No real point, just one of those things that makes me thinks the end might be near and that that might not be such a bad thing.
Three fuck-the-poor, fuck-the-middle-class millionaires competing to see who can be most pretentious about a religion founded by a man who said “If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor”.
Scott
I’ll say what I said a few threads down — I will buy a pizza for any pundit who’ll go on a show with Bobo and tell him he’s an incompetent nincompoop who needs to shut up and never speak again. Same goes for anyone saying the same to Sully or Klein.
And I’ll buy a goddamn Chucky Cheez pizza party for any pundit willing to smack ’em in the head with a plank of wood.
The Ancient Randonneur (formerly known as The Grand Panjandrum)
Click your heals three times and say …
Linnaeus
That’s just a quote from the biased soshulist Bible translations we’ve all been told are “the” Bible by the liberal media. No way the real Jesus would say such Marxist drivel.
Darius
I haven’t read Swampland since they did that redesign a couple of weeks back.
By the looks of it, I haven’t missed much.
meh
just out of morbid curiosity, I wonder what the Atlantic’s traffic looks like these days with ol’ Sully selling his wares on the Beast…
The Moar You Know
For He commanded that the poor be dressed in castoff raiment which was shabby and ill-used, and His disciples did snicker loudly at them, whereupon one of them spaketh loudly, “gettest thou a job, vermin” and they all fell to the ground convulsed with laughter, and then the Lord took them all to Applebee’s where they gorged themselves on cheesesticks and an onion cut to look like a great flower.
Comrade Javamanphil
The current pundit class has replaced the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as the group that should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Comrade DougJ
@meh:
I’m sure it’s way down. One shocking change is that Conor F’s blog is pretty good. I don’t think anyone reads it, there are very few comments, but it’s a solid effort.
steviez314
In college, we used to call this a CIRCLE JERK.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
lacp
“Sell that thou hast and give to the poor?” No way Napalm Jesus talks shit like that. At least try to make it believable.
eemom
“given the superficialities of blog life, I sometimes forget just how fabulously profound he can be.”
You cannot make shit like this up. Indeed you cannot.
Joe Beese
In other bloviation news, Christopher Hitchens explains why assassinating Qaddafi would not be a violation of the law.
cleek
@Scott:
nobody who would say such a thing is allowed to share screen time with the Important Pundits. only people who know to stay within the hard lines of polite punditry may open their mouths in the presence of Bobo.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Christ, what an asshole.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@steviez314:
The difference is that in a college circle jerk people occasionally have fun.
That is not the case with the dry, unproductive frottage of Jokeline, Andy Pandy and BoBo the dancing monkey.
4tehlulz
“a religion founded by a man…” Sadly, that religion ceased to exist the minute it became the religion of the Roman Empire.
Fred
At least the Plutocrats and their enablers are coming out into the open now where everyone can see them! Daylight is a wonderful cleanser.
amk
Get a room guyz. Sheesh.
pragmatism
atlas shrugged. jesus didn’t.
Mako
Thanks for the “what various ineffectual assholes are up to” update!
Never hurts to check in.
I hear Sarah Palin posts also get pageviews. I’d rather read those, if you could pull it together. Thanks.
eric
co-opt a radical message, transform it into something supportive of the current power regime…….same as it ever was.
cathyx
It reminds me of those interviews of castmembers of a movie. They all trade complements of how great each others acting abilities are. Ugh.
piratedan
I believe that the appropriate response is… “heh, indeed”
I think it’s time to characterize these folks as “unserious people”. They don’t believe in the social contract between government and its citizens and they’ll continue to be fascist mouthpieces up to the point where they start to round up the gays, the Jews, and the liberal intelligentsia. Then they’ll all mysteriously disappear and be routed to a work camp in Alaska building a road to connect Nome and Anchorage because that pesky pipeline keeps breaking and truck drivers are cheaper to pay than pipeline welders.
Dave
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?”
