We are but an hour away from death panels and killing granny, and Megan McCardle is in full-fledged meltdown mode:
One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator. But it’s also pretty worrying. Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances. Farewell, social security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected. If they didn’t–if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission–then the legislative lock-in you’re counting on wouldn’t exist.
I’m beyond snark. Just go point and laugh.
dmsilev
I’m confused. I thought majorities were supposed to be able to pass laws?
-dms
kommrade reproductive vigor
We need to take up our pitchforks and torches and sort out the mad scientist who is removing eight years of these poor saps’ memories.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill.
If, by “the country”, you mean a minority of poll respondents?
Jim
Whenever Sullivan tries to press his readers to subscribe to the mag, he should know…
Napoleon
I am absolutely not renewing my Atlantic subscription and am going to write them about her.
gbear
She is somewhat lacking in the self-awareness department.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I don’t think Megan has thought this quite through as viable political strategery for her side.
I love it when they thrash around and the spittle sticks to their keyboards.
b-psycho
I thought the job of anyone in congress, regardless of party, was, barring a principled fit of conscience, to represent their constituents?
/naiveidealist
unabogie
Um, didn’t we just watch Bush and his cronies do exactly this?
They passed a huge tax cut for millionaires with a 50-50 vote.
They instituted torture, illegal wiretapping, and the Unitary Executive, all in contradiction to the majority public opinion.
Certainly went against my conscience!
MikeJ
So Democrats being more concerned about the country (i.e. “Country First”) than their reëlection chances is bad.
Some Guy
Egad, classic. “Farewell, social security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected.” No reference to the actual effects of these policies. Just some stiff upper lip, shitty system stuff.
I wonder what Republicans could do if there was no democracy? Yes, Republican kamikaze legislators! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that yet! Now there is interesting counter-factual.
OK, no it is isn’t but McCardle isn’t interesting either. Her predictability is something of a wonder.
AkaDad
[points and laughs]
sven
Megan, Republicans are welcome to use the Democratic model to eliminate Medicare!
Step 1: Win the presidency and historic majorities in the House and Senate by campaigning specifically on elimination of Medicare.
Step 2: Adopt a plan for “Medicare Reform” composed largely of Democratic proposals from the last two decades.
Step 3: Publicly debate the specifics of the plan for 14 months prior to passage. (note: 10 months of this must be spent in good faith negotiations with Democrats who are swearing to block the same bill)
Step 3a: During the entire process dozens of interest groups must claim that “Medicare Reform” will be composed entirely of ground-up puppies.
Step 4: Pass the major elements through the Senate with a super-majority.
Step 5: Pass modifications to the bill using a simple majority of both houses.
If Republicans succeed in eliminating Medicare after completing each of steps 1-5 I hereby swear that I will accept the process as legitimate and in no way undermining the Great American Political Process.
P.S. I am fairly certain your column violated David Brooks’ intellectual property rights and do not be surprised if you hear from his lawyers.
rob!
Dear God she’s an idiot. I’m fairly dim, too, where’s my cushy job at The Atlantic?
Btw, has anyone read Sully’s blog in the last two days? There hasn’t been a single mention of HCR or what’s been going in DC. Its like the blog is doing re-runs or something. Weird.
The Moar You Know
Did she not live in this country between the years 2000 through 2008?
I have a brick in my backyard that is more aware of what’s going on than she is.
RSR
blah
Some Guy
@AkaDad: [giggles and nods]
Veteran, Great War of Yankee Aggression
McArdle is auditioning for the post of America’s Concern Troll.
O/T, a tweet from Loretta Sanchez:
@LorettaSanchez Getting many, many calls from constituents leading up to tonight’s vote. Thank you for taking time to make your voices heard. I’m listening!
I’m not saying it WASN’T Rahm’s Penis of Doom; but I hope my phone calls had some effect.
Omnes Omnibus
She just is not very bright, is she?
eric
blackity, black, dark, dangerous, blackity, black, dark, blacker than blackity, black, apocalyptic, dangerous, terrifying.
In the South, there is just one word for what McMegan and her ilk really want to say…..
exactly.
South of I-10
I have read alot of stupid crap today, but McMegan wins. So what else is going on? I had to actually play with/feed/bathe the child. Vote hasn’t happened yet, right?
TR
Utter bullshit. The last Gallup poll was 45-48.
