There is no reason, and the truth is plain to see
Last night, the Tea Party scored two big political victories: one involved a candidate best known for being objectively anti-masturbation, the other, a candidate best known for sending out pornographic emails. Commenter Martin asks “Now, the real question is how to square the Paladino win with the O’Donnell win. More campaign porn, but don’t yank off to it?” My man Tunku writes of teatards “Some want this, some want that, and some want who-knows-what.”
Atrios believes that what ties the room together for conservatives is pissing off liberals. Certainly, one can argue that sending out racist porno emails pisses off liberals and campaigning against masturbation also pisses off liberals, for example.
There’s a Real Murkin angle too, of course: Real Murkins like to send salty emails to each other (at one time, they might have preferred hanging around the old coffee shop swapping salty stories, but that’s probably an elitist activity now). Real Murkin mothers are rightly concerned about the dangers of masturbation. There’s no contradiction there.
Is that all there is to being a teatard candidate? You have to piss liberals off while being a Real Murkin?
They’re over-analyzing, as smart people tend to do.
The only pattern I see is this: These people blamed all of the problems on the Godless liberals and government. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done, as long as they say that getting back to God will cure everything. Just ask Newt.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
i’m sure they both said all the correct teabagger bingo buzzwords: “small government”, “the founders”, “the wrong path”, “soshallism”, “freedom”, etc. in the correct order and made the rabble feel smart and pretty and strong.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Tunku! So glad to see him back quoted here. DougJ, you missed this gem from him:
He’s stomping his foot! What next? Flouncing?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
This has been said before, but…
All fiscal conservatives left the GOP by 2004 because of Medicare Part D, two unfunded wars, and transparently unaffordable tax policies. All the small-government conservatives left the party by then too in the wake of No Child Left Behind, Ashcroft’s anti-federalist War on Porn and on people complying with state laws that he didn’t like, plus the government’s assertion of the power to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial and to wiretap citizens without warrants. All foreign policy conservatives left the GOP by 2006, as it became obvious that we had been misled into an incompetently prosecuted, catastrophic war. (Or at the very, very least that every Republican in Congress would admit that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake).
So who’s left?
There is no policy content to conservatism. It is a tribe, not an ideology.
The only core beliefs of conservatism are “Obama’s a towelhead” and “liberals are fags.”
So yeah. “We’re us, and screw them” is all you need to be a successful GOP candidate. If he ran in a Republican primary, could anyone beat Yosemite Sam?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
You see it on bumper stickers all the time. “Piss of a liberal, buy a gun”, “Piss of a liberal, be prosperous”, etc. It’s like they live to perform for liberals, blissfully unaware that the average liberal couldn’t care less about their guns, or their meat-eating, or their butt plugs.
Maybe if we all clapped for them they’d go away.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
@bozack:
Foghorn Leghorn.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
@beltane:
Fixed.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Certainly, one can argue that sending out racist porno emails pisses off liberals and campaigning against masturbation also pisses off liberals, for example.
You’re delving too deeply. It’s enough for a liberal not to like the candidate, whatever the candidate’s policies. The specifics are irrelevant.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
What ties these candidates together is that if they were to be elected, they would vote as they are told. What real difference would it make having Castle or O’Donnell in office? None. Their voting records would be identical.
The only difference between republicans is what sort of clown show they put on to be elected. Some try to get out the base, some try to pick up indies, but when it comes to policy there’s no difference between any of them.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
To be a good Tea Partier you have to invest in the myth of the 1950s nuclear family ideal. Everything was perfect back then (before people with brown skin and homosexuals invaded), and every day since 1964 has brought us further from the good ol’ days.
In a complete coincidence, this is also what Republicans believe, though Tea Partiers ARE NOT REPUBLICANS.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Cultural identity politics is all that there is to this. As long as you belong to the right tribe (white, preferably rural, conservative Christian), you’re in. As long as you oppose the dilution of this True American purity by ragheads, wetbacks, darkies, fags, god-haters, elitist Jews from Manhattan, etc., you’re in.
