I’ve been too busy to write my own posts here the last few days as I am in a very busy cycle workwise, so I have instead been hanging out at Outside the Beltway (which I should state is one of my favorite websites), and I’ve been flaming the proprietors in the comments for their nonsense. Apparently the concern du jour is the ugly tone of politics. James Joyner and Mataconis have been on a never-ending bender of “OMG POLITICS IS UGLY,’ with multiple posts decrying the new tone. Not at all surprisingly, the problem with the new tone is that when Republicans utter horrible awful lies about Democrats, the Democrats are actually, inconceivably, defying history and my own expectations, fighting back. Apparently we have forgotten all about Dan Burton shooting a watermelon to prove Clintonites killed Vince Foster, “you lie,” the “let’s act as insurgents,” the entire 2008 election with the birtherism, the palling around with terrorists, and what not. The southern strategy of the GOP has, of course, received no mention:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
But what really upsets the “reasonable” Republicans and libertarians is the fact that for once, Democrats are fighting back. For years as a Republican I would just laugh as we beat down Democrats and they never did anything. Well, they’ve learned, fortunately, and are fighting back, and now we have folks getting the vapors, worrying about “tone.” Fuck, it’s not like Obama and team put a fucking crosshair over Gabby Giffords head and had machine gun rallies. But my favorite bit of bullshit is this outright goddamned lie from James Joyner, which he uses as evidence of the new negative tone:
Now, though, we’ve got the Obama administration signing off on an ad insinuating that Mitt Romney killed a woman and the vice president refusing to back away from the suggestion that Romney wants to put black people back in chains. So, yeah, I’d say it’s worse than four or eight years ago.
First off, if that woman had health insurance that had not been robbed by the vulture capitalists at Bain, led by Mitt Romney, she might still be alive. But I’ll pass that off as debatable. The latter part, though, is unmitigated bullshit:
the vice president refusing to back away from the suggestion that Romney wants to put black people back in chains.
Joyner is lying. Biden never said Romney wants to put black people in chains. Period. That is not what Biden said. Here is the actual quote:
Specifically, the vice president said to the Danville, Virginia, crowd that the House GOP budget, partly written by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., gives an indication of the Republican presidential ticket’s values.
“We got a real clear picture of what they all value,” Biden said. “Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first hundred days he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, ‘unchain Wall Street.’ They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
An Obama campaign official tells ABC News that “as the full quote makes obvious, the Vice President was clearly using a metaphor to describe the devastating impact of deregulating Wall Street and the financial industry, as well as how Governor Romney’s policies would take us back to the same failed formula that led to the 2008 financial crisis – the same failed formula that benefited a few, but crashed our economy and hurt the middle class.”
He quite clearly was stating that the Republicans and Mitt Romney want an unrestrained Wall Street and business sector, and want to make sure you have no way to fight back. Is this wrong? Is this not the entire point of Romney’s radical deregulatory platform that includes the repeal of Dodd/Frank, the repeal of Obamacare that provides protection to many consumers in the health care market? Did the Republicans not spent the last few years blocking Elizabeth Warren and the CFPB? They don’t want you to be able to fight back against big business. Those are their donors, and they have been quite open about it. They want you, the individual, to be powerless. Or, as some may say… in chains.
What Biden said was completely true. They want an unfettered Wall Street, an unrestricted and unregulated business sector, they want tort reform, and they want you all unable to respond to their excesses. That is the Republican vision. End of story.
When James Joyner says that Biden is claiming Romney wants black people in chains, he is lying, playing an ugly racial game, and banking on his reputation as a “respectable” Republican that you won’t be disgusted and outraged by his blatant lies and call him on it. I have known James for a long time, like him personally, but he really gave up the game on this one. Extrapolating a metaphor that accurately reflects the current GOP position and the position of the current nominees while distorting it to turn it into something racially inflammatory is the ugliest kind of politics there is.
That this was done in a post decrying the new “ugly tone” of politics makes it all the more awesome. And by awesome, I mean pathetic.
Tribalism. Metaphors. WTF?
Darkrose
Obama did no such thing. That was a PAC ad, brought to you by Citizens United.
General Stuck
It really has gotten so pathetically childish the creation of fairy tales coming from the republicans, that it is getting harder to mock, snark, or parody what they say.
