DougJ - January 28, 2010 | 10:35 pm · Link

It’s exactly the consumption of a lot of box wine that causes such garbage to spew out of your mouth.

That’s what I was trying to say.

soonergrunt - January 28, 2010 | 10:37 pm · Link

I couldn’t drink enough box wine to make Alchouse coherent.
If there’s enough box wine in the world (which is doubtful) it take all of it, and I would die of alcohol poisoning before I could drink enough for it to make sense.
The commenters over there are their own special brand of crazy. Maybe that’s where all the bad wine went.

General Winfield Stuck - January 28, 2010 | 10:37 pm · Link

Isn’t it fascinating that the lengthy, amplified, magnified speech of the most powerful man in the world with his big captive audience — in the magnificent room and in smaller rooms all over the country — are outweighed by one man’s headshake and silent mouthing of 2 or 3 words?

Still not good as Death Panels for Health Care debate.

Sanka - January 28, 2010 | 10:39 pm · Link

You Lie, Mr. President.

You Lie.

handy - January 28, 2010 | 10:41 pm · Link

@Sanka:

St. Jane is really working that spot as the fifth face on Mt. Rushmore, isn’t she.

CalD - January 28, 2010 | 10:46 pm · Link

Evil.

Cat Lady - January 28, 2010 | 10:46 pm · Link

Calling out SCOTUS seems to have created some unhinging. She’s lost her shit.

Violet - January 28, 2010 | 10:49 pm · Link

Isn’t it fascinating ridiculous that after the State of the Union address, the media only wants to focus on the lengthy, amplified, magnified speech of the most powerful man in the world with his big captive audience — in the magnificent room and in smaller rooms all over the country — are outweighed by one man’s a Supreme Court Justice’s headshake and silent mouthing of 2 or 3 words?

Fixt.

Bruce (formerly Steve S.) - January 28, 2010 | 10:55 pm · Link

Isn’t it fascinating that the lengthy, amplified, magnified speech of the most powerful man in the world with his big captive audience — in the magnificent room and in smaller rooms all over the country — are outweighed by one man’s headshake and silent mouthing of 2 or 3 words?

If by “fascinating” he means a banal observation about the vacuousness of American political discourse, correct.

General Winfield Stuck - January 28, 2010 | 10:55 pm · Link

Ann writes purdy, but usually only finishes half her thought, as it were.

Wilson Heath - January 28, 2010 | 10:57 pm · Link

What the hell is wrong with her? Besides everything? Is it just the years of wine-box damage to the brain?

General Winfield Stuck - January 28, 2010 | 10:59 pm · Link

... lengthy, amplified, magnified speech … his big captive audience … the President’s torrent of words …

Who wants whatever Ann is having?

Notorious P.A.T. - January 28, 2010 | 11:02 pm · Link

Ann Althouse. Idiot.

handy - January 28, 2010 | 11:04 pm · Link

@General Winfield Stuck:

Sorry, I don’t dig on shrill.

drew42 - January 28, 2010 | 11:05 pm · Link

I love how Ann can never tell the difference between a genuinely insightful thought, and the regurgitation of a media narrative that’s been driven into her skull over the past 24 hours. It’s adorable.

beltane - January 28, 2010 | 11:06 pm · Link

@Martin: Jane Hamsher and Orly Taitz do bear a striking resemblance to one another.

matt - January 28, 2010 | 11:09 pm · Link

Please, someone who is good at it (and can be bothered to register), place some snark here. Laziest reporting ever:

Justices are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

General Winfield Stuck - January 28, 2010 | 11:11 pm · Link

@beltane: I used to watch her webcasts for kicks. And laughs.

Yutsano - January 28, 2010 | 11:16 pm · Link

@Violet: Worst part? I could see her suing DougJ just for lifting her refuse quotation out then using it in a WaPo chat.

General Winfield Stuck - January 28, 2010 | 11:20 pm · Link

@Yutsano:

I could see her suing DougJ just for lifting her refuse quotation out then using it in a WaPo chat.

Man, that would be so cool. We could start a Dougj defense fund and have some our legal eagles defend Dougj and have a non stop proxy blog war with the cretins that comment on her blog.

freelancer (itouch) - January 28, 2010 | 11:24 pm · Link

@Yutsano:

That would actually be the most awesome and funny thing ever! LGM would probably fly one of themselves in to help DougJ pro bono. And the blogosphere reacts would be priceless. Sue! Althouse! Sue!

