Because Black People are Fungible Tokens
I have to admit that this Weiner business has taken the fire right out of me. (This is my first blog post in FIVE DAYS!)
While Democrats waste time talking about whether Weiner should resign or go to “Asshat Rehab” or whatthecrapever, there’s a giant misogynist/sexual predator/asshat sitting on the Supreme Court, having a good laugh at the Democrats’ utter stupidity, while his Teabilly wife cackles with glee and collects another Heritage Foundation paycheck.
I’m disgusted.
With every passing day that that Democrats ignore Clarence Thomas’s conflict of interest in favor of yet another round of handwringing over some dude’s penis, the more difficult it becomes for me to view the political landscape as anything but a farce.
And what better example of this political theater of the absurd than a mock debate between Libertarian wet dream, Gary Johnson, and a Barack Obama look-alike? Because debating a guy who “looks” like Obama is an accurate measure of what it would be like to debate the real “Obama.” You know — because we’re all the same:
Yet more evidence of the embarrassment that is Fox News.
I mean, for fuck’s sake: Fox News used a photo of Tina Fey instead of a photo of Sarah Palin while a Fox News “reporter” blathered on about Sarah Palin, who is fifty percent maybe going to run for president —
but 100 percent definitely going to grift your ass while she makes up her mind.
This is your political landscape: No better than a poorly-scripted episode of Saturday Night Live.
Ugh.
[via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog; image via Michael P. Garofalo]
[cross-posted here at ABLC]
John Cole
This is so stupid I am shocked it did not first appear on Reason TV.
moonbat
Perhaps they are so sure their audience thinks that all black people look alike that they will not notice that THIS IS ACTUALLY NOT THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!! I am absolutely flabbergasted by this crap.
(edited for shouty spelling)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw this the other day, still can’t bring myself to watch the video. Fox Business seems to be where Uncle Rupert and Fat Roger put the stuff so stupid and racist they hope nobody notices (the “gangsters in the White Hizzouss” was also FB, IIAMN). I predict we’ll see at least three MSM Bigfeet write a column about how it’s a shame that sensible Gary Johnson Fellow isn’t doing better, and he’s the kind of Republican all Democrats should aspire to be. Ruth Marcus, Richard Cohen and…. Who the hell knows? Maybe Broder left behind post-dated columns to help Blue Dogs figure out how to screw the Democrats and the country after he’s gone.
Yutsano
@John Cole: I saw what you did there.
I could only watch a minute of the fake Obama debate, then I had to resist the urge to give Stossel the Fist of Death. And Johnson sounded like a total douchebag right after opening his mouth. It must be nice to spout platitudes with no plan at all for implementation.
kdaug
Bought and paid for.
Blinkers are for suckers.
Reckon it’ll get worse before it gets better – welcome to Citizens United.
c u n d gulag
Jim,
FBNN’s rating are so embarassingly atrocious, they could publicly shoot Obama on the network, which I’m sure they wish they could, and no one but a couple of thousand ignorant crackers without a nickel to invest, would ever notice – and they’d NEVER tell!
No one from the real business community ever watches it because, unlike FOX News, you need accurate information when you invest, not hateful opinions and feelings.
Maybe MSNBC can get the real Obama to debate some Arrow shirt model to debate instead of Romney?
ASSHOLES!!!
Brazilian Rascal
Hadn’t they pulled the Fake Obama Debate with Ron Paul before this? I’m almost positive. Must have taken the Paulbots some intensive mental editing to forget their hero ever consented to something so mind-bogglingly dense.
Jethro Troll
Ruth Marcus, Richard Cohen and…. Who the hell knows?
Glenn Greenwald.
greenergood
My toes have curled in embarrassment so much that I will never be able to walk again.
kay
I know what Fox News is, but why did the sainted Gary Johnson agree to do this?
It’s embarrassing. How in the hell did he say “okay!” to this? Is it like an audition for a FOX show? Is the libertarian broke and lining up his next conservative welfare slot?
gnomedad
Perhaps now Amy Myers can debate Tina Fey.
JonF
As Stewart said: Fox Business is where NewsCorp tries out the crazy before being used on Fox News.