It’s been some time now, since the GOP declared the existence of an alternate set of facts they intend to use. But lately that has gone completely off the rails, and what little cable news I watch, it has even stumped the normal soft pedaling right wing bullshit, by the media.
What it is increasingly looking like, that the winger central command is rolling the dice to create their own little world that makes them always right, and never wrong. And depending on the noise machine on the right, and the gazillions of dollars flowing into the wrecking crew Karl Rove runs. And none of it is known where from hither the cash came from. It just shows up one day, and says hello, my name is Citizens United. I’m here to help.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
The Republicans must be worried that Biden is going to pants Ryan in their debate, because every Fox show that my Republican dad has been watching or listening to the past couple of days has been calling for Obama to dump Biden. You know, for Obama’s own good.
I say, Barry, tell those guys where they can stick their “advice.”
mechwarrior online
@Darkrose:
Since when has the truth ever stopped them.
Ash Can
“Boo hoo. The Democrats told on us. Boo hoo.”
Joyner, Mataconis et al. can go eat shit and bark at the moon. Better yet, they can grow the goddamned hell up.
Trentrunner
Purple heart band-aids
pallin’ around with terrorists
double-agent in Moscow
draft-dodging potsmoking communist
Willie Horton
unAmerican
doesn’t understand America
wasn’t born in America
angry
full of hatred
Chicago-style politics
And that’s from memory, sans Google. Fuck them. Let ’em squirm and writhe and cry like the little poopypants babies they are.
azlib
I think they protest too much. Biden clearly was using a metaphor, but if truth be told, Republicans really do not like black or brown folks actually participating and affecting the political process.
JoyfulA
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, too, what is it with fucking CEOs and their fucking whiteboards? I’m starting to think that Romney’s acceptance speech is going to be a PowerPoint presentation.
PsiFighter37
Oh noes! The Democrats brought a gun to the gun fight!
Any pundit who is complaining about their delicate feelings being disturbed can go eat a shit sundae topped with bat droppings. The GOP has done far worse, and they’d just sit back and declare “Both sides do it!”
Screw them all.
Villago Delenda Est
“They can’t abuse our pledges like that!”
“Right, only we can abuse out pledges like that!”
Waynski
You know, what the Republicans have done for years is freeze guys like Joyner out for a little while until they get with the message. I hope Obama et al is beating around the gimps in the basement media the same cruel way. They gave up their integrity long, long ago. Now… this is the business they have chosen.
Nom de Plume
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The Republicans must be worried that Biden is going to pants Ryan in their debate
I don’t think so. They also seem to believe that Obama is doomed in his debates with Romney. This is their complete divorce from reality borne to fruition.
Waynski
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Which is a stupid strategy. If you want to build up Ryan in the debate, you talk about how new he is and what an intellectual giant Biden is. They can’t even get the easy stuff straight.
smintheus
Romney claimed that Biden’s comment was a “new low”. This was just one day after Romney said Obama “stole” $700 billion from Medicare.
So I guess, dog-whistles for me but not for thee.
And yes, I realize that Biden’s comment wasn’t a dog-whistle in any sense.
AA+ Bonds
They’re fighting back because they’re months away from an election, there is no mystery
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
I like the new ugly tone. It’s productive. There’s a lot of ugly stuff that goes on in politics and it’s time we stopped pretending that making laws and running the country is all high minded speeches in marble halls. Drag that shit out in the light where the voters can see it and make informed decisions.
AA+ Bonds
Biden is being sent out to take the edge off some rough stuff because he is the Vice-President and also the VP candidate and we are months away from an election
It is his job to say those things
Steve
The stupid “chains” thing is almost an exact replay of the “lipstick on a pig” non-troversy from 2008. Only instead of sending one female Republican after another on TV to say how offended they are that Obama called Sarah Palin a pig, now they’re sending folks like Artur Davis to say how offended they are that Biden used a slavery metaphor. But it’s the same crap through and through. Good on the Obama campaign for treating the issue with the non-seriousness it deserves.
blingee
Just stick to shit you know Cole. Your fat cat and your mutt dog and what you cooked today and how it made your farts smell.
As if you have something important to say by reading some other backwoods blog and them posting your opinion.
Hill Dweller
Did Joyner mention the blatant race-baiting in the welfare and Medicare ads Willard is running? Willard’s campaign has used the words ‘robbed’ and ‘steal’ quite literally when lying about Obama.
