Welcome to Washington
Steve Benen flags what he calls a “a surprisingly long chat about Desiree Rogers” on whatever Stuffy’s old Sunday morning is called now. Here’s a brief summary (I’m leaving out the parts where Cokie Roberts sounds reasonable because I don’t believe they’re real):
DONALDSON: People who work for the president understand or should understand their place, which is to be spear-carriers. There are two stars in anyone’s White House, the president and the president’s spouse. After that, this passion for anonymity that once was a hallmark of people who worked for a president, has been lost. She wanted to be a star herself…
[....]
KRUGMAN: Can I say that 20 million Americans unemployed, the fact that we’re worrying about the status of the White House social secretary…
VARGAS: It’s our light way to end, Paul.
DONALDSON: Paul, welcome to Washington.
It’s good to see Krugman call them on their bullshit. Along those lines, Michael Scherer deserves credit for this:
But change, as the Obamas have learned, does not become of Washington—whether one is talking about influence brokering or party planning. Rogers had come to make waves, she made waves, and then she got wiped out. If there is any consolation to this whole sorry tale, it is that the crooked viciousness of the social set does not spare anyone. Earlier this week, Sally Quinn lost her column in the Washington Post, after using it to write a particularly petty and catty piece about an internal squabble in her own family regarding wedding dates. The tall poppy tyranny plays no favorites, you see. Our nation’s capital is imbued with the same social silliness as a middle school. You can’t just walk in and sit at any lunch table you choose. If you do, they will find a way to get you.
February 28, 2010 3:42 pm
Posted in: Good News For Conservatives, We Are All Mayans Now
45 Comments
45 Responses
GregB - February 28, 2010 | 3:45 pm · Link
Shorter Donaldson: President Obama is a spear-chucker.
licensed to kill time - February 28, 2010 | 3:46 pm · Link
Can I just say that this bit has some rather unfortunate connotations?
Now I will read the rest of your post…
ETA - of which 3/4 seems to have disappeared?
rikyrah - February 28, 2010 | 3:48 pm · Link
Krugman was on point…and his sentence sums up why the Village is full of idiots.
MikeJ - February 28, 2010 | 3:48 pm · Link
Have none of you ever seen an opera? There’s nothing wrong with “spear carrier”.
AhabTRuler - February 28, 2010 | 3:49 pm · Link
Unintended, no doubt. Say what you will about Sam the Eagle, but I don’t think he meant it that way.
Just Some Fuckhead - February 28, 2010 | 3:50 pm · Link
Besides, everyone knows it’s “spearchuckers”.
mr. whipple - February 28, 2010 | 3:53 pm · Link
Now there’s 20,000,001 unemployed.
DougJ - February 28, 2010 | 3:57 pm · Link
@licensed to kill time:
I screwed up the original cut-and-paste.
mcc - February 28, 2010 | 3:59 pm · Link
I’m just gonna say what I said in Benen’s thread—the really fascinating thing here is the weird distance in how Donaldson phrased it. Nothing I or anyone can do, this is just the way Washington is. Except wait a minute, Donaldson is part of Washington. If Washington is a certain way it’s because Sam Donaldson is a certain way.
There seems to be this ongoing thing where DC people act like they’re powerless over the world they control. Or as in Donaldson’s case, powerless over his own actions. I had to have that conversation about the White House social secretary! Washington made me do it!
licensed to kill time - February 28, 2010 | 4:03 pm · Link
@DougJ: And there I was thinking the brownies had kicked in awful fast ;-)
AhabTRuler - February 28, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
Well, they only ever really talk about things that the people want to know, anyway.
CT Voter - February 28, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
I hope Krugman is a regular on the show.
If he is, I hope he manages to maintain his perspective. Won’t be easy, surrounded by all those pod people.
And I’m disappointed that no one has managed to blame Rahm for this.
Cat Lady - February 28, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
Michael Scherer calling out the Villagers – wasn’t he a McCain fluffer from way back? It must have been McCain not acknowledging him and Carney on the campaign plane that did it. He appears to read his commenters, too. Is our journamalists learning?
Alex S. - February 28, 2010 | 4:05 pm · Link
I’m parallel-reading Frank Rich’s NYT column… those tea party guys have a point.
kay - February 28, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
@Cat Lady:
It reads weirdly personal. I’m not sure it’s about Rogers at all.
Like everything they write, it’s about them.
Ash - February 28, 2010 | 4:13 pm · Link
Seriously though, who the fuck outside of D.C. cares about the social secretary? NO ONE.
eemom - February 28, 2010 | 4:16 pm · Link
we can haz “who the fuck cares” tag, plz? kthxbai
PeakVT - February 28, 2010 | 4:17 pm · Link
Paul, welcome to Washington.
I wish I had a heavy bag, because right now I have the urge to punch something. Hard.
Cat Lady - February 28, 2010 | 4:19 pm · Link
@kay:
I agree – he’s obviously been left off the Heathers’ guest lists. Hell hath no fury like a Villager wannabe scorned.
CT Voter - February 28, 2010 | 4:19 pm · Link
@kay: It sounds as if Michael Sherer really dislikes Sally Quinn:
Incertus (Brian) - February 28, 2010 | 4:20 pm · Link
You know, I didn’t like this kind of high school bullshit (I was in Louisiana—we’re always a little behind the rest of the country) when I was in high school. I didn’t like it when it was reintroduced to me in graduate school—there was a group of fellow nerds who’d decided it was their turn to be the cool kids, believe it or not. So to say I have no patience for it in DC is to be kind. And yet there it is. Most days I wonder how we managed to get our shit together enough to discover fire, much less nuclear energy.