It’s not just that her views are contemptible. Her grasp of basic facts is pathetic.
nepat
Hmm. Lying, obstructing, misrepresenting, propagandizing, distorting, fear-mongering, and voter-manipulating now count as Republicans doing their jobs. Pointing. Laughing.
Ed in NJ
This is going to be so much fun to watch.
Every Republican politician and pundit of note is going to hand Democrats a treasure trove of hypocrisy that will be thrown back in their faces until the end of time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Do you think the dingbat knows that Paul Ryan has put this into a legislative proposal, and Republican leadership couldn’t run away fast enough?
McMegs, since none of your friends will explain it to you, I will: Very few Republicans actually agree with this kind of Libertarian piffle, maybe seven or eight in both houses. They use it to rile up Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and spoiled suburban children who grow up to be Libertarian bloggers.
jwb
If McIdiot is right and the country in fact largely doesn’t want this, then the Goopers will triumph in November, take the Presidency in 2012, and repeal the law. The whole fucking reason that the Goopers couldn’t touch Social Security is because the elected Goopers knew they’d be voted out of office if they killed social security.
Cat Lady
Just… wow. We’re only just a little over a year into the Reign of Obama, too. Where can they go from here, when they’ve already gone?
TR
Right. Followed by R.I.P., Republican Party.
SiubhanDuinne
Not about McMegan, but I would like to hope that during the final vote and post-vote discussion, Keith might drop by the MSNBC studios. He has been amazing on this topic during the past months of his father’s final illness. I hope he gets the chance to do a victory lap tonight, however bittersweet it may be.
In the meantime, I’m sticking with C-SPAN. Don’t want to listen to Shuster or Buchanan or any of them, unless Keith (or Rachel, of course) shows up.
We’re going to do it! We’re really going to PTDB!
demo woman
fixed.. not sure if it makes sense but what the heck.
eric
@jwb: I am pretty sure she must mean Canada is the country that does not want this health care bill…..not sure what else she could mean in light of the polling data her own magazine has published.
MikeJ
McMegan still has a blog somewhere? Who knew?
Lisa K.
What a fucking hysterical, cynical liar. When did a 45% minority become the ENTIRE COUNTRY? And what about the part where, once the idea of death panels are taken out of the equation, a significant majority APPROVES of the actual tenets of the bill?
I hate that wingnut McArdle, and I actually detest everybody at the Atlantic with the exception of James Fallows.
Ed in NJ
Who will be 2012’s Alf Landon? Please let it be Caribou Barbie.
Dennis G.
Well, I for one, will miss her humor as she goes galt and denies us her comedic stylings.
It is always sad to lose a clown…
Brachiator
Between the lies, subterfuges, fake polls, teabagger meltdowns, empty GOP promises to come up with alternative plans, and batshit crazy demands that Congress start over with health reform, I missed where the Republicans persuaded anybody of anything. Also, too.
mcd410x
@Cat Lady: Remember the Clinton years? There’s always more.
DonBoy
And these are the same fucking people who, if you bring up the Electoral College, give you their condescending “You see, because of the genius of the Founders, we don’t have a democracy, my simple child, but a republic.” But now, I guess the last special election rules all.
(Also, a lot her her complaint is that my Congressman did not listen to the complaints of other Members’ constituents.)
Mark S.
@TR:
I would guess a poll for the elimination of Social Security and Medicare would come out 10-90, and I might be overestimating the popularity of it. So it’s a good analogy, McMegan,
Some Guy
“And that mattered basically not at all.” Just noticed the possibly most delusional aspect of the quote. Did not matter? If that were true this shite would have been done last summer. It mattered hugely and it mattered in all the ways Republicans wished it wouldn’t – much as I was miffed, Republicans look like childish, dishonest, nimrods who are startlingly happy with violent zealotry. Because they thought fucking kids over with chronic conditions, for instance, would save the republic.
No it mattered not all all to listen to these fucks spew their hatred. Someone might have realized the McCardle is an apologist for unspeakable stupidity and meanness if it had mattered.
A couple fucks for mistermix.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
@Cat Lady: Throwing on the white hood and robe and refusing to take it off even when it is really dirty. Carrying that burning cross everywhere is going to be a challenge…
jl
Oh boy. I hope they do that. I hope MM has inside info.
I just can’t wait for the GOP to run on a platform of destroying social security and Medicare!