This fake outrage about Biden is just an attempt to cover for their own dig-whistles.
Of course the worthless fucks in the media play right along.
Violet
The Democrats are finally fighting back and the Republicans and the media can’t handle it. I love it. The more scorched earth the Democrats can leave behind where Republicans used to be, the better.
AA+ Bonds
Why act like this hasn’t happened in election after election going back decades; why surmise that it somehow indicates a shift of purpose particular to the arc of the Obama administration
Isn’t that why Paul Ryan was hired? To knock Barack Obama in ways Mitt Romney “can’t”? Even Dick Cheney got out of his cave to knock John Kerry
spacewalrus
You’ll want to avoid Michael Gerson’s WashPo column then.
SPOILER: He’s severely sad that the President won’t eat the shit Republicans serve him. I’m almost certain he sprained something trying to put an ironic spin on ‘hope & change.’
Fk ’em.
kathy
egads, i can’t wait for the debates. full stop.
i must say this whole turn of events (since i woke on saturday morning) has been such a deeply pleasant surprise. ann romney realizing that she fucked up her life by letting hubs run for president. effing priceless. i’d like to bottle that.
it’s only going to get more nightmarish for republicans. i’m not saying game over, but i’m saying, WOW, the mask is slipping, and for serious.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Nom de Plume:
I’m not sure why else they’re so desperate to get Obama to dump Biden. Like I said, every Fox show was united in calling for Obama to dump Biden and nominate Hillary instead.
I doubt that they’re trying to be genuinely helpful, so I have to assume that they think Clinton would be an easier debate opponent than Biden.
AA+ Bonds
“The Democrats are fighting back” what do you think that they would somehow avoid a combative tone in the months leading up to a national election in which they could lose every branch of government
Suffern Ace
@Nom de Plume: It’s just an odd concern. I guess since Ryan is there they want to make Biden appear somehow “problematic.” I guess it’s part of the narrative they’ve been spinning the last four years-heck it actually started under Clinton- to make normal campaign and presidential behavior-even the mundane things-seem unusual and unprecedented. Very few voters were around the last time an incumbent changed his VP for a 2nd run.
Dems did this in 2004 with Cheney. But then I dont think anyone ever liked Cheney.
mechwarrior online
@smintheus:
I think they are trying to poison the public on Biden before the VP debates to help Ryan. Biden is widely loved, but does have a checkered history in some aspects, he’s also gaffe prone.
Biden slaughters Ryan for the common guy approach and as a Catholic. He’s also far more charismatic and experienced in debates. Obama could have been beaten one on one, but not by Mittens. Biden is every bit the charmer and happy warrior Obama is, in fact several times better. However Ryan is markedly better than Romney at not falling flat on his face at every chance.
They’ll wail on Obama, but that’s a losing game. I’d put money on the MSM turning this into a VP race fast.
different-church-lady
Y’all need to add some Willie Horton to your litany.
I’all need to add some gin to my bloodstream.
GregB
How outrageous of “Barack Mugabe” to try and keep his fellow Blacks on the liberal plantation.(This article was placed in Clown Hall the month after President Obama took office.)
This bitterness and vitriol and hatred must end.
Gex
Here’s the thing: there’s no respectable Republicans. Never were. The “respectable” ones were the ones that wanted the Birchers and the Bible thumpers invited in so they could win and get their vulture capitalism paradise. Of course they will decry the “tone” now. They’ve already proven they will stop at nothing to get their fucking tax cuts. If the racism and theocracy didn’t make them pause, pretending to get the vapors over tone is a piece of cake.
pseudonymous in nc
You know what? I will say that Biden invoked the rhetoric of slavery, because, like the rhetoric of FREEDOM™ and LIBERTY™ and WHERE’S MAH GUNZ®[1] the rhetoric of slavery and emancipation as a broad and continuing metaphor (metaphor! what’s a meta for?) is deeply embedded in the rhetoric of American fucking politics.
[1] Registered trademark of Wayne LaRocque and the NRA, all rights reserved.
dr. bloor
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Imagine their dismay when Martin O’Malley shows the nation that Paul Ryan is nothing but a shitstain weenie during the Veep debate.
mechwarrior online
@Gex:
Lincoln, Teddy, Ike… I mean, there were good ones.