MikeJ - February 28, 2010 | 4:30 pm · Link
Trying to impress chicks.
Church Lady - February 28, 2010 | 4:32 pm · Link
It will never dawn on anyone inside the beltway that those outside the beltway really, really don’t give two shits about their social mores.
bago - February 28, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link
@MikeJ: You have to admit that blowing shit up is its own reward. Impressing chicks is cool as well, but, uhh, FIRE
bago - February 28, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link
@Church Lady: Seriously, DC is a pit of courtiers. I lived there for three months. It is considered rational for Boeing to make a 50k ad buy on the pentagon metro stating “We make good tankers”. That’s more than twelve thousand dollars per word, to influence a defense contract. And it’s worth it. That’s what is scary.
Bob K - February 28, 2010 | 4:51 pm · Link
You know, I’ll bet that the 45,000 people that die every year from not having healthcare will RIP so much better knowing that even though the sheriff is a Ni**er, his people still can’t get too uppity or they’ll get taken down a notch. I really would like to see the return of Madame Guillotine.
Napoleon - February 28, 2010 | 4:53 pm · Link
That quote from Michael Scherer is pretty good.
@mcc:
I saw someone use a phrase that they credited David Sirota (sp?) with the last few days that perfectly summed up that phenomia.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal) - February 28, 2010 | 4:55 pm · Link
@eemom:
How about a “Who gives a flying fuck” tag. Maybe “We create reality so you can live it” ? Or even “Washington D.C. made me do it”. Of course we could go with “Show me on the doll where Washington D.C. touched you” if all else fails.
Napoleon - February 28, 2010 | 4:57 pm · Link
@Napoleon:
Duh I hit post before I proof read or completed my post. I can not think of the phrase. Does anyone know what I am talking about?
Citizen_X - February 28, 2010 | 5:09 pm · Link
If he’s gonna be called K-thug, can he at least start decking some people? ‘Cause motherfuckers deserved it right there. “It’s our light way to end, Paul.” “Oh yeah?” BAM!
(But seriously, he does deserve applause for calling them on the bullshit.)
Bill E Pilgrim - February 28, 2010 | 5:15 pm · Link
I don’t even bother watching online anymore, I just go directly to this now.
The best part this week was when Eric Cantor turned into a lizard.
Bill E Pilgrim - February 28, 2010 | 5:18 pm · Link
@Napoleon: I don’t know but I actually liked “phenomia”.
Like “my phenomenon” in Italian.
Napoleon - February 28, 2010 | 5:22 pm · Link
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I aim to please.
I was going to finish the post then spell check, got distracted, and when I cam back to it just hit submit thinking I was done.
jenniebee - February 28, 2010 | 5:34 pm · Link
Krugman also made some statements that BJ’ers might find unconvincing, or even delusional, about HCR:
KRUGMAN: Catherine Rampell did a very good piece in the Times blogs recently which said that the main obstacle to the people who are uninsured is not that they are choosing not to be insured. It is income…. [Y]oung people who are not buying insurance because they’re not… able to afford it will be brought in through the subsidies. And that will end up being better even for the people who are currently insured.
h/t Delong
Hann1bal - February 28, 2010 | 5:47 pm · Link
I have to admit, I got this from Wait Wait, but why in the nine hells are we not calling the current host of “Good Morning America” Mr. Snuffleupagus?
Bill E Pilgrim - February 28, 2010 | 5:49 pm · Link
@Hann1bal: He’s been called that in the blogo-orb for years.
PaulW - February 28, 2010 | 5:53 pm · Link
These Sunday show talking heads need to be on the unemployment lines for a few months, maybe THEN they’ll understand the priorities (JOBS, JOBS, Health Care and JOBS) in this nation, instead of blathering this gossipy, who-hates-whom, middle-school level bullsh-t.
It p-sses me off to no end that half these guys didn’t even get Journalism degrees and yet they’re treated as journalists.
Nellcote - February 28, 2010 | 5:55 pm · Link
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Bobblespeak needs to hack the chyron during the ‘Sunday in the Village’ shows. It might make them watchable.
MTiffany - February 28, 2010 | 6:00 pm · Link
Yes, middle schoolers with a multi-trillion-dollar credit card and nuclear fucking weapons.
ruemara - February 28, 2010 | 6:16 pm · Link
meh. I’m gonna step on the soap box and speak for all Black Wimmens©.
After a year of utter bullshit, all I’d do is outlast an egregious idiot-Sally “Upper Class Twit” Quinn, and move on to more lucrative opportunities, like the ones I left to help my friends out. IOW, fuck this bunch of losers, later B & M, we’ll always have Chicago, time to quit being hassled by losers. I just ain’t getting run out by these dickheads. Why, because I can’t slap a bitch in jesus’ name, amen.
cleek - February 28, 2010 | 6:21 pm · Link
OT: i LOL’d when i read this headline @ MSNBC:
Up-or-down vote sought on health care
subtitled: “White House tries to get around Republican stalling tactics”
looks like somebody in the Dems messaging machine at her Wheaties this morning! sweet!
Trinity - February 28, 2010 | 7:20 pm · Link
I work in DC.
My god I HATE The Villagers.
/sigh
Hann1bal - February 28, 2010 | 7:38 pm · Link
@Bill E Pilgrim: Hokay, then. I’m not always up on memes. Thanks for the tip.
Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » I know the answer, but… - February 28, 2010 | 8:05 pm · Link
[...] just to be a dick. One would have thought that this might merit a comment somewhere. On ABC there was ample time to discuss the departure of the White House Party Planner, but not the real world impact of obstructionism on [...]
Darkrose - March 1, 2010 | 12:01 am · Link
@ruemara:
Yeah—this.