Robertdsc-iphone - January 28, 2010 | 11:25 pm · Link

I think someone would gave to mainline a 55-gallon drum of wine to write like that. But that’s all she & her ilk can come up with after the beating the GOP took last night. Own your bankrupt policies, bitches!

cleek - January 28, 2010 | 11:27 pm · Link

don’t give althouse the attention.

negative attention is still attention.

Notorious P.A.T. - January 28, 2010 | 11:31 pm · Link

They might decide to make you the newest editorial-page rising star on the spot when they read it.

Or CNN might pick you to join the World’s Best News Team or whatever. Say hi to Erik Erikson and don’t forget us when you hit the big time.

The Republic of Stupidity - January 28, 2010 | 11:34 pm · Link

@cleek:

negative attention is still attention.

Indeed… that’s also the problem w/ Fox. Fox’s core audience really isn’t THAT big, in spite of what some folk like to claim. Beck draws what, a little over 4MM on a good night? That’s just a little over 1% of the population.

What really makes Fox seem like it’s everywhere is the secondary chatter… the endless parsing and repeating, no matter how derogatory. The so-called MSM does more to spread Fox’s message than Fox could ever do.

frigg - January 28, 2010 | 11:36 pm · Link

Jeez…is “irony” too hard a notion to understand?

Again with the “irony,” ... frosh railing against “irony,” never actually getting what irony is.

Check a style manual … then a dictionary. Idiot.

They just award degrees to anyone, don’t they.

Learn your language.

Ronald Wilson Reagan - January 28, 2010 | 11:39 pm · Link

@Sanka:

What is it about today’s conservatives that causes them to post links to back up whatever infantile point they’re trying to make without actually reading the article they linked to. From the fine article.

UPDATE: Dave Johnson from Seeing the Forest emails that the Hill article is a mischaracterization of the call:

I joined two of these calls. The invite came to me through a progressive organization. They were not secret. They were not organized by the Treasury Dept. There were no “lobbyists” asking questions on the calls unless you consider progressive organizations that are C4s to be “lobbyists”.

The calls were following up with details on specific issue areas from last night’s speech. Nothing more.

I have been very critical of Obama in the past and continue to believe that having Geithner in the Cabinet undermines his Presidency and progressives. But this story is completely false and is clearly intended to undermine the Obama Administration’s credibility with progressives.

In retrospect my eleventh commandment, which I, as you kids say today, threw under the bus in my 1976 campaign (and which wasn’t mine to begin with) should have been “We need dumbasses to vote for us, but that doesn’t mean that we should let them run the party.” instead of “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”.

Ash Can - January 28, 2010 | 11:44 pm · Link

@frigg: Izzat you, Ann? Have yourself a nice pot of strong, black coffee and get back to us. kthxbi.

darryl - January 28, 2010 | 11:47 pm · Link

The commenters over there are their own special brand of crazy. Maybe that’s where all the bad wine went.

I actually can’t even read the comments on mainstream sites like NYT blogs, anymore, because the right-wingers are so tarded. Thanks to the rise of the internet, and the Southern Strategy, a large percentage of online commentary comes from people I wouldn’t hire to drive a paper route.

Center-left blogs, like Balloon Juice, Washington Monthly, Yglesias, etc, are now about the only places I can tolerate. Witness the recent Evan Bayh quote that Obama is practical and reasonable, which makes him too left-wing for America.

Evolution: untrue!
Global Warming: worldwide conspiracy among thousands of scientists.
Deep recession: we need an immediate spending freeze!
Teen Pregnancy? Let’s not tell them about condoms and birth control!

If I want to know the right-wing opinion about a subject, I just think of the stupidest possible opinion, and 80% of the time, that’s it.

Ailuridae - January 28, 2010 | 11:50 pm · Link

@drew42:

Yes, Ann. It’s called the State of the Union address. We have one every year—just like Black Wednesday!

FYP. Focus on things Ann understands.

The Republic of Stupidity - January 28, 2010 | 11:51 pm · Link

@danimal:

OMG, it’s been a while since I visited the toxic sewer sludge also known as Ann’s comment section. These folks are delusional. Wow.

And pleased w/ themselves, to boot…

Says The Dust Bunny Queen…

What the Court did was to give BACK free speech to everyone, including corporations.

Really, Queenie? INCLUDING corporations?

Including foreign govts & multinationals?

One dollar, one vote?