Actual questions of policy make not one iota of difference when you’re talking about the paranoid politics of political victimhood.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Is that all there is to being a teatard candidate? You have to piss liberals off while being a Real Murkin?
Yes. Next issue!
September 15th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I don’t know that this pisses liberals off. It’s just a dumbass, irrelevant, and pointless position to take. I mean, the only rational response here is “You’ll stop me from masturbating when you pry my penis from my cold, dead hands.”
But apart from this making O’Donnell look like a total fool, I have no idea what her position is on any substantive issue. And once I get past the mockery (and it’s hard, hard to do so), I have no idea what those who voted for see in her.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
@bozack:
Robert E. Lee? Stonewall Jackson?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Why, yes. Which just goes to show that the teatards are exactly who we thought they were. The GOP, in all its glory.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
In a country with a high school graduation rate of just over 68%, do we need to explain why the bar is set so low? Most T-baggers would trip on driftwood at the beach. They need a role model or two they can identify with. These people missed the short bus and they are just trying to catch up. Or they could be maggots burrowing into our national soul.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
I’m a curious guy, but after two wetsuits and a dildo I think I’m fine not knowing what the “who-knows-what” is among Tea Pub proclivities. To add to Rummy, sometimes it’s good to not know the known unknowns or unknown unknowns.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
@Billy K:
As proven by the large number of Tea Party backed candidates in the Democratic primaries.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
SASTQ
September 15th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
@Tsulagi:
It’s even better if you can unknow the known knowns and know the unknown unknowns….
September 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Somehow, the fact that I can read such vitriol against the 41-Year-Old Virgin here at BJ and then right below it see a campaign ad for her feels me with glee. I hope the crazy twit blows every penny of that $42K that the Repukes have just squandered on her on advertising on left-of-center websites.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
OT, but funny how facing a stretch in prison can focus the mind:
http://miamiherald.typepad.com.....acist.html
September 15th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t think the candidate would agree with this activity.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
You said it, DougJ. If the roles were reversed and Paladino campaigned against sex and masturbation and O’Donnell sent out pornographic emails, he’d be called a fag and she would be a slut. They know their places in the conservative family dynamic—men are manly and politically incorrect, women-folk are concerned mothers begging you to PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
O’Donnell sure has some strange views about, well everything, but sex in particular:
http://www.salon.com/news/poli.....index.html
Clearly, I lived in the wrong dorm at college.
dms
September 15th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
@beltane: I am convinced that the primary motivators on the right are 1. pissing off liberals, 2. faux macho posturing, and 3. a combination of 1 and 2. It explains just about anything they do.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
OT again, but the news is coming hard and fast today. Looks like the Preznit is going to the mat:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....-today.php
September 15th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
@dmsilev: My college had co-ed bathrooms and all I remember is being pissed that the guys were such slobs. It made the prospect of orgy rooms much less appealing.
Where did O’Donnell acquire this knowledge may I ask?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
@dmsilev: As she talked about separate worship areas yet?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
“Real Murkin mothers are rightly concerned about the dangers of masturbation.”
Rightly concerned? That sentence was a joke, right or “rightly”?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
you masturbation jokesters should really check out Rude Pundit’s trademark take on the Vestal Virgin’s victory speech last night. It’s a classic.
Viewer Advisory: May contain material disturbing to wooden objects.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s why it is always important to laugh at them. They are like toddlers trapped in middle-aged bodies.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
@beltane: My dorm also had co-ed bathrooms. It was never an issue. Especially given how unattractive most people are first thing in the morning before any grooming, dressing, coffee, etc. If you see someone walking down the hallway in a bathrobe with bloodshot eyes who is barely able to grunt a greeting, eroticism isn’t high up on the list of thoughts.
dms
September 15th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
being a teabagger means you think the establishment GOP is in bed with the liberals, is unwilling to fight them, is too willing to compromise, etc.. so pissing-off liberals is just a nice side benefit, once that automatically comes when you run someone who promises to fight liberals all the time, no matter what, forever, till the death, TREE OF LIBERTY! WOLVERINES! TAKE BACK AMERICA! NO MORE SOSHULJISM!
