I honestly have no idea what I want to do tonight. Read? Watch the boob tube? Game? Go out? Feh.
*** Update ***
Just heard Chris Matthews refer to this administration as the “egghead” administration because they are too smart and aren’t in touch with the common person’s emotions. I wonder what Luke Russert thinks?
Just found my evening plans- I’ll be drinking.
mclaren
Go Galt!
The Populist
Can somebody tell Matthews to STFU. He’s just so Jeckyll and Hyde with things.
I’d rather have a smart guy as president than an idiot who does harm because God told him to do it.
Chat Noir
Better the egghead administration than the previous dipshit administration.
calipygian
Obama may have lost Tweety (BFD), but if Caribou Barbie has lost Hi-Caliber….
Comrade Dread
Always a good plan.
I’m heading home to cook up some nice Italian food and enjoy a bottle of red.
If this nonsense keeps up, I’m seriously thinking of going to join the Amish and writing off the rest of humanity.
beltane
The Bush administration was stupid and out of touch with the common person’s emotions. Did that make them the sh*thead administration?
Sorry to break it to Matthews, but this country does not suffer from an overabundance of intelligence. We need smarter, not dumber, people in leadership positions in all areas of society, especially the media. (hint, hint)
Unabogie
Because if there’s one thing I think of when I see Chris Matthews, it’s “common person”.
To butcher Mamet, his hair costs more than my car.
robertdsc
More Tunch videos would be nice.
demkat620
Isn’t that White Collar show on tonight?
That’s my plan. That and a glass of wine.
r€nato
CollegeThe Village is like high school with ashtrays, money and power.Linkmeister
Obama looks nothing like Adlai Stevenson. And Tweety is no Stewart Alsop, who gave Stevenson the “egghead” nickname.
r€nato
I voted for Obama because he seemed like the kind of guy I could have a glass of Antinori 2005 Bolgheri Superiore Guado Al Tasso with.
John O
LOL, John.
I do believe Obama knows what it is like to live the low-life a bit more than most of our POTUS’, and by a mile more than our last one.
I’m with DougJ: We’re doomed.
MikeJ
Via ovicipitum dura est
Max
Common man is a white, doughy, catholic guy from Philly. Not “ethnic” folks, like Tweety likes to refer to them.
abo gato
I’m joining you. I’ve got a glass of 12 yo Old Pulteney. Making a salad for dinner. Trying to copy a salad we had last week at Angelo’s Coal Fired Pizza on 57th St in NYC. That salad was the shiznit, I’m tellin ya. The pizza was good too, but oh, that salad.
JK
The egghead comment was the tip of the iceberg for Matthews tonight.
In one segment, Matthews interviewed Steven Gillon, a historian and consultant for the History Channel. Gillon was on to discuss his new book about JFK’s assassination. In the book, Gillon recounts an anecdote from a general who said LBJ was in a bathroom crying hysterically after hearing about JFK’s assassination. Matthews doesn’t believe the general’s story and spent the segment bullying and badgering Gillon on how he could lend credence to it. It’s one thing to bully an evasive politician, but Matthews acted like an unbelievable scumbag in this segment.
Anoniminous
Stuff like this makes me realize how totally, completely, absolutely, eternally, and royally fucked we are as a country. We’ve got some serious shit to deal with and butt heads like
BeavisMathews are the gate-keepers to Public Debate?Linkmeister
John, if you’re thinking of reading but don’t have a large to-be-read list, we could start one.
Heh. I’m pushing Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti series, about a cop in Venice (Italy, not SoCal). There are 16 or 17 books, so there’s a large backlist to dig into.
demkat620
@JK: Tweety is just incoherent.
I don’t get his schtick. He’s not a racist like Dobbs but he’s got issues with women. Just kinda creepy issues.
valdivia
sorry didn’t Tweety laugh at Obama for ordering OJ at a dinner instead of coffee? and claimed it would cost him the nomination? These guys talk out of their asses all the time and know nothing.
Amy
But I thought MSBNC is the liberal equivalent of Fox.
R-Jud
@Max:
Yeah, I love that one.
My Aunt: “Well, you know, this Obama is just a little too ethnic to lead the country effectively.”
My Cousin: “Mom, you’re Irish. That’s ethnic, too.”
calipygian
How does Tweety spend his days I wonder? He gets up, brushes his teeth, gets a bowl of Cheerios, opens the Kaplan Daily…
But what else? Does he call up Mara Liaison and they trade bitchy gossip about Michelle Obama’s arms?