Soooooooooo… a Middle Eastern oil company now has equal free speech rights to me?

darryl - January 28, 2010 | 11:56 pm · Link

negative attention is still attention.

I teach at a middle-school/high school, and you wouldn’t believe how true that is. Half my day is trying to figure out constructive ways with this particular asshole kid who is only an asshole because he has deeply absorbed this lesson.

I sympathize with the liberal movement thinking that different teaching methods and constructs can fix things, but at the same time, I’m deeply aware that a lot of really destructive behavior comes from the abuse and neglect at home, which produces behaviors that my few hours with them can’t overcome. By the time kids get to me, when they’re 14, I’m not an engineer who can reconstruct a good life for them. At best, I’m an educational EMT who can stop the arterial bleeding and get them to occasionally sit still enough to graduate.

Worst of all, I have to practice triage. When I have a classroom of 30 kids, who have to take the statewide test in 2 months to graduate, and I’ve got for instance a kid sitting in the back row who’s been beaten so many times by his momma’s boyfriend that he can’t even respond to an older male talking to him, WTF am I supposed to do?

It’s a huge mess.

28 Percent - January 28, 2010 | 11:57 pm · Link

DougJ if that is your real name it is just like you ELITES with your books and degrees and youre fancy traveling to make fun of a DOWN TO EARTH person like Ms. Althouse. You should get out of the UNIVERSITYS and experience the REAL WORLD and then maybe you would understand how it feels. Ms. Althouse and other REAL AMERICANS all know that it is a great thing when a great man like Justice Joe Alito speaks TRUTH TO POWER that used to be what you LIEBERALS claimed to stand for but now you do not even pretend. You and your “Messiah” should stop being so arrogant and try to be humble and respect what Joe the Justice and Ms. Althouse have to say they have studied and are scholars and know what they are talking about which is COMMON SENSE and FREEDOM. If you would shut up and know you’re place maybe you would learn something about it but I do nothink you will.

Comrade Kevin - January 29, 2010 | 12:00 am · Link

@Yutsano: spoof. “DougJ if that is your real name” is a dead giveaway.

demo woman - January 29, 2010 | 12:02 am · Link

@Yutsano: spoof.. Ann is a law professor and I think that the intent of the rant actually has more to do with Ann hiding under her desk with her wine box than anything else.

Ailuridae - January 29, 2010 | 12:04 am · Link

@darryl:

Balloon-juice is only a “center-left” blog in a universe in which being a progressive blog means rejecting incremental progress because it doesn’t exactly align with your progressive ideals. This, here, is a progressive blog.

Ailuridae +2

Mark S. - January 29, 2010 | 12:06 am · Link

@28 Percent:

Gotta be a spoof. If not, 28%, you do know what Althouse does for a living, don’t you? She works at one of those UNIVERSITYS.

DougJ - January 29, 2010 | 12:08 am · Link

I’m not 28%. I gave up my alternative identities when I became a poster.

Ailuridae - January 29, 2010 | 12:11 am · Link

@darryl:

Agreed but the system in a lot of other Western nations is more vicious than that, I think. In a lot of nations outside of the US the decision to allow a student to pursue a profession or even a non-trade college degree seems to be made in the early teens.

I had a lot of friends who basically got their shit together academically as juniors, had three semesters of solid school work and good scores and went on to good but not great schools back in NY. At 15 or 16 elsewhere after spending the equivalent of junior high getting stoned and skipping class those kids are straight up fucked.

donr - January 29, 2010 | 12:18 am · Link

To my great amusement, Eugene Volokh thought that Althouse was spewing forth great wisdom here. I know that Althouse usually writes nonsense – but from now on my rule of thumb is that when Volokh links to her, she must be writing more nonsensically than usual.

danimal - January 29, 2010 | 12:31 am · Link

@DougJ:

I’m not 28%. I gave up my alternative identities when I became a poster.

Except an occasional BoB comment, right DougJ?

sab - January 29, 2010 | 1:06 am · Link

I’m a mid-western accountant who leans progressive (although accountants are all supposed to be Republican tea-partiers.) The ten-key calculator hasn’t fried my brain completely yet, because I still remember by college econ courses where Keynes not Friedman was the heavyweight.

I was pretty wowed by Obama’s SOTU address, although I’m an Obama supporter so I’d pretty much heard most of this before and wasn’t surprised by anything, because the guy is nothing if not consistent. He pretty much laid out his general program that he has been supporting forever.