Waynski
I was convinced that this election was best captured in the movie Blazing Saddles, for the reasons many of us have pointed out before. Hedley Lamar vs. Sheriff Bart. But it’s felt a little like Trading Places lately:
Winthorpe, “…and he was wearing my Harvard tie, like, oh sure, HE went to Harvard.”
I guess I still have to believe that it’s Lamar vs. Bart rather than Winthorpe vs. Valentine, but the shock that the Romneybot and his lovely wife Marie Antoinette are expressing that this “awful Negro” is meddling with Mitt’s turn is truly delightful.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@mechwarrior online:
Every Irish Catholic recognizes Crazy Uncle Joe. He’s the one who asks the questions at the family dinner that no one else is willing to ask, like, “Have you dumped that asshole boyfriend of yours yet?”
Outsiders call them “gaffes,” but we know what Crazy Uncle Joe is doing.
kathy
if they’re targeting joe biden, they are done. no one cares.
AA+ Bonds
How are the Democrats fighting back? They aren’t getting shit passed and they may lose both houses of Congress, they are holding position because the Republicans have the budget process hostage.
It is the Grover Norquist game plan to consolidate power in the federal legislature again. That guy has dumb as shit plans like all fascist non-Leninist ‘Lenin admirers’ but he is L. Ron Hubbard to his people and a lot of them are in Congress
MoeLarryAndJesus
.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@dr. bloor:
Yep. Biden is going to pwn Ryan before Ryan even knows what hit him.
I’m hoping for actual tears of rage from Ryan before the end, myself.
SatanicPanic
You rock Cole. Agree 100%. That is all.
piratedan
@Nom de Plume: well they have no idea on how good a speaker Obama is because whenever he begins to speak they cover their ears and make nonsense noises shouting we can’t hear you
Hill Dweller
Watching Colbert, he did a bit citing a People article on Willard and Eddie Munster, where both repeatedly told the readers how they loved policy. Ryan even claimed he listened to Voltaire books on tape. It came across as desperately needy.
Of course, Colbert was great when skewering the dynamic duo.
LT
Hey look, John Cole’s back. Where the fuck you been?
kathy
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
me thinks you are giving them too much credit. they are invoking HC to change the subject. as if! they don’t really think anyone gives a …. right?
different-church-lady
@Steve:
It’s getting to the point where I’m starting to wonder if we can make a one-for-one list of how this is playing out exactly like 2008. VP pick fires up base more than candiate? Check. Focus on VP’s starburst induction? Check. Nontroversy over turn of phrase? Check.
patroclus
Dodd-Frank is a comprehensive piece of legislation that does quite a lot to re-regulate the financial services industry in certain areas, and to regulate for the first time other aspects such as over-the-counter derivatives. To advocate the Act’s complete repeal, as Romney does, would, most certainly unchain the very actors who caused the 2007-08 financial crisis, which continues to bedevil the world economy. This would be utterly disastrous, and, in my view, would certainly “chain” everyone on Earth to its horrific ramifications.
Complete repeal of Dodd-Frank would obliterate the mandatory reporting of derivatives transactions to regulators, it would utterly destroy the push-out provisions which now prohibit federal assistance to swap dealers, it would annihilate the Volcker Rule, which seeks to restrict proprietary trading by FHC’s and their related banks of OTC derivatives and it would wreak havoc on regulators’ attempts to monitor actual bank capital positions, which is currently the international regulatory norm.
Anyone who advocates the complete repeal of Dodd-Frank is, in my view, an economic moron and, in my view, the use of the terms “chained” and “unchained” as descriptions of what pre-Dodd-Frank and post-Dodd-Frank banking law is completely appropriate. Mr. Joyner should read up on the law.
Now, Dodd-Frank is not perfect. Perhaps the definitions of “swap”, “swap dealer” and “major swap participant” should be massaged; maybe the pushout provisions regarding federal assistance to affiliates of FHC’s should be modified, maybe the regulatory oversight functions should better be allocated between the Fed, CFTC, SEC and OCC as to each respective FHC affiliate, maybe the capital rules need to be altered – but all of those would be amendments and changes; not full-blown repeal.
If Romney succeeds in repealing Dodd-Frank and eliminating all the oversight, we won’t be cringing at the use of the terms “chained” and “unchained” – we will experience a full-blown worldwide economic meltdown. I realize everyone’s eyes glaze over when specifics of banking law come up, but, in my view, it is utterly and completely irresponsible to advcoate for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. I think the discussion of this central aspect of Romney’s proposed policies has been tame – virtually any pejorative and inflammatory adjective is completely appropriate.