Then shall he answer them, saying, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” – Matthew 25:41-45
And that is KJV, the conservative “standard” when it comes to Bibles and whatnot.
kdaug
Prosperity Gospel. It’s what’s for dinner!
Zifnab
The end of what, though? The end of these yahoos doing the old tug and chug in the middle of the public forum? Or the end of anything bug tug and chug in the middle of the public forum?
How long till Murdoch just scopes up NYT and WaPo, then turns everything into Page Six? I don’t want to live behind Americanized version of the Great Firewall of China, where every genuine avenue of news is clogged with Jersey Shore rejects and radio shock jock opinion vomit.
Chris
@Dave:
Love that passage. Because not only does it totally refute the GOP’s “fuck the poor” sentiment, it also totally refutes their fundie supporters’ belief in “faith not acts.” Bad news, assholes. Jesus wasn’t a fan of people who did nothing but preach at mankind all day while declining any responsibility to help it.
kdaug
@piratedan:
If you’ve ever posted anything on this blog, I hope you’ve got a warm coat.
(Psst: Not everyone who reads, posts. And not all of the lurkers are your friends. Just FYI).
ppcli
That is an appropriate post for Good Friday. It makes me want to give up the ghost.
Dave
@kdaug: That is the single biggest piece of damage the televangelists did to this country. Creating the Prosperity theology to cover their own greedy asses and then having it bleed into the body politic.
Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar and the rest of the grifters can DIAF as far as I am concerned.
gex
Really? The question is too easy. Given the previous thread about Ohio school funding, Jesus would cut the medicare for “those” people and not for the right kind of people. Which is probably where Sully falls on the politics of cutting spending as well. And Jesus always agrees with Sully.
4tehlulz
OT (sort of): Haley Barbour not running for prez per TPM. Have the birthers just claimed their first scalp?
Tonybrown74
@Sarah Proud and Tall:
Unless you’re the one left eating the cracker … ick!
pragmatism
@4tehlulz: i believe their first scalp is trump’s hairpiece. hey-0
PeakVT
I sometimes forget just how fabulously profound he can be
I thought I heard some helicopters flying around on Friday, but now I realize it was Klein wanking. The sound must have been deafening near DC.
Dave
@Chris: Exactly. As the good book says: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone”. But these people just play at being Christians so expecting them to actually read the Bible is asking a lot.
Martin
@Dave: Oh, they still subscribe to that, but they interpret it as cutting the capital gains tax so that trickle-down economics will finally work properly.
The wingnuts have a universal translator that can turn every wise statement into ‘Fuck you, I got mine’ and then back again into some economic policy that on first blush looks like the wise statement, but is in fact the very opposite.
4tehlulz
@pragmatism: *rimshot*
piratedan
@kdaug: thanks!
but haven’t you tainted yourself by telling me this? unless you know people or know people…or do I need to apply to the blog commenters protection program?
pragmatism
@4tehlulz: thank you. the 9:30 show is completely different than the 7:30 show. enjoy the veal. it is made from poor people.
Martin
@gex: You know, all this shit was easier when you could still enslave the people you didn’t want to benefit from your social contract. Jesus had it way easier than modern conservatives.
stuckinred
Boss Hawg just bailed:
“A candidate for president today is embracing a ten-year commitment to an all-consuming effort, to the virtual exclusion of all else. His (or her) supporters expect and deserve no less than absolute fire in the belly from their candidate. I cannot offer that with certainty, and total certainty is required.
celticdragonchick
I have been reading Sully for years, and he has never struck me as a “fuck the poor” type. He has had quite a few things to say about the fact that our current level of income disparity is destabilizing to society, and he is openly contemptuous of Rand and her followers. I do think his experience growing up in England during the severe malaise of the 1970’s (we just covered that in our European history class) really did make him suspicious of government intervention in the economy, but I do not think he is in any way anti-poor.
Sasha
@Dave:
Clearly, these a representative of the Bible’s own Satanic Verses.
stuckinred
@Sasha: requests
celticdragonchick
@stuckinred:
Somebody just found out he had Deputy Cletus and Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane dressed in lingerie, ball gags, and chained up in his
dungeonbasement.Squeal like a pig, boy!