they’ve decided to vote for more partisanship, less cooperation.
that’d be fine with me, if the Dems felt the same way. which they don’t.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
@dmsilev:
“Clearly, I lived in the wrong dorm at college.
dms ”
Everybody did. The things O’Donnell describes existed only in her imagination, or the pages of men’s magazines.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
OT: Josh Marshall and the TPM writing team are bound for Hell for this headline: “Rove, O’Donnell & Palin Get Into Heated 3-Way”
Pass the brain bleach!
dms
September 15th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
The requirement is to perceive oneself as being an patriotic conservative, fanatical self righteousness, adherence to political tribalist ethos in every aspect of life, and at least slight insanity.
They are already fighting in a way that conservaDems, moderates and firebaggers can only feverdream about.
See Talkingpointsmemo front page today. Here is a teaser from one story;
“Now Palin slams Rove. ‘Buck up’, newbie crazypants tells fading winger Yoda. Watch that too.”
September 15th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
@Tom Q: Maybe O’Donnell is like that fundie homeschooling education secretary in SC who had to resign when it was found that she had a second job writing porn.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
@dmsilev:
i like to believe it’s Rosie O’Donnell in that one.
and remember, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘threesome’
September 15th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
goddamn right.
Sperm #1: I’m not getting shot out of that thing. What if he’s masturbating? I’m liable to end up on the ceiling.
many tiny lives were lost this way.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
@dmsilev: My college dorms were generally coed by floor. A couple were coed by room, but even those had separate bathrooms.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
@Tom Q:
An old movie, which I would have thought was before her time. Maybe she was titillated by the topic? It tickled her fancy?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
An earlier versions of this post is stuck in moderation heck. Herewith the Revised Standard Version
I don’t know that this pisses liberals off. It’s just dumb, irrelevant, and pointless. Amusing, even.
But apart from this stuff making O’Donnell look like a total fool, I have no idea what her position is on any substantive issue. And once I get past the mockery (and it’s hard, hard to do so), I have no idea what those who voted for see in her.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
@New Yorker:
Spiro?
September 15th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
What ties these guys together? They’re not the Establishment Anointed Candidates.
I agree with Duncan’s thesis that they’re at least partially voting to “piss off liberals”. But he needs to take a step back and see who the “liberals” are in this case. Remember – the word “liberal” to the ‘baggers has no objective meaning because anyone they don’t like can be a “liberal”. It’s a subjective label.
In this case, the “liberals” in question are the guys who run the Republican Party. Because the Republican Establishment are a bunch of RINOs to the Tea Partiers.
This is not a freak co-incidence – this is something that is being actively groomed by the guys who are running the various Tea Party groups. Dick Armey, Jim DeMint and others are doing this on purpose for their own gain. It doesn’t matter that their anointed candidate in NY loves horse porn (and loves to mail it to people) or that their candidate in Del. has a crusade against masturbation, or that their candidate in Nevada thinks the color black is Satanic. What matters is that their chosen candidates are winners and the Establishment selected candidates are losers.
To a degree, I think we’ll see the fallout of this primary season once the general election is over and leadership is being decided. If DeMint has gambled right, he’ll probably be the new Minority Leader in the Senate. If Armey has gambled right, he’ll get to choose the new head of the RNC. And that’s really what I think this shit is all about – internal faction politicking, not anything more or less than that.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
@Corner Stone: It’s okay to be filled with glee, just don’t rub any out.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
@Omnes Omnibus:
“A couple were coed by room…”
Well of course the couples were coed, unless they were gay couples.
I wonder when Christine will get around to THAT problem in dorms.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Being a Tea Partier simply means being in favor of smaller government and lower taxes. (Which is Republicanese for, “I’m a Republican but I don’t want to admit it these days because that drooling idiot W embarrassed the shit out of me, and I’m pissed as hell that a fucking Democrat is president now, but I don’t want to admit that either, because I’m supposed to like democracy, and on top of it all he’s black, which I can’t come out and bitch about either, because I’m not supposed to be a racist.”)