Exchange what passes for Village Bon Mots at a three martini lunch with Jake Tapper?
Yuk it up on the cell phone with Karl Rove while enjoying a triple grande mocha at the Starbucks at the corner of K and 18th?
Seriously, I’m morbidly curious.
abo gato
I’m changing the topic to ask this….if, by any chance, Palin and Beck (Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t believe I am actually typing that) could be elected or steal the election in 2012, where are other people thinking about moving to? I told my husband we are leaving the country. Anyone have any good suggestions?
Shawn in ShowMe
Let’s say it’s true. I’d be curious to know if he was reacting out of a profound sense of lost or because the people who did it scared him to death.
calipygian
Does your aunt read the Moonie Times or is that sentiment just a lot more widespread than I believed to be humanly possible?
El Cid
Remember, the way Chris Matthews envisioning sidling up to the ‘common’ American is to basically tell them that they’re stupid and like stupid people.
Thank God, Bush Jr. overdid the ‘stupid and proud’ of it and was associated with such horrific result that I really don’t think outside the pundit class and the 27% of right wing medievalists in this country the “I like him ’cause he’s stupid, like me, like my diddy was” is as good a seller any more.
calipygian
@abo gato:
I wouldn’t move anywhere. I’d just sit down in front of the White House, pour a can of gasoline over myself and set myself on fire.
JK
@demkat620:
Chris Matthews is an egomaniacal scumbag who thinks he knows more about politics than any other person in America. He’s doing everything he can to dumb down cable news.
Chuck Butcher
I’m going to be playing Assassin’s Creed II and not with good will. I got it at the release date (Tue) and advanced nicely, playing many of the side stories/exercises and have built a pretty capable character. I am now stuck in an Assassin’s Tomb faced with a new required move and a time limit and a return to start on failure. And I’m failing. Lots.
Secondarily, it is a really cool game, graphics are excellent and the story developement is good. Some Assassin’s Creed story elements are better explained and sort of resolved (I’m nowhere near done). The character’s abilities are expandable in a more reasonable fashion and there are better and more extensive secondary story/exercise elements.
This is the final Tomb assignment and should be the hardest but damn it the inability to personally save is really starting to piss me off. I probably should go find a kid to get me out of this…
Liberty60
Reading Glenn Greenwald’s article about the audit on the Fed; no opinion on that yet, but it is interesting that Alan Grayson was a spnsor; I am getting to like this guy more and more.
Specifically, (and my toss out to the rest of you) is what one commenter said after his “Die Quickly” remarks on the House floor- something to the effect that the his comments were shocking because no one has ever heard liberals speak in such clear, morally certain terms, at least since the Civil Rights struggles of the 60s.
I realized how right they were- I can be in another room and hear someone talking on tv, and even if i can’t make out the words, I can tell if it is a conservative or liberal talking head.
The conservatives speak in forceful certainties; powerful images, hyperbole, language that reaches people.
Liberals always sound like policy wonks; numbers, percentages, surveys, verbal footnotes, like they are presenting a masters thesis in arcane social movements in East Anglia during the Crimean War.
I am thinking this is why liberals- or as they were called in another age- Moderates- can’t get traction. There is a tremendous well of anger over the Wall Street outrages, over seeing our economy collapse and our elected representatives fork over the national Treasury to the very thieves who did it; and yet it is Sarah Palin who is tapping into this, Glenn Beck who is feeding from it.
The only moderate person who speaks in these terms is Keith Olberman, and I hear even liberals sound embarassed at his rhetoric. But I think there is a place for that kind of fiery speech, to bring clarity and force to the issue.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Maybe Matthews is trying to get on the Daily Show, and he thinks getting fired is the only way to do it.
Shawn in ShowMe
Tweety is the self-proclaimed spokesman for the “common man”. If only these women today knew their place, like Edith Bunker.
slag
Question: When people share stuff with you in Google Reader, and you click the “Ignore” button, do they know it?
JK
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Whether one believes this account of LBJ’s reaction to the news of JFK’s assassination or not, it’s an interesting topic worthy of a civil discussion. But nooooo (h/t John Belushi), Chris Matthews acts like an assistant DA grilling a murder suspect. Steven Gillon didn’t deserve to be treated like a criminal or a whackjob and Matthews should burn in Hell for being an asshole and polluting our culture.
CynDee
@r€nato: Ditto! (Do people still say ditto? I guess the right word is “That.”)
That.
slag
@CynDee: I believe the word you are looking for is “This”.
Tattoosydney
“I’m getting married in the morning, ding dong the bells are gunna chime…”
Well, in the evening actually….
