handy - January 29, 2011 | 10:47 pm · Link

Mubarak is considered one of the U.S.’s strongest allies in the Middle East, according to the CW these people love to embrace. How was Bush right in light of that?

KG - January 29, 2011 | 10:56 pm · Link

@The Dangerman: I believe the term you’re looking for is: cognitive dissonance.

OT: Robbie Lawler vs Ronaldo Souza is turning into a helluva fight on Showtime.

jl - January 29, 2011 | 11:02 pm · Link

Well, surely, all Very Serious People can agree, should agree, will agree that everything good that comes out of this is due to the seeds planted by the visionary Bush II policies, and everything bad is due to the wimpiness/rashness/ineptitude/diabolically clever secret evil coup plotting of the Obama administration.

Or vice versa if you are a center left talking head needing money and the producers or editors need something to pair with the ravings of the Abrams of the world.

An interesting question arises:

Will the reactionary nexus hold, or will the widening gyre of the different aspect of their insane fantasies spin out of control? Will obvious political or monetary advantage guide them to some common BS line, or will they fall apart into warring insane narratives and conflicts, ala CPAC wrt to gays and the murderous Boshevick Daniels?

This is a trivial issue compared to what is going on in real reality for most people both here and across the world. Perhaps comparable to some French snarkist writing biting satires of how the different people in the royal court pick nits out their wigs. But I guess something that we need to monitor in order to forestall any harmful domestic political fallout.

Violet - January 29, 2011 | 11:06 pm · Link

Near the end of the video there’s a section on how “the economy is on the rise, kickin’ into overdrive, unemployment’s staying down.” When exactly was this made? Certainly not in the last year or so of Bush’s presidency. But I forgot. The economic problems are all Obama’s fault.

KG - January 29, 2011 | 11:07 pm · Link

@jl: I have really come to hate the fact that pretty much everything that happens other than who wins the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA championship, and Stanley Cup is either because of or the fault of POTUS. Can’t it just be that some times, just some times, shit happens? Can’t it be that some times, history just carries us along and there isn’t much any one person can do? Or must it all fall on Caesar?

Spaghetti Lee - January 29, 2011 | 11:08 pm · Link

I like how the sub-header is “What’s the U.S. Role?” rather than “Should there be a U.S. role?” I’m not exactly a historian, but considering Mossadegh, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet-Afghan war, and of course our two current debacles, when was the last time an extended American meddle in the affairs of a Middle Eastern country went right?

Jesus, ten years of war and these people still can’t wait to stick their grubby paws into another country. I bet they’d support limited government too, if asked.

Comrade Javamanphil - January 29, 2011 | 11:11 pm · Link

Sadly, all you need remember is “Wolverines!” As long as they can yell it in response to the current situation, they are happy.

Violet - January 29, 2011 | 11:14 pm · Link

@joe from Lowell:
Heh. I hadn’t watched it in ages, so I decided to look at it. Typical winger stuff, but the economy part cracked me up. At the end of the economy bit I wrote above there’s a line that goes “Revenue is going up, can you say ‘tax cuts.’” Some enterprising Democrat should take that clip and use it in a commercial. The “Bush was right! Bush was right!” bit is a nice counterpoint to the Republicans’ claims that tax cuts are always the answer.

The economy bit starts at 1:33 if you just want to check out that tiny bit of it.

andy - January 29, 2011 | 11:19 pm · Link

Cute. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over will Bush and the Neocons get the credit then too?

jl - January 29, 2011 | 11:21 pm · Link

To be serious, what is going on in Tunisia and Egypt, may be what you call a juncture:

1. a point of time, esp. one made critical or important by a concurrence of circumstances: At this juncture, we must decide whether to stay or to walk out.

2. a serious state of affairs; crisis: The matter has reached a juncture and a decision must be made.

If some semblance or order cannot be restored and progress towards a more open regime made with this new maybe maybe not VP Suleiman (who probably will soon be P after Mubarak retires with lotsa dough), then it may be one of those ‘critical junctures’.

Seems to me that any normal person with normal human feeling and an ounce of humanity would regard such a very uncertain time with a mixture of hope and dread.

So, I do not want to think about what goes on inside these hacks who try to make a buck or name or cheap political point out of it by peddling BS to the public.

asiangrrlMN - January 29, 2011 | 11:33 pm · Link

@KG: No.

SATSQ

Longer: Not when there is airtime to be filled and news to be made.

Phil Perspective - January 29, 2011 | 11:38 pm · Link

DougJ:
Abrams is doing one of those Kaplan chats on Tuesday. We should all submit questions. See if any of them are chosen.

jl - January 29, 2011 | 11:47 pm · Link

@hilts:

Thanks for that link.