September 15th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I need an open thread. I’m having too much fun on the Intertoobz today:
http://thescotsman.scotsman.co.....6532035.jp
September 15th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
If it’s all about pissing political opponents off we liberals win every time.
OBAMA.
/thread
September 15th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Isn’t that enough these days?
Don’t be so confuzzled (confused & puzzled).
September 15th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@NonyNony:
yes, this.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@catclub: I may have been unclear…. Oh well.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
@geg6: Heh. I live a block from the park in Birmingham where Ratzy’s saying mass on Sunday. They were testing the PA system earlier—with “Highway to Hell”.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
@Martin: You could sooner grunt at a rooster not to crow at the sun every morn.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Some they do and some they don’t,
And some you just can’t tell.
Some they will and some they won’t,
And some it’s just as well.
—Supertramp, “Goodbye Stranger”
September 15th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I’ve been thinking about this. On the one hand, O’Donnell makes implicit sexual references like “Castle getting his manpants on”, on the other hand she supposedly stands for abstinence in the most extreme fashion. I think I’ve seen this before with Sarah Palin. It’s the “You-want-me-but-you-can’t-have-me” trick. The demonstration of sexuality and its’ simultaneous suppression is a feature of modern conservatism. It’s like the closeted homosexual republicans or the family values republicans with numerous marriages and/or affairs, and I even have to think of Bush fan Britney Spears during her “innocent school girl” days.
The easiest explanation is that all conservatives are masochists. The more complicated explanation is that republican strategists know of the power of suppressed desires that can be channeled into aggression, hate or spirituality. As South Park’s Mr. Garrison said it: “Why do Muslims become terrorists? Because they’ve got sand in their vaginas and they’re not allowed to jack off.”
September 15th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
But apart from this stuff making O’Donnell look like a total fool, I have no idea what her position is on any substantive issue.
It doesn’t matter what their position is on ANY subject; it is enough to be against Obamacare, Cap and Trade, and, of course, Gays and anyone not White/Christian.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: This topic delightfully lends itself to many puns and entendres. it’s like Three’s Company without the big boobed blondes.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
@dmsilev: Just the wrong college. I went to a little school out in the weeds that was 85% female. The dorms weren’t coed, but with nothing to do off campus (the nearest movie theater was half an hour drive) and no 18-25 population other than the college, the guys got more than their fair share. There was a sizeable lesbian/bi population on campus, so even pretty average guys who weren’t assholes (cough) could land a 3-way over the course of 4 years with even a minimal amount of effort. If in addition you were the guy who could get everyone through their physics and calculus courses, you could do very well indeed.
Of course, having non-coed dorms had absolutely zero impact on the results.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
@dmsilev:
Watch out Karl, Palin’s got a strap on!
September 15th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Irritable, ignorant and incoherent about sums up the Tea Party.
They’re mad as hell, they don’t really know why, they don’t want to know how they got there, and they have no real plan for fixing things. It’s enough to blame it on those Others, wave the Flag and the Bible and the Constitution as magic totems that will somehow turn America back into their Leave It To Beaver fantasy land.
It would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
After some reflection, I think I’ve found it; Teatards are utterly convinced the Government cannot solve any problem and/or shouldn’t try to solve that problem because there isn’t a problem in the first place. It’s laissez-faire taken to the extreme (also known as “I’ve got mine, fuck you”).
September 15th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
A couple of thoughts:
How insane must O’Donnell be in bed if she is that public about her anti-sex crusade? That will be one crazy closet if it ever spills out.
We must, as often as possible, use the word masturbation in association with O’Donnell because it will make the former stick to the latter with its “ick” factor, i.e., masturbation is one of those words that people can toss off euphemistically with ease but it seems gross to use the actual term.
PS - (yes, yes, I meant it)
September 15th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
@The Dangerman:
re: But apart from this stuff making O’Donnell look like a total fool, I have no idea what her position is on any substantive issue.
Uh, no. For purposes of comedy relief, I enjoy mocking these people as much as the next person. But if they lose in the upcoming elections, their supporters may come back nastier and angrier than ever.