Shawn in ShowMe
@calipygian
Can I have your room? I might be homeless by then.
HRA
@abo gato:
The tip of Alaska closest to Russia.
abo gato
@calipygian
Ouch! I might be nuts, but that is NOT on the agenda. I’d much rather leave.
slag
BWAHAHAHA! Senators from Utah say the darndest things.
Linkmeister
@Tattoosydney: Congratulations, best wishes, enjoy the ride!
fraught
Luke Russert is thinking that he has absolutely no idea what to do tonight. Read? Watch the boob tube? Game? Go out? Feh! Only he thinks Feh has something to do with Uh… fehllaycio. At least that’s what they told him in Buffalo.
He’s also thinking that Chuck Todd never graduated from college and he so did and maybe, just maybe, he could like, get his dad’s old job.
Maude
@Linkmeister: #19, I love her books. Have you read any Charles Todd? I am reading some of them again.
Anoniminous
@Liberty60:
Very good points.
I went to the Albuquerque rally for Kerry back in whenever-it-was 2004. The pre-speech atmosphere was electric. From my perspective the crowd was starving for some fired-up rhetoric. We wanted to hear him come out swinging. We wanted inspiration and the hope that springs from inspiration. I had the same sense-of-the-moment I had back during the Kennedy days.
Instead we got Senator Casper Milquetoast.
Par for the course, alas. Don’t know why. Lousy communication prep? Ignorance? Too scared/gun shy/apprehensive?
I also see and hear (and feel, for that matter) the anger you pointed-out. That anger is going to be harnessed … by someone. One reason Huckabee worries me is I get the sense he is starting to tap into it with his jive-ass “Shucks, jist folks” mannerisms. If the Obama administration and the Dem Party, in general, don’t start doing things to deflate this anger there is going to be hell to pay.
Long and the short of it: the country needs jobs, the only entity that can create jobs in the short term is the Federal government, the only way the FedGov can afford to do it is by raising taxes on the only people who can afford to have their taxes raised: the upper 5% and the FIRE industries who are – almost – the only industries making profits these days.
All of which requires a spinal cord.
Linkmeister
@Maude: No, I don’t think so. I’ll look him up.
SpotWeld
That’s like complaining that Cpt. Sully is a horrible pilot because he’s all elite and spent all that time during the emergency focused on flying the plane rather than being dramatic and shouting sound bites over the radio for the benefit of the media panicking on shore.
Robin G.
My friends and I are mid-Going Rogue-drinking game. Five pages and we’re already hurting.
Linkmeister
@Maude: Todd’s website says he’s got a new series which immediately reminds me of Jo Walton’s Farthing, Ha’Penny, and Half-a-Crown novels. Walton’s books are alternate history post-WW2 Britain, a Britain which made peace with Hitler. They’re cozy mysteries.
Maude
@Linkmeister: The first book is Test of Wills. It is a mother and son team. The first few books just said that he lived on the east coat. The main character is Ian Rutledge, a vet of WWI and haunted. He’s at Scotland Yard.
I’d suggest that the Pentagon read the series and perhaps they could wraps their heads around post traumatic. I can’t believe that after all of the wars, they can’t figure this out. They send people into three kinds of hell and expect what exactly? After WWI, there were about 11,000 British vets in insane asylums.
Well, I’m tired and have ranted enough for the day.
WereBear
@Tattoosydney: Congrats! May you both live long and prosper.
Oh, the shrill thing:
Put me on record as never, ever being bothered by Keith Olbermann being passionate about something he cared deeply about. Yes, when they do they, they are called shrill.
So I think we should all do it, because it scares wingers.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Aw, honey! It’s the big day. I am so happy for you. I hope you’re feeling much better. And, I think this is apropos for you.
Elton John.
PICTURES!
P.S. Give your real hubby-to-be a biiiiig hug from me, your fake-wifey!
P.P.S. Wanna donate a lung to me?
asiangrrlMN
@calipygian: I hate you for posting this link. But, as I always say, I hate myself more for clicking it. At least I didn’t watch the video.
erinsiobhan
I’ll drink with you. Cheers.
asiangrrlMN
One more thing: I am ecstatic to have a president who can use multisyllabic words and pronounce them properly! If that makes me an elitist–so fucking be it.
centigrade.baby
drinking is fun as are people who know how to use multisillabic words. btw labbat’s blue is teh awesome.
Mark S.