Looks like the Wonkette endorsed ‘smartest money-demon death-corporatist Republican in galactic history’ will do just that Ryan, Brian, whatever, will do just that.
jeffreyw
Toby has been following the debate, but I’m afraid it broke him.
FlipYrWhig
I’ve been surprised by how persistent the Myth Of The Wildly Unpopular Bill has been. People at many different points on the spectrum keep carrying on like it was polling at 25% or something.
Some Guy
@Ed in NJ: nice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just checked Wiki to see if McMegs grew up in Fairfield county or the Philly mainline, imagine my surprise to learn she is a nativer NYC. I’ll bet Manhattan, near the park. Anway, what I was really surprised to learn is that she is the blogger fka “Jane Galt”. I knew she was a glibertarian, I didn’t know she was a full metal Randian.
LT
I’ve had too much bourbon to process that properly.
martha
Poor McMegan. Still won’t eat the Shit Taco that is being on the losing side in a democratic election.
And, I want somebody to invent a Mute button that automatically mutes when R’s get up and speak on C-span and unmutes when D’s speak. That is all.
Genine
See, it’s a simple rule. It’s “the tyranny of the minority” when Republicans are in power and “the tyranny of the majority” when they are now.
It’s selling your grandchild’s future to spend $940 billion over 10 years for health care, but it’s fiscal conservatism when you spend $940 billion in ONE year to blow shit up.
You’re a God-fearin’ Patriotic American when you threaten to assassinate the (Democratic) President and start a civil war, but to protest a war and say the (Republican) President is wrong is treason and simply beyond the pail.
If you keep these rules in mind, everything makes sense in a nonsensical kind of way.
freelancer
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Funny thing about that number…
Polish the Guillotines
I swear on Thor’s hammer, this rank ignorance of a) American history, b) knowledge of the Constitution, and c) some other third thing just pisses me off.
McMoran makes me want to punch the dudes from Rush in the kidneys for recording 2112.
Can we please change the tag “glibertarian” to “losertarian”?
+1
Cat Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No one’s a full metal Randian unless they’re living in Somalia. Otherwise they’re just full of shit.
MTiffany
Where the hell was Megan McCuntface when the Republicans were in charge of EVERYTHING from 2001 – 2007? Dissembling whore.
fucen tarmal
it still comes back to the talking backwards thing…
if what she were saying were true, and the democrats were flinging themselves in the potomac, she and all other gop-sympathizers would be partying like it was 1799.
obviously the gop is unhappy with the political ramifications, they stopped giving a damn about policy some time ago. remember, they are the party who believes the government can only screw things up, and they elect people who will prove them correct. so we can assume that the political calculus is that this bill will mean their years of relative doom and gloom are likely to continue.
heaven forbid they didn’t screw things up enough to be unfixable, last time they could do what they want.
preaching to the choir, but its important to touch back, before the post passage spin envelops us all.
Robin G.
@The Moar You Know: I was about to say the exact same thing.
McMegan, I’d like to introduce you to something known as the spring of 2003…
R. Porrofatto
The vast majority of the country has been in favor of universal health insurance for years, but Megan never mentioned it then. How odd. Of course, those where the heady days of bipartisanship and minority rights encouraged by the fair-minded Trent Lott, Tom DeLay and Bill Thomas.
Napoleon
@rob!:
I have not, but some others have mentioned this. I personally don’t think this should be though of a weird. To me as of 5pm Friday HCR is on its own trajectory, like a missile, and there is nothing you can do to change it. It feels funny to say this, but maybe he is not going to be obsessive like us and simply is waiting for the result.
jl
Assuming that this partly very good, and partly very bad, healthcare reform bill works, or that it falls apart slowly enough so that we can fix it up before the shit hits the fan (the second option is what we have in store for us),
then that will make three third rails of US Politics.
So, we have six rails?
We will need a political rail counting commission.
Maybe they can get the stupid fraudulant bogus deficit commission to do that, instead of wasting everyone’s time spewing dangerous nonsense.
Edit: oops, FIVE rails. See, we need a commission.
scav
my sides hurt from da giggle. Ah now, the tyranny of the majority and the fear of the next president rears it head. . . EO EO Eeek!
Some Guy
@Cat Lady: Full metal Randian is awesome. Well done.
cs
From the Free Republic:
This bill, even if it had really contained provisions for sending grandma off to the FEMA death camps, was worth it if only to finally see the fear in their eyes.
And if you’re watching CSPAN, this image really sums it all up.