And although I recognize that a core of these wingnuts can never be swayed from their stupidity, there may be, should be, others who may not have thought through their support of the tea baggers and who can be reached.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
@R-Jud: Maybe you could put some signs up on the way to the park.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
@Martin: Hogwarts?
September 15th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@MikeJ: Someone already did that on a billboard closer to town.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
@Alex S.:
I was talking with one of the physics profs here about this very thing today. That’s his theory. They’re all just a bunch of frustrated horny people. Thus we get the Sarahs and Christines and even the Scotts (though his pretty face obscured the fact that he really isn’t one of them).
I think we should send them all to the Bunny Ranch on the government’s dime. It would surely be cheaper than their wars and tax cuts and maybe they’d shut up for a little while.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
To understand teabaggerism you may as well ask why does a dog scoot his ass on the carpet.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
@Corner Stone:
It’s like “Snakes on a Plane”, without the snakes.*
*VPR?
September 15th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
@DonkeyKong: Actually, there are explanations for that-the scooting, that is.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
They’re both kind of dickish positions to hold. So they can unite assholes and douchebags behind them.
Clearly, the conservative movement needs to unite around Kanye’s VMA song.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Thing is, unlike Sarah Palin, O’Donnell doesn’t piss off liberals. Her views are reactionary, sure, but it’s to the point of comedy. And the Daily Kos and everyone else on the left was openly rooting for her to win, for purely electoral reasons. They didn’t succeed in pissing anyone off aside from Karl Rove.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, our Otis does it when we are talking on the phone and not paying attention to him. He knows it will get my John’s attention (it drives him nuts, even on the hardwood floors).
Which kinda explains teabaggism, I guess.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Martin: Bennington?
September 15th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Her campaign website has all the info your wallet will need.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
@Steve: The fact that she doesn’t succeed doesn’t mean that she isn’t trying. I have had righties talk to me about guns and hunting in an attempt to piss me off, only to find out that I know more about both than they do. They work entirely in stereotypes.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
@Steve: The fact that she doesn’t succeed doesn’t mean that she isn’t trying. I have had righties talk to me about guns and hunting in an attempt to piss me off, only to find out that I know more about both than they do. They work entirely in stereotypes.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
“This one time, at a Tea Party….”
September 15th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Good lord, someone’s drinking too much cultural-identity kool-aid, and I’m saying that as someone who thinks it goes a long way in explaining politics in america. However, the anti-establishment current also explains a lot. TARP, anyone? People who are pissed off and looking for a righteous cause often don’t bother to think very deeply about the issues, no matter which side we’re talking about here.
I completely understand where they’re coming from regarding bankers basically looting the treasury (Huge risks, big bonuses, and the taxpayer eats the downside: How I learned to love GoldmanSachs), and anyone who doesn’t see that this is one motivation is willfully not looking. Granted, they channel this in batshit-crazy ways (and of course are prodded in this directions for various ends)...
September 15th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Currently on TPM front page:
Rove, O’Donnell & Palin Get Into Heated 3-Way
September 15th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
@bs23: These people have been around for years. Pissing off liberals and faux macho posturing have always been their motivation. Obama’s election and the subsequent events just acted a trigger.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
@bs23: These people have been around for years. Pissing off liberals and faux macho posturing have always been their motivation. Obama’s election and the subsequent events just acted a trigger.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Real Murkins are virtuous (unlike liberals), but they also don’t like “political correctness” (unlike liberals). You can frame absolutely anything in one of these categories.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
@geg6: I think these holier than thou folks so often seem to be hypocrites, but that is the by product of what’s really going on. These guys need it to be thought of as forbidden and nasty and degrading or they can’t get off.
Ted Haggard isn’t interested in quiet suburban cohabitation with some dude. He wants dirty meth-hooker sex. Larry Craig could Brokeback Mountain plenty of dudes out in Idaho I imagine, but it isn’t as fun as anonymous public sex in the airport bathroom.