Cermet
@Dave: As I have said too often – “Show me a christian and I’ll show you a hypocrite.”
It’s not that Christ would deny these thugs – and almost all people who claim to be christians, but that most of these people deny Christ even today – they are like exactly like the fake worshipers that Christ warned all to see – the one’s that prayed in public (Christ denounced praying in public or even together – so much for church services) and who were all show and empty talk about god. That is today’s christians – what fucking jokes they all are as well as this total country of utter hypocrites – I should know, I’m one with a capitol “H”.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
But Doug, you don’t understand. Jesus was an unsophisticated speaker. That’s not what he really meant.
jibeaux
@stuckinred:
It’s kind of hard to tell whether the fire’s there or not, that much belly. C’mon, Boss Hog, take a gander at it. I was kind of hoping for all different types of crazy in my crazy buffet.
jibeaux
@celticdragonchick:
It was ENIS. I may live to be four hundred years old with the wonders of future medicine, but apparently I will always remember the names of Enis and Roscoe P. Coltrane.
David in NY
@eemom:
Yup. I gagged at “fabulously profound.” I mean, “fabulously”???? Even leaving aside the lie in “profound,” the wet kiss of “fabulously” is nauseating.
celticdragonchick
@Dave:
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, “Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?”
Then shall he answer them, saying, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” – Matthew 25:41-45
*******************
Increasingly, that means giving tithes to support the missionary spreading the Gospel in Bhutan or Rwanda, and it has been completely divorced from having anything to do with helping people on your own doorstep.
celticdragonchick
@jibeaux:
Yep. I misspoke. LOL.
Also, Enos was given his own dreadful spinoff show in Los Angeles for a season. Nobody wept when that craptastic bit of feculent celluloid was taken out in back and mercifully shot.
kdaug
@piratedan: Just can’t get shoutouts from Maddow and Krugman without attracting attention.
I remember when this hole was just a nice, cozy hovel for us jackals.
Now there are people outside shining flashlights in.
It’s rude, I tell you.
Warren Terra
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
God, I miss Molly Ivins.
(Or did you not mean to quote her seminal Camille Paglia essay?)
Silver Owl
“A post by Joe Klein praising a post by Andrew Sullivan praising column by Bobo.”
Isn’t that a circle jerk in action?
aimai
I think this post should have recieved the “shocked, shocked!” headline. But then, I’m not shocked. Klein’s “heh, indeed” (thanks, piratedan) is really more like the kid who didn’t bother to do the debate team homework bouncing to his feet and spending a few minutes wasting the judges time saying things like
“As my learned colleague so notably offers us in support of our previous speaker’s brilliant review…” hoping no one notices he hasn’t actually bothered to write anything on the theme of the day.
aimai
Chris
@celticdragonchick:
Anyone who’s openly contemptuous of Rand and her followers gets a brownie point from me. A very small brownie point. Just one. But still.
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Exactly. He was just inarticulate, like George Bush. The two of them would totally have had a beer together if they’d been around in the same era.
@celticdragonchick:
Amusingly, at the one fundie church I’ve ever been to, the spreading wasn’t in Bhutan or Rwanda but primarily in Latin America, preaching the REAL Word of God(TM) to Catholics and the wrong kind of Protestants.
While it was a missionary church, in fact, I never met a single person there who’d begun life as anything other than a Christian.
aimai
@Silver Owl:
Its not a circle jerk until Bobo returns the favor.
aimai
Southern Beale
Apparently American won’t be Mississippified after all. Haley Barbour throws in the sheet, er, towel on a run for the Presidency.
mcd410x
Jesus was pretty straightforward on this one: “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” — Matthew 19:24
I forget how they get around this one: whether they don’t think 250k is really rich or whether this preaching was just meant for the Jews.
Southern Beale
I’d correct the typo in my last comment but apparently I don’t have permission to do so.