I was really excited at work because my Independent/Republican teaparty boss was really impressed with the speech. He didn’t vote for Obama, but he felt that the President addressed a lot of his concerns, which is unusual in his experience.

He listened to it in the office and went home late because he didn’t want to miss any of the speech.

I tried to listen to the speech on the internet and had to switch to my bedroom radio because of the heavy traffic.

People are listening to this president. Maybe we should get his back for a while and support him, instead of sniping in the background.

Anne Laurie - January 29, 2010 | 2:33 am · Link

@Wilson Heath:

What the hell is wrong with her? Besides everything?

She’s a lawyer who gets paid to teach Constitutional law to would-be lawyers. When the President smacks around The Most Important Serious Lawyers in the Whole Country, he’s making Ann’s role models look like the bought-and-sold insects they are, which materially interferes with Ann’s commercial goals.

Of course, she also has a blog where she posts semi-coherent rants & videos of herself getting drunk for the enjoyment of as big a bunch of right-wing fringe psychotics as you’ll find this side of the Freepers. But when Ann heckles President Obama for speaking unkindly to ‘The Nine’, just picture Obama recycling the classic vaudeville rebuttal: “Hey, lady, do I come down to the truck stop and criticize YOUR work?”

Wile E. Quixote - January 29, 2010 | 2:47 am · Link

@Anne Laurie:

But when Ann heckles President Obama for speaking unkindly to ‘The Nine’, just picture Obama recycling the classic vaudeville rebuttal: “Hey, lady, do I come down to the truck stop and criticize YOUR work?”

Oh my God, so many people I’d love to hear him say that to. Sally Quinn, Peggy Noonan, Maureen Dowd, Ross Douthat, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman. The list goes on.

Batocchio - January 29, 2010 | 3:44 am · Link

So is Ann still pretending not to be a conservative these days?

kay - January 29, 2010 | 5:27 am · Link

“He was a notable no-show when President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden accepted Chief Justice John G. Roberts’s invitation to pay a courtesy call on the court. Alito was the only member of the court not to attend the afternoon event, even though he had been at the court in the morning. He has not explained why he was absent.”

She’s always wrong. Justices don’t have to attend SOTU addresses either, and often don’t.
If Alito was a “captive”, he turned himself in.

Remember November - January 29, 2010 | 8:47 am · Link

@The Republic of Stupidity:

Not the foreign companies, per se- but a US company with foreign subsidiaries- that’s where it gets sticky. Real sticky like an airport bathroom wide-stance stall.

Alan - January 29, 2010 | 9:50 am · Link

@Paul:

As usual, I can’t figure out what her fucking point is.

As she typically does, she’s applauding the Right for being correct about, well, everything. And coming from her—a liberal—that means a lot (to her). Her point is she’s brilliant. And if you don’t see that you must be an idiot.

She’s the Ellsworth Toohey of the Right. She never actually makes a point. And the Right loves her for it.

ThatLeftTurnInABQ - January 29, 2010 | 11:11 am · Link

@sab:

I was really excited at work because my Independent/Republican teaparty boss was really impressed with the speech. He didn’t vote for Obama, but he felt that the President addressed a lot of his concerns, which is unusual in his experience.

What a lot of people miss is that while Obama has progressive elements to his outlook and program, in a lot of other ways both public and private he is actually a classic midwestern small-c conservative. There isn’t much room left in the GOP for those folks, with their emphasis on modesty, prudence and thrift. If you are an Eisenhower conservative, these days you have to be a Democrat. It is no accident that of the two national party nominating conventions back in 2008, the one which had an Eisenhower grandchild give an speech was the Dem convention in Denver, not the GOP convention in MN.

Obama comes across like more of a liberal than perhaps he would be otherwise, because a Keynesian stimulus policy is what these times demand. But it is obvious which party has the real fiscal conservatives in it, and it ain’t the GOP.

maya - January 29, 2010 | 11:58 am · Link

To really appreciate Ann’s total fachisnation with judge Alito you need to go back to this post from 2005 about what alito means in Italian.

So there you have it—in case you want to use imagery in discussing Samuel Alito. A breath of fresh air? Bad breath? It’s your metaphor!

So there we have it: she was either complimenting Alito for silently bringing a breath of fresh air into the stagnant American political scene, or, she was noting the profound effect bad breath can have in a closed room. It’s our metaphor!

Pure genius.