Yutsano
@Brazilian Rascal: Maybe it’s some bizarre libertarian quirk. Other than that I have no idea what would possess Johnson to do something so profoundly idiotic. It is of course instant cannon fodder for his political opponents now.
greenergood
PS Dunno why I’m embarrassed by people I despise, but I think it must have something to do with supposedly sharing 99% of my genetic material with people from Faux news. (Though I also share 95% of my genetic material with bananas, but then I don’t find bananas embarrassing, just good at breakfast time.)
Mark S.
@John Cole:
They would, but they don’t have any black guys over at Reason.
Brachiator
All the conservatives on the Court are asshats. What’s your point?
I would be interesting to see someone build a case that the actions of Thomas’ wife are grounds to remove Thomas from the Court, even with the conflict of interest stuff. I don’t see anything close to any slamdunk case here, with or without the distraction of Weiner’s cell donging.
Oh, yes, forgot to add: the faux Obama crap is despicable. Utterly vile and despicable.
Mr Stagger Lee
I guess next up a debate about child nutrition with Michelle Bachmann and a Faux First Lady dressed as Aunt Jamima with dialect straight out of Amos and Andy. And how about a singing show featuring takes of Al Jolson?
Villago Delenda Est
Sing it, ABL. Sing it.
The destruction of Weiner is another Breitbart triumph. If only Weiner was a more worthy object of sympathy…but he’s simply not, for his stupidity and his sexual compulsion.
The biggest winners are a corrupt lawyer and his equally corrupt wife.
Fred
Why didn’t John Galt Cole post about this? Johnson is his wet dream candidate because Greenwald told him so.
rikyrah
ABL,
yeah, I hear you about the distraction, but I’ll say it again..
you never give the White man the rope with which to hang you.
and Weiner did this bullshyt KNOWING DAMN WELL that the evil muthafuckas behind Unca Clarence PLAYED FOR KEEPS.
if you are going to be a fool, then you need to sit down and STFU. you don’t run around doing what he did.
he’s a fool, and doesn’t need your sympathy.
the whole debates with an actor playing Obama – if that doesn’t sum up FOX NEWS, then I don’t know what does.
Fred
ABL,
If it’s any consolation, Average # of Faux viewers is around around 1.5million I think. That looks like Faux business news which I am guessing has much lower numbers.
It’s a tiny percentage of stupid when you consider a program like 60minutes or CBS news regularly pulls in over 10million. All the network news channels combined pull in maybe 30times more viewers than Faux.
Oh, and like I said yesterday. Average age of Faux viewer is 65 and probably half senile.
dsc
Sister, you are preaching to the Sunday Morning Pundit-hating Party Choir; they can’t EVEN talk about what fphuking matters-no one has mentioned Thomas.
I join you in your disgust. Makes me want to turn my back on them all.
Cacti
So, when will we get the Greenwald column defending this?
General Stuck
I look for Fox to go Minstrelsy For the Stars in the election run up. Maybe get Beck to emcee, when he returns from Holocaust baiting in Europe.
kay
I wasn’t going to vote for Gary Johnson anyway, but now I’ll always think of him as the serious libertarian who agreed to debate an impersonator.
Wasn’t it surreal? How do you keep from busting out laughing, while you’re pretending to debate the president on FOX?
“I won!” Is that what Johnson thought, after? He’ll do anything.
ABL
@rikyrah: oh hell yeah. i don’t feel sorry for weiner at all. i’m just annoyed that i’ve been hearing about his twig and two berries for three weeks.
kay
@General Stuck:
There you are. I noticed you missing. Now I’ll go because I’m habitually off-topic. A repeat offender :)
Citizen_X
@Yutsano:
Yutsano, Yutsano, tsk tsk! Everyone knows you give Stossel the Open-Hand Slap of Death.
dmsilev
@kay:
As distinguished from Ron Paul, the other “serious” libertarian who agreed to debate an impersonator.
Me, I’m wondering whether this will become a new litmus test for GOP candidates. “Did you debate a guy who kinda sorta looks like Obama?”. It does have the advantage that when October 2012 rolls around, whoever finally emerges from Clown Thunderdome can refuse to debate the, you know, actual Barack Obama on the grounds that he/she already did so.
Johannes
Holy crap, that’s offensive. And Johnson managed to lose to a caricature Obama–he just telegraphs privilege at a level that it’s visible from space.