Nellcote
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
They’re hoping the PUMAs will rise up at the dem convention and install Hillary.
different-church-lady
@AA+ Bonds:
In the campaign. The campaign. By lobbing bombs before the other side does.
Hmmm… come to think of it, that puts a finer point on things. They don’t have the vapors because dems are fighting back, they have ’em because the dems are on the offensive for a change.
Bobby D
Cole, curious why OTB is your fave? I’d take LGF (which much like your site, went through a complete 180, it’s like bizarro world compared to 2004) over OTB.
Anyway, Mataconis just oozes slimeball, disingenuous, smarmy hackery to the extent I can’t stomach it.
different-church-lady
@Nellcote:
It’s neither — there’s no strategy to it beyond trash talking.
FlipYrWhig
The particularly amusing thing about the wailing and moaning about the Biden line is that the phrase, and concept, of “debt slavery” is quite familiar — and quite popular _on the right_ too.
I was trying to come up with a list the other day of the meanie mean-head things Democrats have done this time to trigger all these sad-face articles about tone, going out of my way to think like a Republican and find ways to take offense. So, we’ve had…
“never worked a day in her life”
“in chains”
And the ad about the guy’s wife dying because he lost his health insurance after Bain put his company under.
Are there big incidents I’m missing? “You didn’t build that” doesn’t even count as a nasty attack.
It sure doesn’t take much to make a Republican politician or pundit pull a moue, does it?
Jay in Oregon
@blingee:
Flirt all you want, but I don’t think you’re John’s type.
Suffern Ace
@mechwarrior online: But no one really cares about the vp debate. It’s a morbid affair, actually, where you interview the guy who is there if the president dies. Is Biden well liked? Well somewhere yesterday one of the TV folks told me that 40% had a favorable opinion, 37% unfavorable and 23 percent said “Who?” That’s kind of like democrats like him, republicans don’t and those who don’t follow politics don’t follow politics. That’s better than Palin, who had members of her own party as detractors.
Biden probably beats Ryan in favorability, but no one knows him yet. Chances are, they won’t. The VP candidate is one of those people who lots of people feel comfortabl not knowing about.
different-church-lady
@mechwarrior online:
And Teddy got alienated from ’em. Too progressive.
Jay in Oregon
@different-church-lady:
Barack Obama is sworn in in January? Check.
different-church-lady
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
Probably the smartest thing anyone has said on the internet all day.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I wish I could be surprised that “moderate” people in the U.S. are shocked and appalled at the “ugly tone”–or whatever phrase they cough up–of the 2012 race. But, as many have already written, these tender souls were nowhere to be seen or heard four years ago, or eight years ago or 12 years ago (anybody recall how eagerly the “moderate” souls who so confidently tell the rest of us what we should care about leapt upon the lie that Vice President Gore “invented the internet”?).
To go back to that 2000 race, I recall specifically that Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece in the Washington Post in which he, by then no longer practicing psychiatry, diagnosed Gore as having some serious personality disorder; I forget what it was exactly, but he more or less came out and said Gore was psychologically unfit to be president. Another “moderate”, “serious” writer, it might have been the late, unlamented Michael Kelly, wrote more or less the same thing that year.
Maybe these wilting flowers might want to look at their own side before weeping at the awful tone we’re seeing here. I know “He started it!” is seldom something a mother or father wants to hear, or cares about; but, come on, it’s still a valid defense when it’s true. When A hits B, and then B hits back, even if B hits a whole hell of a lot harder, it’s unfair to treat them both like they share the blame right down the middle.
AA+ Bonds
How about this: black people are in chains all over America because of the unfailing bipartisan support for locking up black men for nonviolent offenses
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Believe me, from personal experience, the “Catholic” part is irrelevant.
AA+ Bonds
How about this: people are in goddamned chains at Guantanamo Bay
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Maybe. In my experience, Protestants are less likely to air the dirty laundry at the dinner table. YMMV, of course.
handy
Actually OTB is one of the places on the innerwebs where the comments section are far better than the front page content (this place would be the other). It’s like the reverse Yahoo news.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): How about you just get it over with and call yourself “Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm”.
