Via the young Fry and Laurie, the next year of Republican campaigning distilled to its essence:
<div align=”center”><iframe width=”425″ height=”349″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/JpypZHVaD1c” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
This video goes into the dictionary next to the phrase “word salad.” Sarah Palin clearly took notes.
Redshift
And Santorum, too, of course, doling out pablum to adoring wingnuts that would just be talking in a bizarre code to any other audience. My imagined reaction from a mainstream voter:
Santorum: “Obama said Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance made us a great country. That means he doesn’t think we were a great country before Medicare! Hah!”
Voter: “Were you dropped on your head as a child or something?”
cat48
I just dread this. I’d rather have a long series of root canals.
Violet
“Narrowly escaped making sense.” Hah! Love Fry and Laurie. So fun to see again.
If Sarah Palin made sense it would only be by accident. Even stopped clocks…
BGinCHI
“He almost said something that made sense.”
Like Paul Revere was warning the British that we were going to take their arms?
I’m assuming Palin thinks a Tory is one of the Spelling daughters.
boss bitch
Very Serious.
Gin & Tonic
In news from another epoch of the Republican party, Lawrence Eagleburger has died. Yes, he was a protege of, and worked for (in the “private sector”) the odious Kissinger, but Eagleburger also did good in the world. And he pretty much predicted the exact course of the Iraq adventure before it began.
ppcli
@Redshift:
I can never figure out the dogwhistles anymore. An allusion to the Civil Rights acts of the mid-sixties? Santorum wants to bring back Jim Crow?
Violet
@ppcli:
Let me help you with that translation: America was a greater country when those uppity Negroes knew their place and stayed there. And when women didn’t question their menfolk.
aimai
@ppcli:
Yes, 1965 seems a weird year to pick for perfection.
But Tom, thanks for posting this. I have a huge crush on Stephen Fry, he’s one person I’d love to have tea with. This is a fantastic find. I ended up watching a bunch of the other related clips.
aimai
stuckinred
@BGinCHI: 65, bout the time of Quadrophenia! Love reign o’er me
Its story involves social, musical and psychological happenings from an English teenage perspective, set in London and Brighton in 1964 and ’65.
Yuppers
There isn’t a bum episode in the entire four season run of A Bit Of Fry & Laurie, though some of the songs in the fourth series are a bit one-note. Oh so worth tracking down, though.
stuckinred
In November 1965, 450 U.S. soldiers were dropped into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were surrounded by 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers.
Violet
Ah yes, The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Mr. Santorum couldn’t be referring to that, now could he?
BGinCHI
Maybe pre-1965 is a “before the Beatles ruined everything with their long hair and radical songs about holding hands” reference.
Dirty hippies.
JGabriel
On behalf of Americans, Bob & Ray were there pretty early:
.
Linda Featheringill
Medicare was enacted in 1965. Old Froth was probably referring to that.
But he needs to make his meaning clear on that.
stuckinred
Tom Leher was on top of it “Send the Marines”!
JGabriel
1965 = Great Society programs like Medicare, as well as civil rights legislation.
.
JGabriel
Linda Featheringill:
Or not. It probably works better for Santorum to be ambiguous on that point. Santorum is appealing to a base that includes racists — why would he needlessly disabuse them of idea that he shares their prejudices?
The essence of right-wing code talk is to phrase things in such a way as to encourage the base to think that you share their more socially unacceptable beliefs, while maintaining a plausible alternative explanation of what you meant.
.
El Cid
The Edwards case looks to be more and more dignified as it goes on.
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: The completely unfair Voting Rights Act which still oppresses the wonderful Southern states today with its repressive interference in the South’s ability to control how the n****** vote.
Svensker
@ppcli:
No, before Medicare.
Stooleo
Damn, that was brilliant. I hope Sully sees it.
Linda Featheringill
@El Cid:
Well, then, that’s all right.
gnomedad
@ppcli:
An understandable mistake. He meant 1865.
MikeJ
It’s the Big Society!
Djur
@Linda Featheringill: Well, from a legal standpoint, yes. He’s certainly a cad, but whether it’s a federal case really does seem to hang on that distinction.
Linda Featheringill
@gnomedad:
:-)
Linda Featheringill
@Djur:
You’re right of course. There is a difference between illegal and immoral.
Slavery was legal. Hell, the Holocaust was legal. The law is a ass.
benjoya
“while the audience throws quietly up, we’ll return you to the store we bought you.” ha!