FollowtheDough
A farce, you say? We all have fallen at one time or another at political theater. Because we are immersed into it even worse than ever before. But this is what the republicans and democrats have morphed to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5cGYBV2TQ
Cacti
@dmsilev:
If Romney ends up as the nominee, the DNC can set up a series of debates between the POTUS and a mannequin.
kay
@dmsilev:
I didn’t know about Paul. They do this regularly?
I’m going to watch to see if he lost to the impersonator, because that would be even better, for my entertainment factor.
stuckinred
Hey ABL!
Comrade Kevin
@Fred: Even as a joke, you’re retarded.
Citizen_X
If they’re gonna pull this shit, why not go all the way and have Sarah Palin or whoever endorsed by a George Washington impersonator? “How can anyone think of voting for Obama? Palin’s been endorsed by all the Founding Fathers!” Then they can show the Obama endorsements by Stalin, Hitler and Genghis Kahn.
Warren Terra
That video was one of the most disgusting performanes I’ve ever seen.
Also, the impersonator sucked. His grin at the beginning actually made him look like Obama – but his mannerisms and expressions afterwards were completely unlike Obama, and he didn’t get the voice at all.
Not to mention, of course, the obvious fact that the whole thing was demeaning to everyone involved.
Look, the concept could have been executed with some dignity. If they’d done the “debate” as Johnson responding clips of Obama saying various things, for example. That is to say, if they’d staged the “debate” as respectfully as Stewart or Colbert might have done. But once they procured a stand-in to ham it up, to be the Washington Generals in their little dramatization, they have forfeited any semblance of credibility.
Gary Johnson is of course a nonentity: he was never going to appear on a stage with the real President anyhow (though maybe this humiliating episode should be rubbed in the noses of those highbrow glibertarians who like to hold him up as a shining light – like a certain recently departed front-pager here). But if there were any questions about whether John Stoseel or Fox Business should be taken seriously, this would settle them.
dmsilev
@kay: Well, so far it’s just been Paul and Johnson. However, I could certainly see, say, Michelle Bachman agreeing to do it, and three people make a trend…
Cacti
@kay:
“If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”
Ron Paul – 1992
Yeah, not really surprised that he would debate a caricature of the President.
Fred
@Comrade Kevin: You are too kind CK. I haven’t heard that one since grade school. You really know how to raise the bar around here.
Scott
@Fred: Hush, matoko.
Warren Terra
@greenergood: Your numbers are way off. You share more than 99% of your genetic information with Murdoch and his cronies, and you share far less than 95% of your genetic information with actual bananas.
Martin
New on Fox this fall: “Are you Smarter Than a Nigger?”
Comedian John Stossel comes to class! Can he teach the presidential candidates a thing or two about the Constitution, or will they prove to be 3/5th of the politician they need to be? Don’t miss the exciting season opener when Herman Cain debates himself!
General Stuck
@kay:
Hi Kay! still mostly missing, but will pop in now and then for a quick snark. Especially when one of my two fav BJ front pagers post. :-)
Mike G
@dmsilev:
Hahaha! I can see it now:
“Mad Mitt: Beyond Clownderdome”
My theory of Fox Business Noise is it’s an Ayn-Randian experiment to separate the teatards from whatever money they’ve managed to accumulate. Emotionally-manipulable dimwits riled up with hate, making investment/economic decisions based on their political prejudices, need little prodding to make stupid choices with their money.
“Obama HATES when people buy large-cap growth stocks! Here’s a high-fee, high-load mutual fund full of them!”
Frankensteinbeck
Disclaimer: I find Weinergate annoying and unimportant and think Clarence Thomas’s corruption is very important.
BUT…
If Dems In Power aren’t pushing the Thomas issue, they prolly think the same as I do – there’s no practical gain from them railing about it. He can’t be removed. He’s untouchable. And IOKIYAR has proven to be all-powerful for corruption. Nobody’s mind would be changed. I wish these were not true, but I think they are. I might try and make an issue of it just in case, but I can easily see how the Accepted Wisdom would be ‘why bother?’
dan
We could stage a mock debate with Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty.
A tub of crap and an empty stool.
gbear
Hah. Chris Wallace hands Tim Pawlenty his butt regarding his ‘plan’ for 10 years of 5% growth. Sorry for the long quote but it’s sweet (at least for a guy from MN).