SIGH. Story of my dang life.
celticdragonchick
@aimai:
That is because beer runs and hitting on the big breasted girl who wears low cut tops in poly sci tend to have somewhat higher priority ratings.
At least in my observations.
Chris
@mcd410x:
Something about the eye of the needle really being a geographical feature in the Sinai desert, isn’t it?
Which sounds an awful lot like liberal revisionism going back and rewriting what the verses actually mean. But liberals didn’t do it, so it ain’t.
celticdragonchick
@Chris:
I’ve noticed that as well.
Southern Beale
@celticdragonchick:
To be fair, the Southern Baptists did have a mission to Salt Lake City to convert the Mormons. Hilarity ensued.
BDeevDad
But we want to decide which poor people to give it too.
In other words, the ones that go to their church (like the preacher with the $1000 suit, not the ones that don’t look like them).
Citizen Alan
@celticdragonchick:
Then you need to read him more. He drips with condescension and contempt for “the unsuccessful,” and opposes any efforts to make “the successful” pay any more in taxes. As if the vast majority of the super-rich who benefit most from Bush’s tax cuts were ever successful at anything other than picking the right womb to crawl out of. Everything you need to know about Andrew Sullivan can be explained if you understand that he is a gay, Irish-Catholic Tory. As a Tory, he is committed to class warfare when waged by the upper classes against the lower, but he as a gay, Irish-Catholic, he was blocked from entering elite British society now matter how eloquently he quoted Hayek and Oakshott. So he moves to the US, where such disabilities do not preclude joining elite society so long as one is willing to defend the oligarchy forcefully enough.
If Sully were straight, he’d be opposed to gay marriage. If he were a woman, he’d be a Palin supporter instead of one of the most brazenly misogynistic mainstream bloggers active today. Everything about his writing involves propping up the oligarchy while minimizing the importance of anything about himself that might keep him out of the oligarchy.
Silver Owl
@aimai:
We’ll have to see if they get invited to lunch by Bobo.
celticdragonchick
@Southern Beale:
Many if not most Evangelicals consider Mormonism to be a cult. My mother told me she would never consider voting for any Mormon (My folks are big into the whole “This is a Christian country for Christians” thing).
I would guess the head butting contest between the Mormons and the Southern Baptists would be something right out of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom...
Comrade DougJ
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Thanks for defending me in that thread, I didn’t have the energy at all to read that CK guy’s comments.
celticdragonchick
@Citizen Alan:
I read him several times every day. You are getting something really, really different from what I am getting.
*shrug*
piratedan
@kdaug: maybe I’m part of the problem, I’ve enjoyed the tenor here more than GOS, hence I hang out here more than I do over there. I admit that our FP folks should draw more notice and perhaps its nice when they do (I guess its something of a h/t when your opponents recognize your existence) but I have a hard time believing that they give a rats patootie about us in the comments threads. I really don’t expect to influence many folks here, just venting to the choir, so to speak. I get corrected and educated here as well. Makes me a better person and that’s all to the good. Its incredibly helpful to know that you’re not alone in sharing these opinions. Plus, every once in a while I get a good snark off too.
Mako
research “gate in the wall”
NonyNony
@stuckinred:
The fuck?
What you mean that THIS time around you need to commit to the idea that 2 years from now you would be doing the job as President for the following 8 years?
That makes it different from every Presidential election since FDR because….?
I mean, yeah, being President is a tough gig. I believe one of our most recent Presidents described it as “hard work”. The job visibly ages everyone who takes it and they look like shit by the time they’re finished. Anyone who actually doesn’t want to work hard probably shouldn’t run.
It’s nice of Barbour to flat out tell everyone that he’s not interested in hard work, but that’s the strangest goddamn excuse for bowing out of the Presidential contest that I’ve ever seen.
MikeJ
@celticdragonchick: I always hear this, but I too was raised among the fundies, and I don’t think mormonism will affect their votes. Sure, they won’t like it, but given a choice between baby killin’, gun grabbin’, and oh yeah, black and a really, really white guy who is as far right as they are they’ll hold their noses.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Comrade DougJ:
I need a break from it myself, though I think he’s still at it, chastising the both of us. Sophistication is such a burden.