Violet
@Linda Featheringill:
He hopes you’ll think he was referring to that. He meant the other stuff, like the Voting Rights Act.
His dogwhistle was loud and clear.
@JGabriel:
This. And this is exactly what Santorum did.
El Cid
Here was the entire 2008 Republican nomination debate in SC. It’s 3 minutes and gets rid of all the extra fluff and focuses on the billion mentions of the God-leader Ronald Reagan.
If you like here’s the Daily Show’s version.
El Cid
@Linda Featheringill: Also, you can see that the glove clearly doesn’t fit.
eric
Dogwhistle is to the year the Supremes took bible out of public schools.
hilts
Legal Insurrectionist defends Sarah Palin’s history lesson on Paul Revere
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2011/06/so-now-all-these-people-will-apologize.html
drkrick
@eric: After Dreamgirls, hasn’t Diana Ross been beat up enough?
Spaghetti Lee
OT, and I’m sure no one cares, but goddamn is Scott Stantis a pathetic SOB. That stupid comic strip of his is like him having hatesex with himself, while calling Obama’s name.
Davis X. Machina
@Violet: Looked at purely as a poetic form, as a set of traditional and quite rigid formal constraints, within which one still tries to say something meaningful, right-wing code talk is actually quite challenging, like writing sestinas or villanelles.
I do like ‘Old Frothy’. It makes Santorum sound like a long shot for the 1840 Whig nomination, or a speaker of the New York state legislature during the Hunkers v. Barnburners wars….
gex
@gnomedad: I believe that is Newtwits’ talking point. This election is an important inflection point in American history like 1864 was.
What pisses me off to no end is that Johnson predicted the response to Great Society and Voting Rights Act passing, Atwater ‘fessed up on how he turned racist code into economic code, Weyrich admitted the evangelicals weren’t interested in right wing politics until Carter to tax exempt status away from all white Christian academies, and Melman and Steele both apologized for the GOP using racist campaign tactics.
There’s ample evidence in the outright statements of leaders on the right that the GOP has risen to prominence based on racism. But try to get any of the white dudes who have a hard on for fiscal conservatism and drowning the government in a bathtub that the GOP is racist – you’d have more fun bashing your head into a brick wall.
And they don’t even need to dogwhistle anymore. They can’t see the blatant racism that came out in response to Obama.
It makes me so sad. I wish people were better than that.
hamletta
If you liked this clip, you might like the House Of Cards trilogy. Stars the Grey Poupon guy as a Tory pol who is Pure D evil.
I loves me some plummy-talkin’ British villains.
Suicidal Zebra
@hamletta: You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.
;)
gbear
Ha. Santorum just can’t seem to stop messing with teh gay:
The article is from April but Santorum’s still using the heading on his website (I looked so you didn’t have to).
fasteddie9318
@ppcli:
Well, it’s that and Medicare. America, my friends, can be a great country that has separate facilities for the racial have-nots AND lets its non-aristocratic old folks croak without access to health care! God bless us all!
me
I think it’s more like this.
ruemara
Send a few nice thoughts my way. My baby kitty has an obstructed bladder and I can’t begin to do more than the most basic care. He’s a scrappy street breed, sweet as a button, joyously clumsy and if my life savings wasn’t $500 but a more substantial number, I would happily dump all of it into the vet’s lap to save him. Now all I can do is pay for some hydration and…bladder manipulation? and hope that works. I don’t know what I’d do without him ruling the fiefdom as lord and master.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
No president makes a fiercely eloquent promise like my President Obama makes a fiercely eloquent promise.
.
.
gex
@ruemara: Can we chip in? How does BJ handle these things?
wobblybits
@ruemara: You know we loves us some pets around here. Can we/BJ set something up so that we can contribute something for the tyke.
gex
@wobblybits: Jinx. You owe me a +1
hilts
@gbear: @Redshift:
Speaking of Santorum, C-SPAN is airing his speech at the Faith and Freedom Conference at 8:05 tonight.
ruemara
@gex:
These days vet stuff is pay up front. And they actually had a credit card thing you could apply for. So that’s what I did. Baby can’t pee, have to fix that. My credit was l/4 of what the price for the full will fix treatment was, so I paid for the this can work too, just think positive treatment. Trying to make dinner, but I can’t remember how to cook right now.
arguingwithsignposts
@hilts: CSpan is like community access television for these wingnuts and all their bullshit conferences.
wobblybits
@ruemara: I understand paying up front but for the other 3/4 that would cover the rest of the treatment, we could raise that so that you could get that to the vet, or will that not work?