Andrew
She’s why I didn’t renew my Atlantic subscription.
Quaker in a Basement
Wait. Wait.
McArdle says Dems shouldn’t pass this bill because if Republicans were in the same boat, they’d repeal social security, only they wouldn’t really because they’d rather get reelected by people who…oppose…social…
Damn! I thought I had it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Genine: I can see clearly now…
freelancer
@rob!:
Heh. It’s like the weekend of the Iranian election last June, only this time, he’s playing the role of CNN.
me
@freelancer: The crazification factor appears again. It’s like π, showing up everywhere.
Some Guy
If only minorities could rule in peace. Very small minorities. Like oligarchies, autocracies, or monarchies even. There would be a fine world.
Cervantes
And yet she apparently thinks “no recourse to” and “no respite from” are synonymous.
Yutsano
@Dennis G.: Yes, but ten clowns are just waiting for
her wingnut welfarethe chance to be the next Megan. I was trying to think of a good comparision in the animal kingdom, but that would be unfair to whatever critter I chose.The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
If only the Democrats had passed a Republican bill, we could have had bipartisanship!
And Another Thing...
Somebody please strangle Lawrence O’Donnell…ok, we’ll accept a muzzle. Just STFU Larry. And yes, Megan is a stone cold idiot.
flounder
What I was going to say.
As to the actual Social Security vote McArdle wants Republicans to theoretically have, in 2005 Bush acted like Jesus had given him 51% or so of the vote to destroy it, and I think Republican pollsters might have actually found his privatization scheme was running at 25% or so support and other elected Republicans gave it the old Sir Robin treatment. I bet if it was at 45% support like health care, it (esp. with seniors), they would have gone for it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Forgot my link.
JCT
That is just staggering– WTF?
How do these people make a living when they are completely incapable of any coherent thought?
And I agree with The Moar You Know– it’s like the Bush years have disappeared into a black hole.
Some Guy
@Quaker in a Basement: It is like watching a cat juggle clouds juggling flowers. Exactly.
SiubhanDuinne
@jeffreyw #42:
Wow, that is some fancy photoshopping you did there! I *never* would have thought of splicing together two different pictures to get that unusual effect. Well done!
(Shorter SiubhanDuinne: Mmm . . . twisted kitteh)
Parole Officer Burke
Obligatory mention of Ta-Nehisi Coates and James Fallows as good reasons to continue to frequent the Atlantic website.
That is all.
inkadu
Someone needs to put Andy Rooney to bed before 7:55. That is all.
BonnyAnne
@Andrew: tomorrow I get to explain to the Atlantic how she is the reason I won’t be renewing either. I am really, really looking forward to composing that letter.
tammanycall
SOSHULIST FRENCH FOR A SOSHULIST PROGRAM !1!!
AkaDad
@MTiffany:
Too subtle.
Joe Lisboa
McMegan is a living embodiment of the self-negation spawned by the dialectical collision of the late capitalist mode of information production/dissemination with a bucketful of willful ignorance and self-serving justification(s). She is part of the problem that helps expose that there IS a problem and thus serves to begin to undermine the problem.
Alternately, her “analysis” will be absorbed by the hegemonic internet-spindustrial complex and then repackaged and cathartically reified as super-cute youtube footage featuring fuzzy wuzzy hamsters and such.
GOOGLE RUPAUL. PALIN/MAYAN 2012
kth
No, Quaker, she said that the Republicans had persuaded the country that HCR was a bad thing, but they won’t repeal it when they get back into power because it will be too popular…
shit, I can’t make sense of it, either
curious
i guess it is pretty worrying when a democrat shows any instinct for the political.
Omnes Omnibus
@kth: If I drank more, would I understand better?
FlipYrWhig
@MTiffany: She seems to think the Bush Republicans were deterred from radicalism by their desire to get reelected, and thinks that this crop of Democrats is on a suicide mission because they’ve given up the hope of ever getting elected again because Teh Bill is so terribly, terribly unpopular.
When the Republicans don’t retake the Congress because the bill turns out to be popular, keep a close eye on wingnut heads, and if they’re nearby, dress like you were going to a Gallagher concert, because they’re gonna be a-splodin’.
Clutch414
I’m flipping back and forth ‘tween C-Span and MSNBC, and MSNBC just had Sen. Debbie Stabenow on for a few minutes. I think I loves me some Debbie Stabenow. I think she and Sherrod Brown are among my favorite Senators from another state (I’m a NYer).