Shirt
Mataconis lost me on his first argument — the daisy add — which played only ONCE. Yeah I remember. Nobody wanted to give Goldwater the nuke keys thereafter.
Now, I asks ya’ if $Romney saw a profit in a nuke launch, would he do it?
Is the pope a nazi?
different-church-lady
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I’m thinking more… “When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might So when you go solo, you hold your own hand And remember that depth is the greatest of heights And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land And if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you’re right“
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
That would be too derivative. I like to come up with my own names.
different-church-lady
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
His name is my name too.
Waynski
@different-church-lady: Is this George Carlin’s seven dirty words in German?
different-church-lady
@Waynski: It’s German: that’s just one dirty word.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Waynski: No, it’s John Cleese’s.
RadioOne
The whole GOP plan is basically “Barack Obama is the Boogie Man. Please fear him!”
chuck butcher
I watched films of Joe Biden campaigning back when I was doing that sort of thing. The man is a master at retail politics, maybe not so much wholesale. A debate is much more in line with retail politics, the up close and personal aspect ought to work really well for him. He is witty and ascerbic with ease off the cuff. There is no concern this time around about him looking like a bully to a woman. I’ll be watching that debate.
Carl Nyberg
What is this “respectable Republican” you speak of?
I have Republican friends on Facebook and they occasionally get into discussions of politics and policy.
But these discussions are rude and non-serious about policy.
It’s a combination of changing the subject, regurgitating slogans, personal attacks and other tricks they learn from Right Wing media.
These people are afraid and confused. They’re looking for someone to blame.
But we need to beat them politically.
Martin
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Could be worse:
????????
TenguPhule
The difference between a high class call girl and a dock side tramp.
Thor Heyerdahl
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Or Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday (pops mouth twice) Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable (whinnying) Arthur Norman Michael (blows squeaker) Featherstone Smith (whistle) Northgot Edwards Harris (fires pistol, then ‘whoop’) Mason (chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff) Frampton Jones Fruitbat Gilbert (sings) ‘We’ll keep a welcome in the’ (three shots) Williams If I Could Walk That Way Jenkin (squeaker) Tiger-drawers Pratt Thompson (sings) ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ Darcy Carter (horn) Pussycat (sings) ‘Don’t Sleep In The Subway’ Barton Mainwaring (hoot, ‘whoop’) Smith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU
Lit3Bolt
The hilarious thing for me is James Joyner is a fucking political scientist. He’s supposedly studied this and read books about it and has written papers about it.
But y’know, boo hoo boo hoo, my chosen field of research is the most terrible thing ever, boo hoo, let the silent tear of the white man roll as he’s forced to watch black people voting.
Calouste
@mechwarrior online:
Ike begat Nixon, Nixon begat Cheney. That alone qualifies Ike for the bottom 5 Presidents.
asiangrrlMN
Pearls duly clutched, vapors duly had. I’ll give a shit when these so-called reasonable Republicans call out their own side for all the lying bullshit and over-the-top rhetoric they spew. Until then, game on.
priscianusjr
Not only was Biden’s statement a metaphor, but it was a reversal of Romney’s own metaphor.
So by that logic, Romney must think of Wall Street as a chattel slave, enchained by Obama, that he (Romney) needs to liberate.
I might point out to the Republicans that, umm, not everybody sees it like that.
priscianusjr
@Suffern Ace:
priscianusjr
@General Stuck:
John Weiss
Republicans lie? I need the fainting couch!
danielx
About
Fucking
Time.
Triassic Sands
I prefer to think of it as brought to us by Tony Scalia and Clarence Thomas. The personal touch, you know.
Triassic Sands
Joe Biden’s mouth is in the news again.
Imagine that.
Scott
I still can’t believe Milbank was the one to nail it the other day at WaPo.
All this gnashing of teeth is to be expected from Fox, but the rest of the media? Are they really so shocked that the Dems aren’t just rolling over on their backs and piddling on their tummies, that they actually want to KEEP their jobs by campaigning?
Obviously, the Romney campaign is going to continue to nutpick Obama’s and Biden’s speeches and disingenuously twist words and phrases until election day, no matter what is said. So, fuck’em.
John Kerry didn’t fight back. That is what disappointed me most about him. He had the truth on his side, and he let them steamroll him with lies. And he lost.