MikeJ
@Mako:
Except they’re as wrong about that as they are about everything else.
NonyNony
@celticdragonchick:
But to be fair many if not most Evangelicals also consider Catholicism to be a cult. One directed by Satan via the Whore of Babylon. And many of them consider any flavor of Protestantism that isn’t their flavor of Protestantism to be profoundly misguided if not a cult too.
piratedan
@NonyNony: in short, I’m too chickenshit to be bothered to do a good job… strange, it never stopped Dubya. Guess he’s unsure if he could get Dick Cheney as his running mate to “take care of things”.
stuckinred
@NonyNony: shiftless
kdaug
@piratedan: All I’m saying is that if they come for the “liberal intelligentsia”, there’s a paper trail.
Mako
@MikeJ:
Wasn’t looking for an argument , but yeah…
Comrade DougJ
@celticdragonchick:
He’s gone full frontal fuck-the-poor the last month. I used to like the blog and he seems like a nice guy in many ways. I’m sad at what he’s become recently.
MikeJ
@piratedan: Now instead of Boss Hogg I picture the Mayor from Carter Country. “Handle it Roy. Handle it, handle it!”
Sadly I could not find a video clip of this defining moment of 70s TV.
Mako
A nice Jewish woman once told me to stop doing this. It leads to bad stuff.
trollhattan
@stuckinred:
Translation: “My pork-clogged ticker kain’t handle it and besides, I want to make me some SarahBucks(tm).”
piratedan
@kdaug: If the writing starts showing up on the wall, I’ll have to take my marbles and go elsewhere…. although in many circles applying that label to me would be a stretch.
piratedan
@MikeJ: strangely enough, wasn’t that the Bush Administration with Condi Rice as the tolerant long suffering “black” voice of reason?
Chris
@NonyNony:
The problem there is that Catholics are one-quarter of the U.S. population and they hold up at half of the social conservative movement. If the Falwell-Robertson crowd
startedwent back to bashing Catholics the way they do Muslims (and to a lesser extent everyone else), they’d lose so many allies and supporters you’d never hear from them again.In my observation, it’s absolutely true that in the privacy of their own churches, they fucking despise us mackrel snappers. They just can’t say it in public. They just can’t. I admit, it makes me very amused to imagine how furious that makes them.
Bruce S
Darn, you made me go look up Sullivan’s post. It actually wasn’t bad. It’s just that I don’t really care, partly because I already “get” that rather elementary point he makes, as does any sane religious person with an IQ above room temperature, but mostly because it came from him and he’s proving himself the same waste of time he was when he lumped me into some sort of 5th Column against America. Life is too short.
Mako
@Chris:
citation please.
Warren Terra
@BDeevDad:
I’m minded of that Michihan State Senator who tried to create a rule that AFDC (“welfare”) funds could only be spent in thrift shops, on second-hand clothes. I think we could totally pass Sumptuary Laws or a Window Tax, as long as those who weren’t impoverished were exempted.
Joe Beese
@MikeJ:
I watched both shows, but I’m afraid the latter has all but washed clean from my memory.
I’m sure Catherine Bach’s legs contributed to the disparity.
ruemara
@The Moar You Know:
too late to read all the posts, but, if it hasn’t been said-WIN.
Mako
@Bruce S:
Thanks for suggesting your awesome blog. In the interest of everyone (by that I mean Doug J and John Cole who care deeply about Andrew Sullivan), could you point out where Sullivan lumped you. Cuz I’d like to read that. Thanks
Linda Featheringill
@The Moar You Know:
. . . . and had heart attacks on the spot and went to meet their maker, where they had some ‘splaining to do.
DecidedFenceSitter
@Mako: The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, the Christian Church in full communion with the Pope. With more than 68 million members, it is the largest single religious denomination in the United States, comprising about 22 percent of the population.[1] The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
Geesh, 15 seconds of google, it isn’t an unreasonable figure to state.