Pawlenty seems to be gleaning his mad debating skilz from watching Palin. Declinist??
trollhattan
I posted this on the dead open thread, but it kinda fits here, also, too:
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/12/3692351/racist-cartoon-of-obama-forces.html
Just how ugly is the ’12 election going to get? I probably can’t stretch far enough to properly imagine it.
wmd
@kay:
At about 4:00 Johnson says in response to some applause “I’m liking this”.
This program was a combination focus group and SNL skit. See what messages win for that audience. I was heartened by the anti war applause, not that any winning Republican is going to get away saying that. The applause for Johnson’s “plan” for medicare was pretty scattered and could have been planted – the audience wasn’t buying it.
As a skit it was pretty offensive. The actor playing Obama has a website promoting his skills, he should bring in some decent coin the next couple of years. You can count on candidates committees doing fundraising using his loser Obama schtick.
Raven Rant
Didn’t you know black people are all interchangeable like Lego blocks? Women, too!
OT: On June 2nd, Allan Brauer posted an excellent rundown on the connection between the Clarence Thomas document dump and Weinergate:
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/06/02/clarence-thomas-the-original-weinergate-via-allan-brauer/
As an illustration, it had the famous underwear shot with a news item about Ginni Thomas typed, angled and superimposed over the ‘weiner’.
At around that time, I saw a website that had dozens of news items superimposed on copies of the underwear shot. I thought it was a fantastic illustration of the way ‘Weinergate’ was being allowed to supplant real news coverage.
Now I can’t relocate the site. I tried google, but every variation of ‘Weiner underwear news Clarence Thomas’ yields a gazillion results, and I’ve had no luck narrowing it down.
Anyone else see this site? I would love to have that link. Please and thank you!
Ella in New Mexico
NOW does everyone understand why I come close to punching my fist through my computer screen every time some clueless person suggests Gary Johnson is a SERIOUS candidate for President?
I lived under the turd for 8 long years. Believe me, this little stunt doesn’t surprise me at all. He thinks it’s “all in good fun”.
Mark S.
Ugh, I could only get through two minutes. That was the most amateurish crap I’ve ever seen on television. I bet a high school drama club could have done a much better job.
@Warren Terra:
Dear fucking God he sure didn’t. Way too high pitched.
And Stossel has a studio audience? Who the fuck stands in line for that? Well, that audience is probably half as many people who are watching it on TV.
Comrade Kevin
@Fred: It’s not hard, when dealing with with a one-note clown like you. You bear a striking resemblance to the Dune/matoko chan obsessive weirdo, too.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: It must have been a way dead thread, cause I missed that, and usually I’m pretty good at picking up your stuff.
Wow. The dude is a marshmallow, but at least hes honest enough with himself to acknowledge that his party doesn’t consider him part of the tribe and really never did.
stuckinred
A dead thread
The wheel is turning
and you can’t slow down
You can’t let go
and you can’t hold on
You can’t go back
and you can’t stand still
If the thunder don’t get you
then the lightning will
Mike Kay (True Grit)
I’m sure any moment now, St. Greewnwald will denounce his hero Gary Johnson for activity participating in an offensive minstrel show.
karen marie
@Yutsano: Really? You think there’s another GOP candidate that would be caught dead attacking Fox?
No, Johnson is perfectly safe with this shit.
@Brachiator: It’s not so much the actions of his wife but his failure to report her income, and other financial dealings, for a substantial period of time.
boss bitch
Ain’t nothing like the real thing baby.
What cowards.
Look. Outside groups need to take on Clarence Thomas if they really want to take him down. Democrats would rather focus on the winning message they have going on right now with Medicare.
Mark S.
Hey, matako/Hermione/Dune character is lot smarter and more entertaining than Fred!
Pistols at dawn for anyone who disagrees.
JD Rhoades
Well, why not? Right wingers (and some leftists) have been debating for years with an imaginary Obama who exists only in their imaginations.
“Obama said he was going to bring all the troops home!” No, he said he was going to up troop levels in Afghanistan and draw down in Iraq. Which he’s in the process of doing.
“Obama is full of anti-white rage!” Yeah, right.
“Obama should know that Marxism doesn’t work!” Which is why he’s not a Marxist.
“I don’t want me or my special needs son to have to appear in front of Obama’s Death Panel!” Good for you. There ain’t no such animal, and never was.