Syracuse advances to the Sweet 16 by pounding Gonzaga, and we’re about to make HCR a reality. Could it get any better?
jeffreyw
@SiubhanDuinne: No ‘shop in that pic, the real deal. He’s…flexible.
Guster
@Lisa K.: You don’t read Ta-Nehisi, I hope. I’ve got such a crush on him …
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes:
So everywhere she goes there’s a swath of destruction and Fail?
jl
@Cervantes:
“Megan McArdle is the business and economics editor for The Atlantic.”
Good Lord. I did not know that. I thought she was just one of those blogospheric freakshows (like certain other blogs very close to our hearts that I could name, but will not) that they put up to be ‘hep’.
I am sure someone in such an important and influential journalistic position would be responsible enough to maybe research and publish something on the history and economic theory of insurance markets, and how well unregulated ones have, through the magic of the completely free market, functioned throughout history, (until they blew up like an H-bomb and left thousands of little people broke, swindled and hopeless.)
She could start with US and British life insurance, from 1770s through 1830s, which built and destroyed several waves of financial wealth before they started regulating them.
OMIGOD. Our freedoms have been destroyed for 180 years. Glenn Beck is right! But sadly, too late.
MikeBoyScout
For McMegan, a Peter Griffin version of REM’s End of the World…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaIN2FzZDgo
Any chance she’ll go Galt now and stfu?
Sasha
My favorite bit:
Um, they already did, and retroactively at that. The “Screw You” vote in question was virtually every GOP vote from 2000-2006.
When will she simply come out and declare her obvious-to-everyone allegiance to the Republican party?
Michael Bersin
@sven:
We are not worthy. I bow down before the master.
thomas Levenson
@Omnes Omnibus: This.
PeakVT
Just go point and laugh.
We can’t hit her upside the head with a 2×4? That’s a shame.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@LT: No, you haven’t had enough. However, I don’t recommend drinking until McMeeegan makes sense, even if you have a spare liver in the freezer.
thomas Levenson
@TR: “her grasp of basic facts is pathetic.”
In McArdleland, that’s a feature, not a bug.
dmsilev
@jl:
Fixed.
-dms
Omnes Omnibus
Did Jeb Hensarling steal Trent Lott’s hairpiece?
El Cid
Anything not supported by 90% of the Republican Party or Ronald Reagan is UNCONSTUSHULL AND TYRANNY!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sasha:
It really is amazing, isn’t it? The default position at almost every major media outlet is that the Bush Years Don’t Count.
Lisa K.
@cs:
Word. Really, there has been nothing as satisfying in my life since the Red Sox destroyed the Yankee menace in 04.
TR
@thomas Levenson:
Actually, I think that’s a pre-existing condition for libertarianism.
Mike G
Is McMegan paid to be stupid? Does she get a bonus for acting extra-stupid? Was she cryogenically frozen and hence unconscious during the Cheney-Rove-DeLay-Bush years?
SiubhanDuinne
@clutch414 #87: Debbie Stabenow never got the credit she deserved for pulling double senatorial duty during all those months that the Al Franken election was in recounts and the courts.
Sasha
@Cat Lady:
Trust me . . . we are still nowhere near Peak Wingnut.
(And I prefer to refer to it as the Pax Obama.)
freelancer
Can we just spit on a bunch of dollar bills and throw them at her? She might feel better, but so would we.
BombIranForChrist
LOL, Republicans could have repealed Social Security, but they didn’t. Why? They don’t want to.
MikeJ
I know this is OT, but two weeks from today is opening day with Red Sox again beating the Yanquis.
FlipYrWhig
@Sasha:
On principle I don’t click through to McCurdled, so maybe she has numbers I don’t, but my guess it that you would probably find that if you polled the districts represented by Democratic Congresspeople, you’d find support outweighing opposition.
I figure Democrats support the bill, so Democratic politicians who support the bill reflect the will of their constituents. Remember all those figures about how the people who hate the bill the most never ever vote for Democrats in the first place, so voting No on the bill doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of swinging the vote count in your next election?
Omnes Omnibus
Kudos to Gwen Moore.