I hate it that the lil one isn’t feeling well. Sigh.
wobblybits
@gex: name your poison
colleeniem
@ruemara: I send some, across the interwebs–good luck to your little street kitty.
mr. whipple
@gex:
I’d be in.
gex
@mr. whipple: Let’s do this thing. I contacted John to see if he would set something up on the blog.
wobblybits
@gex: Set it up and I’m in
Southern Beale
OMG that was hilarious. THANK YOU.
JPL
If I were in charge of a democratic campaign, I’d try to copy part of this and say ladies and gentlemen your republican party and play it on fox tv. Isn’t mockery the best form of flattery.
El Cid
This is awesome.
However, it’s Jimmy Carter’s fault because he made the banks give free houses to ACORN.
the flanuer
No troll makes a pointless comment like Uncle Clarence Thomas makes a pointless comment
hilts
@arguingwithsignposts:
Can’t you just feel the Santormentum building?
Fax Paladin
Greg Bluestein of the Associated Press being fair and balanced on the Affordable Care Act:
Liberal media.
Mike G
@El Cid:
This kind of shite won’t stop unless there are sufficient punitive damages to get the attention of these arrogant, cement-headed corporations.
Corner Stone
@the flanuer: Fuck you. Uncle Clarence Thomas is a God compared to your paltry insignificant ass.
Go find a hole and crawl into it.
gex
@El Cid: Saw that. That’s the kind of thing that will make EDK weep for the banks. It is soooooo unfair to make them get their paperwork in order before they try to ruin someone’s life. And the moral hazard of letting families stay in their homes can’t be tolerated.
Corner Stone
@gex: What do you mean? I thought EDK was a liberal now?
gex
@Corner Stone: That was his original stance on all these foreclosures that were unwarranted. He kept on about “moral hazard” when the issue was banks not having proof they have a claim but foreclosing anyhow. He accused me of being “righteous” about the issue.
ETA: I still marvel at the fact that someone could think that not kicking a family out of their home is a “moral hazard” in this situation. He had to be hammered about it over a couple of posts.
asiangrrlMN
I love A Bit of Fry and Laurie. This skit is just brilliant and oh-so-true.
Corner Stone
@gex: Wait a second…do you mean EDK sided with the Money Class against the people on this issue?
I’m a little confused because from all his writings here I thought he understood that unfettered capitalism with no regulations would always lead to negative outcomes for the less powerful in society.
Now it seems like that was all…a lie.
gex
@Corner Stone: I’m just telling you what I experienced. The post was about banks foreclosing without proof they had a claim. Sometimes foreclosing on a house that was under a mortgage of another bank, sometimes on a house that the mortgage had been satisfied. He just kept on about “moral hazard”.
I hear he has changed. I just don’t trust the moral compass of someone who had to be badgered into understanding that stealing homes from families is not one of the upsides to the free market.
And if you are snarking, I’m missing it. I’d only add I just finished a 17 hour car ride to Austin, TX and my brain is addled. But not enough to become a libertarian.
Phoebe
I just started Griftopia recently (by Matt Taibbi) and it’s as good as everyone says and much better than I expected.
Tonal Crow
That’s the most I’ve laughed in weeks.
Tonal Crow
@El Cid: That interpretation of the law is just plain lawless because it violates the due process concept of fair warning. Further, a substantially new interpretation of the criminal law should be considered ex post facto and thus prohibited by Art.I s.9 cl.3. It’s about time the courts gave the fair-warning and ex post facto doctrines some teeth. And it’s about time prosecutors stopped being persecutors.
Calouste
@Stooleo:
Sully’s probably wondering why he never got asked for that competition.
stuckinred
Tomorrow is 43 years since RFK’s death. First time I dropped acid. Guess I’ll never forget it.
Corner Stone
@stuckinred: Have you forgotten anything in the last 43?
stuckinred
@Corner Stone: Dunno but check this out, at 3:02 in Learning to Fly, a Petty video about acid, there is a quick clip of Kennedy right after he was shot. From everything I have been able to learn it was inserted randomly, no particular meaning, but it sure is strange.
trollhattan
@El Cid:
Sweeeet. Would love to see that made into a children’s book. “The Nyerges versus the Bad, Bad Thieves, Also, Too”
Comrade Kevin
@asiangrrlMN: I loved that show too, also French and Saunders and Alas, Smith and Jones.