And so on.
Brachiator
@karen marie:
I got that. I still am not seeing this working up to a case that would result in Thomas’ removal from the Court.
PanAmerican
Of course they used a faux Obama. They sure as fuck wouldn’t give the White House an opportunity to pierce their bullshit bubble. The President would slice and dice this clown, or any of the GOP field, like a Teppanyaki chef.
Yutsano
@karen marie: Oh they’ll never criticize the venue, just Johnson. And it won’t be overt, just subtle wink wink nudge nudge types of attacks. “At least I have looked Obama in the eyes” kind of crap. None of them dare separate themselves from the wingnut Murdoch gravy train.
@Brachiator: Actually failure to disclose is a big deal in the federal government. Even for a little worker bee like me. Not only do I have to disclose any outside sources of income, it has to actually demonstrate it will not have a direct impact on my duties. What Thomas did (or in this case did not do) can be grounds for his expulsion if it’s egregious enough. I think some lawyer is looking into it at DoJ.
AxelFoley
LOL, isn’t this Johnson douche Greenwald’s choice to run for president? Good pick there, Glenn, LOL.
Dumbass.
aimai
I think what pisses me off about the entire Weiner debacle is that the Dems should never have let any important issue be carried by one and only one lone representative. To the extent that it was and is important to attack Thomas and his wife and delegitimize the corporatist politics of the current Supreme Court the Dems should have had a full court press at all times, run by lots of different congressmen and senators. Leaving it all up to Weiner clearly made him happy, but it also meant that there was no coherent strategy to pursue after Weiner was forced from the stage. By overidentifying a purely political issue with one guy, as well, what damaged Weiner also damaged the anti-Thomas movement.
aimai
trollhattan
@Yutsano:
I wonder if there’s a drug that suppresses cognitive dissonance, because a black Republican, gay Republican, Hispanic Republican, unemployed blue collar Republican [continue nearly endless list here] would have to eat handsfull.
Spaghetti Lee
Sheesh, there’s no words for this shit. Was there really no milquetoast “liberal” New Democrat economist who’d take a paycheck for being slapped around by Gary Johnson, or is Johnson too incompetent to even do that, and can only debate someone when it’s impossible for him to lose? Are there really wingnuts out there so incapable of distinguishing fantasy from reality that they think this is basically the real thing? Is this something for Johnson and Paul to brag about in their campaigns? “I went on TV and debated a guy pretending to be Obama?” Does that impress people?
Man, so many stupid questions, so few even stupider answers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: Off the top of my head: Former prosecutors Amy Klobuchar and Sheldon Whitehouse. As others have said, Thomas may well be untouchable, but people should be thinking of the Supreme Court. And since it’s the Senate that votes, it oughta be Senators talking about it. Wasn’t McCaskill an AG, too? She’s got “Heartland” (hate that term, but it’s a real factor in poliltics) cred and Christ knows she owes karma to the causes of progressivism and not-being-a-dumbass.
Spaghetti Lee
@aimai:
I was about to look up Thomas’s age and use it as proof he’ll be dead soon enough but Christ, he’s only 63? I’d have guessed at least 75. I guess being made of condensed evil can age you pretty quickly.
eemom
y’all are right that it would be next to impossible to get Thomas off the Court — HOWEVER, if we lived in a remotely sane world, if Weiner hadn’t been a giant walking dick, and the conflict issue got traction, it could conceivably generate enough pressure to force Thomas to recuse himself when the ACA gets before the Supreme Court.
Now, wouldn’t THAT be nice?
Frankensteinbeck
Trollhattan:
I’m afraid that drug is called ‘being human’. Conflicting opinions are part of being an evolved ape. Funnily, cognitive dissonance theory actually supports these self-destructive attitudes. Having voted Republican once for any reason, instinct is screaming at them to agree with every Republican issue, no matter how stupid or self-destructive.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
Yep. I totally understand this. But I am still looking for someone to make a case. So far, more of what is being expressed is political anger at Thomas, and the implication that Weiner was going after some obvious, slamdunk open and shut revelations when he was caught up his little Weiner Roast.
It’s not that simple, either legally or politically.
ETA: another poster notes an “anti-Thomas movement.” I wonder if this was meant rhetorically, or was really a reference of an organized campaign to remove Thomas. The latter would not be good, no matter what people think about him.