Chris
@Mako:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholicism_in_the_United_States
Footnote reads,
A little less than a quarter, then.
Bruce S
One thing I really love is when people who aren’t religious – like the Kristols or David Brooks – or on a more sophisticated plane (gee I wonder where they got the idea?) Leo Strauss – decide that the little people need religion to keep them in line.
gex
@celticdragonchick: We can still talk those guys into executing gays. So obviously, that’s where the works should be directed.
stickler
Chris:
About that simmering hatred for the Catholics among the Evangelical wingnuts — a couple of years ago I heard some fundagelical radio program, at the top of the hour two guys were reading the “news” (with commentary and spin!). First story was congratulatory in tone, talking about how Pope Benedict was revitalizing the anti-abortion movement in the USA; they re-iterated the evils of abortion, etc. etc. etc.
Very next story, I shit-you-not: breathless update on the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in (I think) Boston, and how it was an inevitable byproduct of the ridiculous insistence on clerical celibacy. Misguided theology from the Whore of Babylon.
From Catholic-complimenting to Catholic-bashing in less than three minutes. It was mind-blowing.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Klein is a libertarian, right?
/points and laffs
gex
@aimai: That’s not where they direct their, um, output. That’s aimed at the little people.
dollared
@celticdragonchick: I get the contempt as well. I think of him as fighting the last war – he still thinks he needs to help Margaret Thatcher fight those thugs in the coal unions, and for that reason he can’t see middle class white collar Americans going bankrupt.
But you see, since positions have consequences, he is an asshole. Anybody who fluffs Paul Ryan is a sociopath.
Quiddity
I read Sullivan’s post that Joe Klein thought was so profound and couldn’t make any sense of it. Sullivan goes back and forth between God is Truth and the-Gospels-are-hazy-oral-tradition. Also God is “a force”. Sullivan was all over the map and this reader ended up mostly confused. Even though Sullivan attempted to use “reason” (his word) the overall impression I got was that his faith is totally emotional. A young-earther who believes in the flood is actually using reason (from false premises). Sullivan denies those legends, yet claims to have reason on his side when defending faith.
Linda Featheringill
@Cermet:
Does that mean you recognize your problem and are working on it? That’s very honest of you.
Mako
@DecidedFenceSitter:
Apparently not. Who knew? Are they all pope-hat wearing catholics or kinda failed catholics? Not sure what the argument here is, but pretty sure Catholics aren’t controlling anything or even growing as a religion in the US.
dollared
I really hate to be fair to that pompous asshat, but Sullivan is making a very important point: the fundamentalism is not just silly but blasphemous. The Bible truly cannot be taken literally. And in their emphasis on the Old Testament, fundamentalists violate Jesus admonition to leave the Old Testament behind.
All that Religion is Reason stuff is essential to real theology. Of course, that’s also why so many well educated Catholics wake up one morning and say “Hey, if you think about it that whole God thing seems pretty far-fetched. Hmmmmm…..”
maya
@Chris: But the really cool thing is they comprise 66.666% of SCOTUS. Which means they are filibuster proof.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: No.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know:
brilliant comment at 6
Bruce S
Mako – it wasn’t directed to me personally, since he doesn’t know I exist, but Sullivan characterized war opponents as “Fifth columnists” in the wake of 9/11. “In fairness” here’s his apology –
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/10/a-response-to-a-roast-a-fifth-column-apology/181356/
I also have to admit that my memory on this was fuzzy, and I “mis-remembered” that line as a slur against opponents of the Iraq war as well (full disclosure: I didn’t oppose the Afghanistan intervention against the Taliban government and bin Laden, but actually believe that Bush was intentionally tepid in going after al Qaeda to keep the ball rolling for Iraq.) In any event, that was McCarthyism and I think, despite the apology, an indication that Sullivan gets so deeply involved in his hobby horse issues that he isn’t at all a reliable commentator. I’ve quit reading him since he left the Atlantic – where I’d occasionally click on because his mug was staring at me after reading Ta-Nehisi Coates. I must say that I’ve never had that temptation with McCardle – which is a blessing.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
The end is not near.