Also, too, Artur Davis(wtf, did they not have H’s where he was born?) I remember watching him on C-Span during a couple of meetings and being genuinely impressed with his ability. Now this Zell Miller shit?
Politicians…
kansi
The GOPers are addicted to outrage. Sadly, they have gotten the MSM to be their WAHbulance chasers.
Todd
@Scott:
I know that it is unlikely because the check is probably post dated till the day after his appearance, but I find myself wondering if it is a fake out by Davis to get a prime time slot to fuck with them from their own podium.
kindness
So….what does James Joyner got that is remotely redeeming? Seriously, if he & the other otb crew were living on the same planet as I am and really meaning his watb posts…the man is a whore in that someone is obviously paying him to spew his bile. Whore. They may mean it but that would mean they are alternate reality trolls who get paid to whine….about Democrats. Whore. Bad one too. No tip for you James & Doug.
The Ancient Randonneur
I say Nuke the Motherfvckers ’til they glow at night.
Steve
@Todd: Artur Davis ran against the health care law in 2010. If this is just a fake out to trick the Republicans, he’s playing a long game.
Ksmiami
You know what’s outrageous- that kids die in America from inadequate dental care and that the entire republican platform actually likes this outcome. So pardon me if they are getting vapors from the mean ole democrats. The repuke party and their useless media enablers deserve every bit of scorn dished out and we need to destroy their ideology before it destroys the us.
Nemesis
I find it endlessly entertaining when white folk the likes of the Snowbilly Grifter and other paid mouthpieces for the far right get the vapors over some assumed insult to the blah community.
Funny thing that, Ive not heard one single blah person come forward with outrage over Bidens comments. Michael Steele doesnt count.
Yeah, so now, all of a sudden, the far right gives a shit about the coloreds. My ass.
This is a staged dust up to try to take the focus away from the miserable rr campaign.
Bob2
Doug Mataconis is one of the worst people on earth though. He’s in McMegan territory.
I say that’s pretty negative points for Joyner.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Steve: Except I always thought the chains thing was a prisoner metaphor, not specifically a slave metaphor. If I was talking about slavery, I would be talking about a whip across the back, and selling your children.
danimal
Joyner did, however reluctantly, admit the GOP is more to blame for the ugly tone of politics. But Lord almighty, he gave a piss-poor equivalency argument and I wanted to smoke a cigarette after Cole crushed him in the comments. And I don’t smoke.
I keep reading OTB because they are as close as Republicans can get to sanity, and the comments are great. Imagine the BJ commentariat invading a right-wing blog and you have an idea of the hilarity that ensues.
I keep thinking it’s a matter of time before James Joyner follows John Cole and Charles Johnson in the “I was a right-wing blogger until I finally looked in the mirror” club. Mataconis is beyond help, though.
chopper
@Trentrunner:
i love how the party chock-a-block with conspiracy theories about vince foster, ‘clinton the communist’, ‘clinton the rapist’, ‘hillary the lesbian’, ‘obama the kenyan’, ‘obama the affirmative action hire’, death panels, UN black helicopters, the amero, ‘agenda 21’, as well as statements like ‘you lie’, ‘i want my constituents armed and dangerous on this issue’, ‘second amendment remedies’, crosshairs on gabby giffords, ‘moo-chele’ and god-knows how many racist-ass fucking photoshops of the president, is now complaining about ‘tone’.
chopper
also, who could forget ‘chelsea the white house dog’?
El Cid
I have had conservative coworkers trying to suggest to me that there have been uglier things said in this campaign (Biden’s comment for example) than “ever before”.
I laughed. I directly told them, “You’ve got to be kidding me — have you got amnesia? Did you wake up from a coma and never saw 1984 or 1988 or 1992 or 1996 or 2000 or 2004 or 2008? Did you forget the last couple of decades?”
This is entirely about Democrats playing aggressively.
And it’s still not the same.
The Democrats are saying MEAN THINGS WHICH ARE TRUE.
Republicans continue to say MEAN THINGS WHICH ARE NOT TRUE.
Yet our conservative-loving media see those two as the same when it’s time to complain about Democrats daring to suggest that Republicans might have done bad things and plan to do more bad things.