El Cid
Bill Clinton was President up until we were attacked on 9/11, and then there was no President for a couple of years while we had a Commander Guy to save us from Saddam Hussein who was launching attacks against us, and then Obama was installed as Preznit by ACORN in 2007 and made the economy bubble and then collapse along with Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank.
danimal
They still haven’t internalized it yet: The GOP lost the 2008 election. Their year-long teabagging snit has done nada to stop the biggest progressive bill in thirty plus years. They maintained enough unity to make it a hard fight, but they still lost the battle and the war. Their tactics are thuggish and simplistic, and these tactics don’t work any longer. The lies and the fear aren’t enough.
It will be fun watching their pundits try to make sense of it all. Right now, they can’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
John King is telling us that as good as Pelosi is, any seats she loses in Nov will be because of her victory tonight. No mention of historical trends, no context. But he’s talking very slowly and trying very hard to sound thoughtful.
FlipYrWhig
@SiubhanDuinne: I think that was Amy Klobuchar.
Malron aka eclecticbrotha
Jesus Cripwalking Christ, did that gasbag really say this?
That is easily the most indiscernible gobbledy-gook bullshit I have ever read. Is she trying to suggest the Democrats just went on a suicide mission by passing health reform? The Republicans did just undertake a suicide mission by deliberately blocking health reform with 15 months of stalling, lies, astroturfing and procedural tactics they thought would boost their electoral chances if they successfully killed the bill. They failed. Obviously not as bad as McMegan fails at life if she writes absurd gibberish like this.
Lisa K.
@Guster:
I read Coates sometimes, but not during football season. His embarrassing, never ending fellatio of Peyton Manning is more than this Pats fan can stand.
LT
@danimal:
That’s the thing that drives me crazy about Boehner et al. talking about “The american people.” We done spoke, Boehner.
Violet
McMegan is an embarrassment and The Atlantic should be ashamed.
The Sully HCR blackout is really, really weird. Even Fallows has been on it, and he often takes weekends off. It’s like Bizarro blogging over there.
jibeaux
I don’t even know where to start with something like this. But do you think after she wrote her little “just imagine if politicians were willing to be kamikazis and kill off popular programs” thought, it occurred to her to think “then after they committed suicide, Democrats would promptly restore said programs”? Okay, I think I know the answer.
El Cid
@Mike G:
I think if you were to approach this as an empirical question, the answer would appear to be “yes”.
Ecks
What they might do. What they MIGHT do. *MIGHT*. What Republicans MIGHT do if dems don’t start being nicer to them?
Oh Megan, if I laugh any harder than this I might give myself a pre-existing condition.
gregw
@FlipYrWhig: Heh, or sit further back.
Lisa K.
@MikeJ:
And life begins anew…
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: She is stupid and she is paid. Beyond that, we can only speculate.
Guster
@Lisa K.: I don’t understand football, so I ignore all those. I’m pretty sure that ‘Pats’ means Patriots, but Payton Manning means nothing to me. Sounds like a ne’er-do-well brother on Dynasty.
Genine
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m so glad I could illuminate that for you. :-)
On a less pleasant note- McMegan can kiss my big, fat black ASS! If her selective amnesia is this bad, she needs medication.
freelancer
@FlipYrWhig:
All this GOP talk about Ramming and Jamming is bringing on some kind of myocardial infarction. But they can’t seem to leave the Arena.
Go with God, Wingnuts.
Annie
I absolutely have no idea what she is talking about. Is she saying that the administration and the Democratic Congress should have no platform, no principles, and make no attempt to respond to their constituents out of fear that Republicans may choose to do something else in the future?
“They persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill.” She is wrong — it does matter what the Republicans have tried to do…They have managed to exploit race, class, and fear to obstruct and somehow convince a small, but vocal and organized minority to argue against their own interests.
And, for Republicans, arguing against Medicare, social security, etc. won’t work as a strategy for the future. Most of the teabaggers somehow were convinced that they would loose exactly what Republicans have traditionally been against. This is temporary, not a long-term winning strategy for conservatives.
gregw
@Clutch414:
err yeah, Gonzaga coulda won but that’s just my west coast bias.
Nylund
Wait…her logic is that if we let the democrats pass progressive legislation it will be bad because then the Republicans will repeal progressive legislation from the past?
Or, even shorter, the GOP will become MUCH BIGGER ASSHOLES because of this, therefore we should do what they say?!?!
This is akin to saying that we should let Iran build an atomic bomb because if we don’t, they’ll totally want even more atomic bombs!
Omnes Omnibus
Why do we, and I include myself in this, give McMegan this much attention? If we ignore her, might she go away-go Galt, as it were?