The Wingularity is Near.
Obama’s election was the bright line that separated the sheep from the goats.
In the run up to 2012 the massive specific gravity of the encroaching Wingularity is deforming the political topography. Conservatives and libertarians are being pulled farther right, and a well defined chasm is opening between the right and the left…
That is why Sully and EDK (among others) have become obama concern trolls.
dollared
Oh, and Sullivan is saying that Bobo is wrong and there is no reason to elevate fundamentalism to anything valuable in our society.
So what we have is Sullivan saying “Bobo is a shallow (Jewish) putz who doesn’t understand true, rigorous, Christianity,” and Klein saying “That Sully sure is profound.” But we don’t know if Klein is circle-jerking without reading all the way down, or sharing in the I-was-raised-by-Jesuits-and-can-outthink-you-anyday bitch slap Sully is delivering to Bobo.
Chris
@Mako:
The argument is that Catholics are a huge demographic in the U.S. which happens to be generate a ton of support for social conservative causes, and that if the religious right were to start going after them the way they do other religious minorities, they’d find their ranks enormously diminished.
(As applies to Republican/Democrat politics, Catholics are split pretty evenly in terms of who they vote for: if the GOP were to alienate them and turn them into a Republican-hostile demographc as a whole, that’s far more voters than they can afford to lose).
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Omnes Omnibus: what is he then?
Villago Delenda Est
@stuckinred:
The fat fuck knows he’ll lose. He’s got total certainty.
fhtagn
@kdaug:
Prosperity Gospel:
Guess who’s NOT coming to dinner.
Steeplejack
@Mako:
Five seconds on Google. This piece is not dated, that I can see, but it refers to a study from 2007, so it’s at least that new.
Bruce S
“eric – April 25, 2011 | 3:11 pm · Link
co-opt a radical message, transform it into something supportive of the current power regime…….same as it ever was.”
AKA – Constantinian Christianity (Ralph Reed, Richard Land, Franklin Graham, et al. in our current context)
“makes me thinks the end might be near”
But isn’t Peak Wingnut a myth?
Omnes Omnibus
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Go read and find out.
beergoggles
Apparently Joe wants to make it a fellatio threesome.
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
Emo Philips’ brilliant “the guy about to jump off the bridge” routine captures the mindset of the fundie protestants perfectly.
fhtagn
@Citizen Alan:
Sullivan’s gay Irish-Catholic status isn’t what would stop him entering the British elite. What matters is that he didn’t know the right people and make the right career choices. The truth is that no-one would ever think he was Irish (he doesn’t have the accent, didn’t grow up in Ireland, and doesn’t really identify as anything but English day in day out), being gay simply doesn’t stop you from entering the elite and hasn’t for two decades or more, and Catholicism hasn’t stopped a number of successful careers in politics, finance, or the media.
HyperIon
Quite a trinity you got there!
BeccaM
And the Circle of Abject Wankery is complete.
asiangrrlMN
@Citizen Alan: Yep. I’m with you. Except, I would say that he just doesn’t give a damn about the poor because he’s not poor. Same as not giving a damn about women’s issues because he’s not one (and, let’s face it, he hates most women). He’s a self-absorbed git who substitutes good writing for good thinking. If he weren’t gay, he would be the prototypical Republican. The fact that he has such a big platform from which to spout his self-absorbed and societally-destructive bullshit pisses me off.
piratedan
@BeccaM: now all they have to do is summon the allfather of beltway fatuousness himself, David Broder, and the quest for the ultimate pithiness may begin.
aimai
@fhtagn:
I was just enjoying a photo of the first family at Shiloh Baptist Church for the Easter service (so sue me, I like to keep up with Michelle and the kids) and the comment thread is a priceless example of Republican Supply Side Jeus. The first comment out of the box was some guy criticizing the Obamas and saying “hide your easter eggs because Obama will distrbute them to kids who are too lazy to look” followed by some woman explaining to everyone that Jesus said “those who don’t work/don’t eat” or something like that so that the Obamas and Obamacare must be anti Jesus ipso facto the entire Easter thing is a charade and he’s really a muslim.
