of the dozens of other U.S. corporations which donated megabucks to the Chicago 2016 effort. Not everything is political and not everything is partisan.

The fact that you’ve failed to grasp that is truly pathetic.

They Just Can’t Help Themselves

Conservative political/media strategist/Red State co-founder Joshua Trevino, on Twitter just now:

Oh, that’s just lovely. Which makes this ringing endorsement at the Trevino Strategies’ website so much more ironic:

“Josh Trevino is one of the most important members of a rising generation of thoughtful conservatives. Josh's analysis is consistently clear headed and refreshingly objective. It is never tendentious but always effective in making the point. In reading Josh you always feel as if the last words that need to be said on any particular have been said. ...”

Indeed.

Your Modern GOP

[UPDATE]: From commenter Pat Naughtin I learn that Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington actively promoted the use of decimal numbers for both currency and measurements.

-------------------------------

John Feehery, a former staffer for Dennis Hastert and conservative lobbyist, warns in this CNN commentary that the Democrats will use their new filibuster-proof majority to foist silly French ideas like the metric system on Americans.

Yes, fearmongering about the metric system is about what the GOP has been reduced to these days. Even then, he can't get his facts right. He writes:

In 1975, the newly dominant Democratic Congress sent President Gerald Ford a bill that declared that America was going to be metric, which he signed. When Jimmy Carter became president two years later, he signed a law that told Americans that they couldn't drive faster than 55 mph.

These measures made perfect sense to the liberal sensibilities of the time. But they didn't make sense to the American people, and are symbols of a philosophy that was out of touch with the people in the 1970s and is still out of touch with the lives of most Americans today.

Most Americans still don't use the metric system, and most certainly don't stick to the 55 mile an hour speed limit on the highways of America. And while they may still like Barack Obama and still laugh at jokes written by Al Franken, they will eventually grow weary of the newly dominant liberals who now run Washington.

Ha. What a maroon. First of all, there has been a metrication movement in the U.S. since the 19th century. The very first metrication bill was signed into law in 1866 by President Andrew Johnson.

The 1975 bill which Feehery blames on a Democratic congress was amended by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (would someone remind me who was president in 1988? I seem to have forgotten ...). This actually established a United States Metric Board (cue scary big-government music) to implement the conversion. Then in 1991 President George H.W. Bush signed yet another metric conversion act into law.

Hmmm. The metric system! It’s not just for Democrats anymore. Never has been.

While the average American may not use metric units, it is certainly widely used in certain industries--science, for example--as well as the U.S. military. In fact, the failure to use one consistent unit of measurement is what caused NASA to lose a $125 million Mars orbiter in 1999.

As for the National Maximum Speed Law, it was signed into law in 1974 by Richard Nixon (someone remind me what political party he belonged to? I forget ...). It was an emergency energy saving measure enacted in response to the 1973 oil crisis.

The reason most Americans “certainly” don’t stick to the 55 mph speed limit is that the law was repealed in 1995 (would someone remind me who was president in 1995? I forget...).

Used to be, you could count on the Republicans for some solid fearmongering. Sadly, even that trick seems to have failed them.