Steve
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I don’t know if it really has a specific meaning. But the argument here is that we know Biden was alluding to slavery because there were black people in the audience. People like Rand Paul can literally say the Affordable Care Act is just like slavery and nobody blinks, but that’s okay because he’s just trying to fire up white Republicans. With black people you’re not even allowed to use a metaphor that might be interpreted as relating to slavery, because shut up, that’s why.
tomvox1
Well there don’t seem to a lot “Heh, ineedy”s in that comment section for old JJ. Is our “Independents” learning?
FlipYrWhig
@El Cid: But, wait. I keep asking. What’s the exhaustive list of “ugly things” that have been said by Democrats in the course of the campaign? That only possibly makes sense if they count every ad about Bain as “ugly,” and has to include the “never worked a day in her life” thing, which was not said by anyone affiliated with the campaign. I really want to see their list of grievances here.
tomvox1
@Nemesis:
The GOP cares about non-whites in the same way they care about Medicare.
FlipYrWhig
@tomvox1: They think Democrats play the “race card,” so, to spotlight that, Republicans enjoy playing the “race card” card.
El Cid
@FlipYrWhig: “Mean things” just including entirely fair things (such as Romney’s Bain record) which nevertheless make Republicans look or feel bad.
Apparently the Democrats are never supposed to do or say anything, however true, which might cause Republicans to look like they have done anything seriously wrong or intend to do things which are seriously wrong.
So pointing out Romney’s Bain record — the record on which Romney said he was running — and pointing out that a lot of it was really, really bad stuff is mean and ugly because Romney and other Republicans don’t like it.
John PM
@Calouste: Exactly! I still don’t understand why Ike ran as a Republican. If he had run as a Democrat the world would be a very different place.
xian
@Nemesis: that’s not what they’re upset about. to them it’s anti-white racist sentiment because it accuses them of wanting to enslave a mixed-race crowd of non-Wall Street types.
1badbaba3
@asiangrrlMN: Testify, sister!
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
Hell, it was pretty much disowned by the campaign, wasn’t it?
1badbaba3
@The Ancient Randonneur: It is, after all, the only way to be sure.
slimslowslider
Just wanted to say I appreciate your comments over at OTB, Cole. That place can be maddening and it was great to see you. Joyner makes me sad. Purple Heart Band-aids is all I never need to know about the GOP forever.
jayjaybear
@different-church-lady: It would be nice if we could skip the “economy dives off a cliff” thing this time, though…
...now I try to be amused
@RadioOne:
In other words, “Barack Obama has fooled you for the last four years, but he’s not fooling us!” We’ll see how well that message works. It didn’t defeat Bush in 2004.
Zach
It’s not like it’s a huge leap to go back from Rick Santelli blaming the recession on poor, black (in his mind if not in reality) homeowners who were told that they could afford the homes they live in to plantation owners beating their slaves for a failed crop. It’s a pretty solid analogy, really. Wall St. made fistfuls of cash for several years by swindling people into buying and selling houses for too much money, then turned around and blamed those people for causing the problem in the first place.
nastybrutishntall
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Joe Biden don’t make no gaffes. Joe Biden makes *gold*!
Sasha
Also, considering the ad they decry was from a superPAC, the assertion that the Obama administration signed off on it is bullshit.
TG Chicago
@slimslowslider:
It also tells you a lot about the Dems. They should have fired back with guns a-blazin’ saying how disrespectful the Repubs were being for mocking our brave wounded warriors who have earned the Purple Heart. These men and women have been gravely hurt on the field of battle, and the GOP mocks their service by offering them a band-aid.
Rhetoric like that might have flipped the election. Instead Dems basically said “Nuh-uh!!” and cowered in a corner.
Anyway, back in the realm of the main topic, I agree that Mataconis is useless.
gex
@mechwarrior online: No. The people with the money have always had to be fought to make enough jobs, with living wages, safe working conditions, etc.
They were more civilized than the others, but they aren’t really any better. These were just the ones who want to avoid the tumbrels.
gex
Actually, this does a nice job of showing yet more racism. The right knows that white people have been enslaved in history too, right?
Right?
I mean, surely a political scientist would know that. And would know that talking about people in shackles really doesn’t have to be a specific reference to the African slave experience in America necessarily.
Right?
Or do chains = black people to him?
slimslowslider
@TG Chicago:
Agreed, which makes the Mataconis/Joyner tears so hilariously awesome.
Bob2
But don’t you see John, the only thing Republicans want to regulate is who can vote and when!
Definitely not guns.