What’s sad about O’Donnell is that the things she has to make out to be terrible are so…vanilla. That’s got to be upper end kink for her.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
@Short Bus Bully:
What a delightful idea! Let’s go out and see if we can’t piss off a bunch of right wingers.
We could suggest giving folks access to health care, giving middle class people a tax break, building infrastructure, stopping deep water oil drilling until we feel we can do it safely, try to save the auto industry, . . .. ..
September 15th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
We’ve long wondered, what’s the matter with Kansas? I think we finally nailed down the answer.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
@Hugin & Munin: No, but pretty similar.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
They don’t even piss off real liberals, just the pretend ones in their head.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
To quote the alien conqueror Kang from The Simpsons:
September 15th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
This sounds to me like there’s a hell of a marketing opportunity and pharmaceutical hole to fill: Antiviagra, the little red pill.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
@bs23 #80: Nonsense. That’s all just a bullshit cover-up. If they genuinely felt that way—and were sincere with their “non-partisanship,” which is also complete bunk—they’d be hammering on both Dem and GOP politicians to tighten regulations on the financial industry, and maybe even lauding Dems’ efforts to do so and pushing Republicans to go along with it. But no, it’s all “Don’t Tread On Me” horseshit. And, whaddya know, the movement emerges not while a maliciously incompetent Republican administration is actually fucking things up, but when a Dem administration takes over and starts trying to clean the mess up.
The Tea Party movement was founded by a commodities trader and a long-time GOP operative, and promoted incessantly by the GOP’s media propaganda wing. Anti-banker motivation, my ass.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
@Seth: Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
@Joshua: Yeah. I get real pissed off when some clown does Revolutionary Colonial cosplay and staples teabags to his head. Gosh it makes me mad.
September 15th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
what I’d like to know is how they square being a “Real Merkin” with the anti-masturbation, self-loathing, sex denying, morally superior to you attitude that’s their bread and butter (on second thought, better hold the butter).
September 15th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Co-ed bathrooms? Yikes. The thought of seeing/hearing/thinking about a hot chick doing….uh….ya know….not-number-one….Good lord.
Now co-ed showers? THAT I can get behind. Literally.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Yes, they do love pissing off liberals, but it’s simpler than that.
The prude is a woman and the pervert is a man. This fits right in with their ideas of what a “real man” and a “real woman” are and should be.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
@Punchy: Co-ed bathrooms provide an excellent introduction to the sad drudgery of married life. You’d think religious people would be all for it.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
@Chad N Freude:
let me guess, Palin is twatting again?
September 15th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Why not? It made Rush Limbaugh rich and (in)famous. They aren’t even going deep into the play book, this is all page-one-student-body-right stuff at this point. You piss off the other side and get them to scream and yell and you look rational by comparison. The problem the tea partiers have is that people aren’t getting pissed off and screaming and yell. They’re pointing and laughing… which the tea partiers are trying to make look like the whole being pissed off and screaming and yelling thing. It’s not working, which is why I think the tea partiers are looking more and more angry, they are getting frustrated that the first page of the play book isn’t working. And they don’t know how to check down to deal with the coverage audibles (ok, that might have taken the analogy a bit too far).
September 15th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Well, apparently for the morons who vote for these empty suits…..yes!
September 15th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
This headline on TPM cracked me up… “News From the Big Pasty”
September 15th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
@KG: This. Nothing enrages conservative men so much as being laughed at. That is why it is important to mock and ridicule them at every opportunity.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
There is exactly one and ONLY one reason for the teabaggers and their like – a %igger is running this country – period. These half-wits are race hating, ass wipes that can not ever let a Blackman be pres. All their hate is due to that and all else is window dressing to hide this very simple fact. All else is just smoke blowing out their ass’s.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Current TPM Headline: Rove, O’Donnell & Palin Get Into Heated 3-Way
Worst. Visual. Ever.
.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Absolutely.
As far as your question goes, DougJ, I think you can even reduce it to just “being a Real Murkin.” The other stuff flows naturally from that:
*Liberals hate Murka, so just being a Real Murkin pisses them off.