Oh, for Christ sake, I didn’t realize Palin claimed in her book that she was partially responsible for Exxon finally paying damages for the Valdez:
1. The Supreme Court almost surely didn’t read that brief.
2. Nobody considered the decision a victory for the plaintiffs.
3. From the article, “That is the most cockamamie bullshit,” said Dave Oesting of Anchorage, lead plaintiff attorney in the private litigants’ civil case against Exxon and its successor, Exxon Mobil Corp. “She didn’t have a damn thing to do with it, and she didn’t know what it was about.”
HyperIon
@Liberty60: The only moderate person who speaks in these terms is Keith Olberman, and I hear even liberals sound embarassed at his rhetoric
a bit too puffed up IMO
Hann1bal
I saw a car tonight that had some sort of lighting panels fixed so that they shone down on the road. And it was in that moment that I realized why one might support soshulism.
Seriously, if we all drove utilitarian, environmentally friendly cars, we would save tons of money that could go to better purposes than some douchebag’s “bling”.
And if the choice comes down to that douchebag’s Pimped-Out Ride O’ Capitalism or better schools through Evil Soshulism, then you might as well call me Comrade and get it over with.
I know that by even suggesting that capitalism may have any faults, I will now be persona non grata with those wonderful Randroids at Reason and the lovely capitalists over at Fox Noobs, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
/rant
Hann1bal +nothing but anger
Anne Laurie
@demkat620:
Chris Matthews is an Irish(American) Catholic from a generation (the last generation, I sincerely hope) that still enforced the 400+-year-old birth control tradition — namely, training young boys to be terrified of women. The Irish in ‘modern’ history have the highest average male age for first marriage of any European society, because the only way they could think of to keep family size below starvation levels was by delaying marriage until the happy couple were past their most fertile years. As with all social evolution, the original attempts to keep teenagers from spawning grew increasingly refined, and baroque, until the customs had lost all social utility and ended up creating a caste of sad, creepy, would-be-jovial “perennial batchelors” incapable of dealing with women on any level because they’ve been so inculcated with semi-conscious terror of the ladybits and their dreadful, seductive, mysterious effects. They can come off as closeted gays, and certainly some of them are more comfortable with homosexual activity because it doesn’t involve body-parts-they’re-not-comfortable-with, but a lot of the Chris Matthews (and Tim Russerts, and Jack Welch, who gave these Bhoyos their first jobs in media) are straight guys who just take the vagina-fear to a new & publicly embarrassing / toxic level.
mellowjohn
linkmeister @ 19…
signorina elettra should run the world!
Anne Laurie
@Tattoosydney: CONGRATULATIONS! ! !
(And I hope you’re too busy, and happy, to see this. May you enjoy many happy & prosperous summers together!)
keestadoll
@Robin G.: what are the drinking words?
Sentient Puddle
My suggestion is to watch the live feed for the Desert Bus For Hope charity.
mandarama
@Tattoosydney:
Congratulations! Hope it all goes beautifully.
mandarama
@Tattoosydney:
Congratulations! Hope it all goes beautifully.
mandarama
@mandarama:
Dammit. FYWP. Or, Tattoosydney, just consider yourself doubly congratulated.
OGB
Black Label and Lost for me.
I’ve been working on a theory lately; namely that the popularity of reality TV has a direct correlation with the rise of figures like Sarah Palin.
When the masses are subjected to hours upon hours of garbage stimulation (and in this I include things like American Idol, The Bachelor(ette), The Real Housewives of Wherever, Jon and Kate, The Biggest Loser, etc), our collective expectations have been lowered to such a degree that anything outside of petty bickering and monosyllabic sentences seems like so much highbrowed elitism.
I read an interview with Reagan from 1975 on Reason’s website the other day, something Dave Weigel linked out from his Twitter (not sure how I ended up on DW’s Twitter). Now, I was pretty young when Reagan was president, and I know from personal experience that his policies on mental health funding pretty much put my schizophrenic mom on the street, but at least the man was coherent (at least he was in 1975) and had done some serious thinking and reading in support of his beliefs. And I say this even though his beliefs were all but opposite of my own.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
/half-drunken rant
SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta
@abo gato: Mr Screaming would move to Ireland in two seconds if I gave the green light.
I’m for anywhere that has national healthcare and civilization.
But if things get that bad (Palin/Beck), I think it’s just time to off myself.
SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta
@Liberty60: Olbermann loses respect from me with his adolescent taunting of O’Reilly and other idiots beneath his notice. It reduces the moral strenth of his message.
bedtimeforbonzo
I suppose it’s much easier to criticize Chris Matthews than President Obama.