Yutsano
@eemom:
Not enough pressure on the planet for that. If Thomas has demonstrated anything in his career, it is to dig in his heels even deeper when he’s criticized and lash out even harder at the critics. If anyone even DARES to Thomas will give a speech about how his impartiality is being questioned by (insert reason here) and how dare they and he will steadfastly refuse.
eemom
@Yutsano:
yeah, but I mean pressure on the Court as an institution. Also, Thomas as a sitting Justice can’t very well “take his case” to the public.
Don’t think it would be LIKELY to happen, but certainly it’s not as unlikely as impeachment. I.e., if our political process was only a LITTLE less fucked than it is…..
Ecks
I only made it 2 mins before I had to shut the window entirely to make it shut up.
I think they were feeling really brave for having any “representation” of the left at all that they felt like this really was a “debate”… rather than what it was: pulling the string on a plastic blackface Obama doll, to make it recite a single-sentence platitude as a cue for a live person to rant for a few minutes.
If that was a debate then my car has propellers and can fly.
Frankensteinbeck
Efgoldman:
Congrats. YOU are an ape that has evolved so far that his ability to think rationally overpowered his default strategy of making decisions by emotion and other lizard brain rules. I hope *I* am, but as you may notice from the American electorate, the lizard brain is freaking powerful.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Spaghetti Lee:
Well, he is St. Greenwald’s candidate for president.
benjoya
ridiculous, offensive, i thought johnson was supposed to be smart. ah well, guess both parties will have drug warriors for candidates far far into the future. (not that it wasn’t already looking that way.)
eemom
srsly, Greenwald has championed this guy? I did not know that.
Oh dear. How very embarrassing for him.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Martin: Win. Eyeball-stabbingly brilliant.
Ecks
@aimai: I think the Thomas stuff is so far out of the awareness of most of America that Weiner going down doesn’t hurt the PR of it at all. Nobody outside the Beltway has even heard of it, so I don’t think he’s permanently tainted the issue in the public mind. I think the Dems just figure that he was the only one who thought that the Thomas story had enough legs to be worth following. I mean, what’s the best case scenario from chasing it? You force his wife to curtail her lobbying for a while? One more interchangeable cog isn’t going to put even a tick in the GOP’s stride.
If someone else wants to pick up the drum and beat it, then great, there’s probably some long term Overton work that needs doing here, but it’s not a bad enough scandal of itself to do much.
(well, unless you had a wingnut Wurlitzer behind it – then it would be all the media wanted to talk about until it gave the R’s a black eye and force them to do something symbolic to atone. It’s excellent bitchslap material, but not good scandal fodder.
chopper
@Johannes:
dude lost a TV debate to an obama impersonator. on fox.
jesus, that’s some cask-strength stupid.
J. Michael Neal
@trollhattan:
Oh, for god’s sake, at least tell us the rest of the joke.
Gustopher
I want to see Tina Fey’s faux Palin debate the faux Obama. Moderated by a real Fox anchor, of course.
Ecks
GOBP? I missed something.
Ecks
GOBP? I missed something.
jinxtigr
WTF is this? D:
I didn’t realize they could just hire a guy to pretend to be Obama and it would count…
Would the correct shade of sock puppet suffice? I think he’d be better played as a Muppet. It would be cuter.
D: D: D:
Frankensteinbeck
How many GOP candidates could win a debate against Kermit the Frog? Miss Piggy? Elmo? Animal?
Mike Kay (True Grit)
O.T.
Even more photos of Weiner playing with himself emerge.
http://www.tmz.com/2011/06/12/anthony-weiner-representative-congress-house-of-representatives-gym-locker-room-photos-pictures/
See, this is why they want him gone. These photographs are never gonna stop. Everyone who received one will be selling them, week after week.
Brachiator
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
Yep. And the Holy Grail will be any even vaguely suggestive message sent to an under age girl.
Weiner could … stick it out… and see if the voters in his district re-elect him (and if his district survives census related changes). But his effectiveness as a member of Congress has been severely compromised.
Hill Dweller
While this sort of overt racism and lying from Fox is expected, it’s the journalists who are purportedly competent that do even more damage, IMO.
Apparently, that fucking hack David Gregory put up a chart this morning illustrating the change in employment, debt and gas prices between the day the President was inaugurated and now.