aimai
aimai
@piratedan:
I presume that is done by chanting “Broder! Broder! Broder!” while sacrificing a black and white poodle?
aimai
kdaug
@Mako:
Not sure. The middle-class whites may be lapsing left and right, but don’t forget how many Catholic Latinos there are.
dollared
@aimai: No, really, I think Sully is slapping Bobo for praising fundies when they are really heretics. Whether klein gets it or not…..
Superluminar
@Citizen Allen
this:
is wrong. Sorry but your ideas about British society are about 30 years out of date. Amongst other things, converting to Catholicism is very fashionable with today’s Tories ( CoE ideas about women priests and Teh Gay being all icky, basically). Sully also has a weekly column in the biggest selling Sunday paper (FWIW, more reasonsble than many of his blog posts), and is widely read by the elite here as an insight into US politics. Most people here hate neither Catholics nor Irish, I think he went to America because of the $$.
@ Hermione
Jokeline’s not a glib, but a neoliberal of a rather extremist variety. He’s also a twat, so I can understand your confusion.
piratedan
@aimai: I understand that the rites are rather arcane….
you need the passion of a tea party town meeting
the false equivalency of a NYT OpEd
willingness to enrage the masses
the trunk of an elephant
the balls of an ass
a pinch of vermouth
a dry chardonnay
some aged brie
and some crackers that don’t leave crumbs
mixed with a modest amount of self importance and a dash of name dropping
oh yes, I almost forget….
someone else to get the bill…. viola!
dollared
@kdaug: And in the Midwest, the Catholics are *the* critical swing constituency. Far too many of them listen to their bishops – who are a core republican party cadre.
Superluminar
Or what fhtagn wrote. Hadn’t seen that when I posted.
Superluminar
@piratedan: Do you not need pink himalayan salt for seasoning?
Result: Gastritis! Winning!
dollared
@piratedan: you forgot the diapers…
aimai
@Superluminar:
Yes, as perhaps (?) the only person currently commenting here who has actually dined with Joe Klein I can tell you he’s an old school neo liberal, third wayer, suck up or, to quote myself, “not a public intellectual but a fucking wind sock.”
aimai
piratedan
lmao, ty everyone for piling on! ;-)
Superluminar
@aimai
That post the other year when you tore him to pieces was one of my all time favourites in the blogosphere. After that, I just start giggling every time I see his smug, bearded face. What a tosser.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
A post by Klein, praising Sullivan’s praise of Bobo is what is known in physics as a singularity. All hell should be breaking out any time.
fhtagn
@aimai:
But wind socks at least serve some useful purpose.
fhtagn
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Is singularity (wingularity?) the new cluster-fuck?
Kathy in St. Louis
You forget the rest of the passage which is, I paraphrase, ” and the man went away sad, but he had much.” That’s the part these people concentrate on, the part about ignoring the injunction and going on about daily like because you’ve got yours and plan to keep it.
Kathy in St. Louis
dollerd @ 36. Most Catholics are so pissed off at the bishops that the bishops have little influence over their votes, unless you count the really old and ultra-conservative Catholics, who would vote Republican in any case.
One the reasons a lot of Catholics don’t attend regularly anymore, aside from the pedophilia scandal, is that they are not going to be told how to vote.
JCT
@aimai: Actually — I’ve shared a meal with Joe as well — and I agree with your appraisal 100%. He surely enjoys the sound of his own voice and his name-dropping skills were impressive. Interestingly, his wife is delightful. Go figure.
lonesomerobot
you know, Christianity wasn’t “founded” by Jesus. It was founded by others who had different motives. Jesus wanted better Jews. There’s nothing that Jesus says in the bible that suggests that he envisioned a new religion that would enshrine him as a diety. The whole concept is actually borderline obscene.