Matthews is great at overstating and stating things awkwardly. But I think there is something to the general point he was making and hope Democrats and liberals recognize it and stop praying at the altar of Saint Obama.
This is the administration of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, the administration of Goldman Sachs.
This administration relates to the needs of Goldman and Wall Street and, thus, was quite effective and quick to do what it took to keep their businesses on solid footing, and back on the road to riches, without restrictions or reform.
It does not relate to the one in 10 homeowners who are behind on their mortgages, some of them surely to move into a more dreaded statistical grouping — foreclosure.
One in 10 Americans are out of work.
This administration — President Obama — has done a piss poor job of relating to them.
Go ahead and laugh at Chris Matthews. But lose your your home or lose your job, and I assure you the jokes won’t be as funny.
gbear
But we’ll still be able to laugh at you.
mk3872
Don’t you find Matthews’ rant the classic DC insider pundit crap?
Idiots like Matthews cannot STAND having a president in the WH who is smarter than they are and who refuses to play the DC parlor games they all love so much like putting symbolism (Matthews also nailed Obama for bowing) and quick decisions (can’t blink) over nuanced intricate decision making, you know, like going to friggin’ war!!
Linkmeister
@mellowjohn: I’m in the middle of “Sea of Troubles,” and she’s off on her own on Pellestrina. I’m worried. She’s a secretary, not a cop!
Jeff Fecke
One in 10 Americans are out of work.
This administration—President Obama—has done a piss poor job of relating to them.
Um…I don’t care how Obama “relates” to me. I care that he runs the government properly. One might recall that Obama initially proposed a larger stimulus plan because he thought that would be necessary to spur job creation — and that the villagers freaked out, because it might add to the deficit, unlike Iraq, which was funded by the magic pony that we’re sure to find if we keep digging.
I’ve had a regular guy president who I could have a beer with. He turned out to be as competent as your average drunk at the corner of the bar. I’ll take the “egghead,” thanks.
(Incidentally, I might agree with you on Geithner and Summers, but Tweety was all but fellating Geithner for saving Wall Street earlier this year. The village loves Geithner. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he’s Obama’s mistake alone.)
Father Time
do you guys remember when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier? Tweety went on and on and on about how manly and strong Bush looked in his costume. He drooled.
Of course the entire charade blew up in bush’s face – the stunt and the “mission accomplished” banner are permanent albatrosses.
But not for Tweety.
Nick
@bedtimeforbonzo:
No, but his cramdown program that got rejected by the “Real Americans” in the US Senate last spring did.
Is this similar to the general point he made 10 months ago about how liberals are going to have to give up and compromise with conservatives?
Anonymous visitor from Sadly, No!
they are too smart and aren’t in touch with the common person’s emotions.
So empathy is a Good Thing again? I didn’t get that e-mail.
joe from Lowell
When is Luke Russert going to interview Levi Johnson?
That’s some must-see tv right there.
bedtimeforbonzo
“I’ve had a regular guy president who I could have a beer with. He turned out to be as competent as your average drunk at the corner of the bar.”
I’m done praising, or being thankful for, President Obama because he is not George Bush.
It’s time his presidency and his programs stand on their own merit.
It’s time he and his administration started creating jobs and stop telling us things are better because we are losing less jobs — a 500,000 job loss in a month is not better, no matter what spin you put on it.
It’s time he and his administration stem the foreclosure crisis, time they come up with something better than the Hope for Homeowners program, a voluntary program that the mortgage companies, sitting on taxpayer money, ignored.
Hope doesn’t pay the bills or put foot on the table. Hope doesn’t pay the mortgage or stop a foreclosure.
Obama and his administration took care of Wall Street, stopped it from imploding, and are now watching many of the same banks that took our money report record earnings.
Granted, creating jobs is a challenge, one reason why it may have been wise to put off reforming health care (and, if we get a bill, will it be reform?).
But Obama and his administration were holding the cards that would have pressured mortgage companies and banks into real mortgage/foreclosure relief. Giving away those cards was flat-out dumb or simply the clearest sign to date that they are in bed with Goldman and Wall Street.
bedtimeforbonzo
@gbear: You can’t be serious. Are you laughing at people who have lost their jobs and the homes?
Nick
@bedtimeforbonzo:
We haven’t been losing 500,000 jobs a month since about April.
Tried in March, Senate rejected it, Republicans and villagers went batty. Remember Rick Santelli screaming on TV “Are you listening President Obama?” about how they didn’t want taxpayers bailing out foreclosed homeowners?