*Real Murkins love freedom and limited government, so all true Real Murkins are bound to vomit up the same word salad of “freedom,” “the wrong path,” “soshulism,” etc. that @cleek mentioned
And so on. And the thing is, once you’re a bona fide Real Murkin—in the tribe, as it were—then you’re in, and pretty much everything you say and do is what a Real Murkin would do because you’re a Real Murkin. So the conflict of thinking beating off is adultery on the one hand (pun intended) and wanting to send around porno emails on the other isn’t really a conflict because both of those things were done by Real Murkins.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
@Martin: Ah.. Where exactly was this town you speak of?
/giggidy
September 15th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
@bs23:
Uh, you do know that almost all of TARP was paid back, right?
September 15th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
@DougJ: Forget it, he’s rolling.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
@Chad N Freude:
Dr. Frankenstein is concerned.
September 15th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Ever heard of Victorian morality? As one of that era’s author’s might have said, it was the prudiest of times; it was the porniest of times. The two are not at all inconsistent; they are two sides of the same coin.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
@Tom Hilton: I don’t think it will be that long until O’Donner Party’s sexual escapades explode out of her closet.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
@DougJ: Even supposing the banks had paid everything back, the point is that going forward they are basically free to play with Uncle Sam’s money, take big bets, pay themselves huge bonuses, and then play the too-big-to-fail card to call for gov’t recapitalization when the shit hits the fan. If they can pay it back, great. If not, also great. Is anything going to happen to them if they don’t? No. Our sane legislative bodies performed their function and protected their crony overlords.
I’m not saying the tea party position is justified by this, obviously, as their position is a crock of shit. But I can see where they would get some support from some of our crazy-leaning-but-not-totally-insane fellow citizens. “Mad as hell?” fits right in. Look at yesterday’s Naches video—- cultural identity is obviously the main theme, to put it mildly, but the signs are all economics.
Point being, they can get supporters from both camps. John’s tirades against Reason are certainly well-founded in my view (i.e. they’re pathetically trying to dismiss the obvious racial over-, under-, and through-and-through-tones), but one can’t seriously say there isn’t an anti-establishment wave at all.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
I was thinking that it would be a real laugh to run into O’Diddily on the campaign trail, get her to shake my hand and then tell her to guess what I had been doing with that hand a little earlier in the day.
Oh, and that I hadn’t washed it yet.
She’s 41, single and on an anti-masturbation jihad? Riiight…
September 15th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
So perhaps it’s no surprise that O’Donnell is also on the record warning that coed dorms and rooms on college campuses are a slippery slope that could lead to … “orgy rooms” and “menage a trois rooms”!
Whereas if you make young virile men room only with other young virile men, and curious nubile young women room only with other curious nubile young women, such things could never happen….
September 15th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
With regard to TARP, it certainly wasn’t the only federal program backing the banks, so speaking of TARP and its payback as the only significant discussion of bank bailouts is simply not a good portrayal of what went on.
Here’s a review of known programs related to bank / financial industry assistance rendered since the crash. They appear to be much larger in scale than the TARP program itself. Note that SourceWatch / Center for Media & Democracy do not suggest that funds ‘at risk’ are definitely gone, but they do not appear to have been paid back and I haven’t seen that they have been.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@El Cid: No, not long at all.
(In fairness, there really isn’t anything all that salacious there. Still.)
September 15th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
@bs23:
Not necessarily. One of the key provisions of the financial reform bill is resolution authority, for exactly that reason.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Stinkpalm!
September 15th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
@R-Jud:
Win!
(Hell, I would vote for Foghorn Leghorn. Provided he ran as a Democrat.)
September 15th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
@Cris:
Hey, I was just uhhh, hmmm… changing my oil, thus the greasy palm. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
September 15th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
@El Cid:
It’s the only part of it that I think could be called “looting the treasury”. To be clear, I think the AIG bail-out was looting the treasury. But I don’t think the rest was.
September 15th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
@gex: Homer Simpson for Sanitation Commisioner – “The Garbage Man Can!”
September 16th, 2010 at 11:50 am