There will be interesting contrasts in the Washingtonian reaction. John Kerry is all for ‘warning’ (who? how? with whose army?) somebody or other not to include the Muslim Brotherhood in the democratic process (one assumes he means a future democratic process that might emerge from the crisis, since most agree that currently there is no democratic process there). Maybe he is warning the Mubarak establishment that they won’t get any money if they do, but he just said that we should not cut off the Mubarak establishment.

So, I guess unfortunately, while Kerry may have better intentions, he is less coherent than Bolton. Bolton’s arguments are, what you might call consistent, with spots of logic that are valid, but all of it is technically unsound.

And this from Anthony Weiner, which surprized me a little:

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) insisted that democracy is better than the status quo in the Middle East. “Because ultimately, the more Democratic the Middle East is, the less likely it is we’re going to have conflagration and conflicts between countries. That’s my view. I hope that turns out to be right,”

Mark S. - January 29, 2011 | 11:59 pm · Link

I’m starting to miss the old guy.

Well, not really. I’m mostly enjoying watching clueless neocons alternatively support democracy and the Mubarak. When will Rush just tell them which way to go?

GHOST OF BIRDZILLA - January 30, 2011 | 12:06 am · Link

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IS FOR WISHY WASHY LIBERAL PEOPLE WHO FEEL GUILT. NEOCONS ONLY SEEM CRAZY BECAUSE LIBERAL MEDIA TWISTS THERE WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT.

Yutsano - January 30, 2011 | 12:12 am · Link

@Steeplejack: There is really only one thing I will give Dubya credit for: he did greatly expand AIDS funding for Africa. And on the whole Medicare Part D isn’t a bad idea on its face but it was such an obvious pharma giveaway the way it was structured. Otherwise he’s still pretty much the Boy Blunder.

Calouste - January 30, 2011 | 12:13 am · Link

@jl:

“Mr. Weiner, the Israeli embassy for you on line 4.”

Jim, Foolish Literalist - January 30, 2011 | 12:17 am · Link

So the fact that Iraq is still a mess means nothing, but an uprising in Cairo, almost eight years after the invasion of Iraq, proves Bush was right?

That dumbfuck Hiatt, and Katie Graham’s halfwit son, really will print anything.

gbear - January 30, 2011 | 12:38 am · Link

@KG:

I have really come to hate the fact that pretty much everything that happens other than who wins the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA championship, and Stanley Cup is either because of or the fault of POTUS.

Actually, the Super Bowl is brought to us by sociaIism.

That’s why the NFL literally shares the wealth. TV is their biggest source of revenue and they put it all in a big Commie pot and split if thirty two ways. Because they don’t want anyone to fall too far behind. That’s why the team that wins the Superbowl in the next draft, picks last, or what the Republicans would call “punishing success.”

Baseball… baseball on the other hand is exactly like the Republicans. And I don’t just mean it’s incredibly boring. I mean their economic theory is every man for himself. The small market Pittsburgh Steelers go to the Superbowl more than anybody. But the Pittsburgh Pirates? Levi Johnston has sperm that will not grow up and live long enough to see the Pirates in a World Series. Their payroll is forty million. The Yankees is two hundred and six million. The Pirates have about as much chance of getting to the playoffs as a poor black teenager from Newark has of becoming the CEO of Halliburton.

That’s why people stop going to Pirate games in May. Because if you’re not in the game, you become indifferent to the fate of the game and maybe even get bitter. That’s what’s happening to the middle class in America.

Steeplejack - January 30, 2011 | 1:02 am · Link

@Yutsano:

Agree on the Africa AIDS thing. But I thought Medicare D is a huge boondoggle—costs more than “regular” Medicare, was a giveaway by the Rethugs but then also something they can use as ammo for their “Medicare is wasteful and costs too much” arguments.

Yutsano - January 30, 2011 | 1:21 am · Link

@Steeplejack: It’s only a good thing in that it patched a big glaring hole that Medicare A & B both had: with limited exceptions, neither covered prescription drugs. But when Medicare was conceived a lot of our pharmaceutical advances (and relative expense) hadn’t been thought of yet, so there wasn’t much necessity for it at the time. At some point Part D was an inevitability, it just happened to be designed in the worst way possible for seniors and the best way possible for Big Pharma. The no negotiation rule is really the big tell. I wish ACA had fixed that, but maybe in the future.

Steeplejack - January 30, 2011 | 1:57 am · Link

@Yutsano:

Thanks, good recap. I had forgotten the details.

Pococurante - January 30, 2011 | 11:44 am · Link

@Persia: That would not be a good thing for a new government wanting democratic credibility, propping up a terrorist oppressive government that used elections simply to eliminate all opposition.

Mark P. Kessinger - January 30, 2011 | 8:32 pm · Link

Here is my response to Mr. Abrams:

http://open.salon.com/blog/mar.....ht_in_wapo