El Cid
@danimal:
It’s only a real election if 5 Supreme Court justices give it to you.
TR
I just flipped back to Fox to see Bill O’Reilly signing off, with a note about how he’d be back tomorrow with a special asking “Is America in Decline Because of Its Entitlement Dependency?”
SiubhanDuinne
@FlipYrWhig: Duh, of course. Thanks.
Michigan . . . Minnesota . . . Female senators with two-syllable first names and thhree-syllable last names . . .
Ecks
Don’t kid yourself. It looks like we win this one but their tactics are going nowhere. There are billions of dollars in infrastructure that have been invested in a machine to instantly mislead large portions of the American public, and whip poorly informed authoritarians into a rabid lather. They’re not shutting it down any time soon, no matter what.
mai naem
@SiubhanDuinne: I like Debbie Stabenow but Amy Klobuchar is the Senator from Minnaysotah and she’s very smart cookie who may just become the first female president of these United States.
El Cid
@Omnes Omnibus:
And we have no other evidence of a value product she may be paid for other than glibertarian stupidity.
ThatPirateGuy
My brother just de-friended me on facebook for mocking his over the top whining about the fact that the healthcare bill is going to pass.
Hilarity has ensued and the bill hasn’t even passed yet!
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatPirateGuy: Your brother? Wow.
mai naem
There’s a lot of Repub legislators I can’t stand – Eric Cantor, Mitch McChinless. Orrin Hatch, Peter King, Mike Pence, Chuck Grassley but the guy that is fast becoming my Ricky Santorum number two is Paul Ryan. And you know he’s going places based on his “rugged good looks” which are going send a thrill up somebody’s leg.
rootless-e
@Napoleon: I was going to contribute to the Amory Lovins foundation, but they wanted to give me a subscription to the Atlantic so I told them to forget it.
bob h
I’m thinking that George W. deserves some credit for all this. Had the Republicans not installed a dishonest, callow, incompetent, jerk, and had they not followed him over the cliff, Democrats would never have accumulated the huge majorities they needed to do this.
George W. played his role.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem: Thanks. FlipYrWhig also pointed it out. I feel very silly for the mistake.
Now: could we please just wrap up all the debate and let’s just get to the vote and P.T.D.B. I really don’t think anyone on either side of the aisle has anything new to say or is likely to persuade someone to change their vote. (And yes, I know this is all about soundbites for the folks back home, and re-election campaign ads, but c’mon.)
Delia
“Let them eat Twinkies”
/Megan McArdle
stickler
Schadenfreude … it’s what’s for dinner!
(Well, that, and a martini or two.)
Ah, McMegan, you’re just the tip of the wingnut freakout iceberg. How many threats of secession or assassination will we see tonight? How many Sparta-like shrieks of faux courage from pasty basement-dwelling losers? How many mis-spelled screeds from gibbering yahoos who can’t tell the difference between Hitler, Mao, and LBJ?
It’s all fun and games so long as nobody gets hurt.
TDE
That thread is delicious. Get in there!
Ecks
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s also about congress rules that require “debate”. So “debate” we get.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem: Yes, sick of Paul Ryan.
LD50
They’re called ‘elections’, you fucking moron.
danimal
Ok, on to the substance (?) of MM’s thesis.
Aren’t the GOPers the ones that promoted term limits?
Don’t they continuously tell us how patriotic they are?
Isn’t government service as a congresscritter some kind of sacrifice from their highly paid businesscritter jobs?
If yes to any of these, why wouldn’t the GOP congress vote down Social Security or Medicare when they are in power? Sacrifice is in their virtuous nature.
LD50
I did contemplate it, while it was HAPPENING, from 2001-2009.
Jesus, the frigging amnesia of these people!
Anne Laurie
@Parole Officer Burke:
Truly. And the magazine does publish wonderful articles, along with the growing percentage of Randroid sludge. I still buy it over the counter sometimes… but I insist the clerk give me a plain brown wrapper to disguise my secret.
Anne Laurie
@SiubhanDuinne: Actually, Debbie Stabenow represents Michigan, not Minnesota. (I actually got to vote for her back when she was running for her first state office & I was a Michigander.) Think of her as offsetting Bart Stupidak — just as Franken helps offset Bachman.
nutellaontoast
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: She claims to be from the upper west side, when it was the working class upper west side.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@ThatPirateGuy: My brother just de-friended me on facebook for mocking his over the top whining about the fact that the healthcare bill is going to pass.
Brother against brother – it really is just like teh Civil War! oHNOES
MTiffany
@AkaDad: Yes, as subtle as a bunch of Teaparty bigots screaming “nigger” and “faggot.”
@LD50: That’s ‘moran’ BTW.
Dennis G.
@Yutsano:
Yes, there will always be more supplicants on their way to galtdom to take her place. The world is rich in fools.
Cheers
SiubhanDuinne
@Anne Laurie: Thanks. Caught (by others) and corrected (by me, shamefacedly).
Thanks again for setting up the auto-threads earlier. I guess I needn’t have worried, as new threads are being tossed at the front page much faster than I can even read them, let alone post. Says a *lot* for the fully-engaged community that is Balloon Juice.
Brian J
What an idiot. They only way they convinced the country they didn’t want this bill was to lie and lie and then lie some more. If her argument boils down to the claim that Republicans are more skillful liars, I agree, but other than that, she’s supremely stupid.
silentbeep
she’s so full of s$#@. Where was she during the entirety of the Iraq War? And especially the run up? Did any of us liberal types get our way? No. I defend her sometimes but this is just plain stupid. I can’t stand this b.s. concern trolling. Give me a break McMegan.
Zuzu's Petals
@Veteran, Great War of Yankee Aggression:
What an asshole.
Wow, I broke out the a-word just for her.
D-Chance.
John King, idiot.
After telling us how this is such an important vote, that it’s been over a year in the making, how it will affect every American on a personal level, he then uncorks a comment that almost had me tossing the remote at the TV. “Most people still don’t understand the issue, which is understandable…”
MORON! The reason most of us don’t is because YOU, as a journalist/reporter/commentator/whatever, and your ilk have FAILED over the last year to do your damn jobs and explain it to us. Inviting one Republican “strategist” and one Democrat “pundit” to spend 30 seconds yelling over one another before thanking them and going to commercial, then polling the segment after the break and then getting ‘reactions’ to the polls is exactly why no one knows what’s in the damn bill.
This whole horse race and he said/she said soap opera mentalities have merged together to destroy journalism.
Little Dreamer
I know that to all of us, it seems crazy that anyone would suggest the Bush years weren’t tyrannical, but, seriously, to those who supported Bush, they weren’t, at all. It’s not amnesia, it’s just a lack of concern for others (aka – selfishness).
I’m sure that when McMegan learns of the fact that we’ve already seen this movie, she’ll be genuinely shocked!
Kobie
What the fuck is Megan talking about?
DA
I may be a mean-spirited person, but the broadest smile I cracked all day was, in fact, in response to this meltdown. My goodness.
ricky
I must admit I haven’t followed Ms. Megan much and this post took me to her post. Her bio tells me she switches jobs often. Her post tells me why.
patrick
Just finished Robert Caro’s “The years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate.” it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time and strongly recommend it, although pack a lunch, the sucker is 1040 pages.
anyway, the reason I bring this up, is all the spouting off of the republicans, about the tyranny of the majority, etc, sure sounds familiar….it’s a lot of the same things that were going on and being said 53 years ago by southern democrats as the civil rights act of 1957 was being driven through congress. Another analogy with that can be made here. initially the CRA of ’57 was a very strong bill that was weakend substantially to make it little more than a token gesture to get it past the southern fillibuster, but to paraphrase Caro’s words, it created cracks in the dam of the senate, which allowed the more substantial civil rights acts of the 60’s. This legislation is just the beginning, and I hope very soon serious discussion begins about a push for Alan Grayson’s idea of allowing all to buy into medicare.
Lisa K.
@Anne Laurie:
IMO, the world is full of excellent columnists and bloggers, and I do not get to read most of them. So I am not going to waste my money on a putrid glibertarian rag like the Atlantic because I like a couple of their writers (I am squarely on the record of not abiding a second of Andrew Sullivan) when I detest the magazine’s overall bent . Can you imagine a teabagger purchasing the NY Times just because of Ross Douthat? That is how I feel about the Atlantic. Fuck them. There is only so much time and money in the world (and so many writers equally or more deserving than Fallows and Coates), that I refuse to give either of mine to those asshats.
crack
I’m going to mention this McMonster post specifically the next time I get one of those ‘How can Atlantic get you back’ emails.