It would have been nice if Gregory had explained why gas prices rose, or that the 2009 budget year started in Oct. 2008, and was projected to have a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit before Obama was ever sworn in. And to pretend that any job losses in the weeks after his inauguration were the President’s fault is simply journalistic malpractice.
Ghanima Atreides
@John Cole: paging EDK and Sully and GG.
GaJo is so, so, so……fuckin’ courageous to take a principled anti-war stance.
Ghanima Atreides
@AxelFoley: not just greenwald. like ABL said, the Great White Libertarian Hope.
BJ Frontpager EDK has a mancrush on the fucker too.
Ecks
@efgoldman: Gotcha. Thanks. Makes sense.
bryanD
“Even more photos of Weiner playing with himself emerge.”
Taken on gubmint property, no less. *errrgk!*
(BTW, a troubled tweaker, too. Who else thinks of popping a boner inside the Bob Michel Memorial Shvitz???)
Fred
@Comrade Kevin: You are too kind CK (John Galt Cole sock puppet?). I can just feel the luv flowing from your keyboard.
Nellcote
@Brachiator:
I think it’s a matter of recusing himself from anything related to ACA rather than a full removal from the bench. Although, that would be welcome too.
Elie
@rikyrah:
I think that Wiener has a personality problem that prevents him from doing the sort of cause and effect planning that you speak of. Impulsivity, grandiosity are part of a number of personality disorders from narcissism to bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorders. I am not trying to play psychotherapist, but I just don’t think that he could help what he did… the grandiosity, risk taking and self blindness is just who he is. Oddly, for people who know him, some of these features are also what probably made him attractive and successful. In any case, he and his wife have a long road. Can he become another person? We’ll see.
Everybody — or almost everybody knows someone like this. Because the person is not usually successful enough to have this kind of fame, it tends to just be the person who keeps blowing up his or her job opportunities and relationships with high risk, self destructive actions. The pain for family and close friends is at least as bad as that for the person who has the problem — maybe worse.
Elie
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
And of course, they can count on us disseminating them as well. sigh
There is a noise machine on both sides and its not always easy to keep score on who is doing the damage at any point. Truly, does anyone not know what a man’s crotch with an erection looks like? What developmental stage are we in?
Not saying that you are trying to do damage. Just that you and many on both sides seem compelled to keep pulling on this thing, so to speak. We can’t leave it alone any better than he could, apparently.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Don’t forget – in pointing out what Fox is doing here, it would be perfectly fair to reenact it with the Obama character in full blackface and the other two wearing KKK hoods. What are they going to do, complain that you’re not giving a true account?
Woodrowfan
Good God.
boss bitch
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
Not only do pictures continue to leak out but there was a protest today for him to resign and a counter protest for him to stay. Every channel (cbs, nbc, abc, etc.) were covering Weiner. I turned the channel and went back an hour later and they were STILL talking about him.
nepat
@Citizen_X:
You’re being too humble. There’s only one impersonator that makes sense for Palin: Jesus (preferably a blue-eyed white one).
Wouldn’t work for Paul Ryan, though. For him, we’ll need an Ayn Rand impersonator. I nominate Arianna Huffington.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Elie: yes. I should ignore what is on the front page today of 3 NYC newspapers and what is at the VERY TOP of tonight’s news cycle.
No one dare say the king isn’t wearing any clothing. Stick your head and the sand and women will stop selling comprising photos.
little ole me is driving the scandal coverage. lol, whatevrs.
urbanmeemaw
@dmsilev: And won handily.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: Last GOPper I voted for was Frank Hatch, against Ed King.
Both Franks were fierce environmentalists. But that was in another country, and besides the wench is dead.
Davis X. Machina
@Citizen_X: Been done. In when Peisistratos became tyrant, he had himself introduced to Athens in a chariot, riding behind a tall and stately woman dressed in armor — her name was Phye, “Growth”; subtle those Greeks — who announced to all and sundry that she was Athena, and this was her chosen one, Peisistratos.
Book 5 of Herodotus, IIRC.
bjacques
To be fair, they wanted to have Johnson debate a life-sized standup of Obama, but he lost.
I think all GOP candidates should debate Skank, who technically works for Fox.
SHUT YOUR STINKING TRAP!!
Cacti
@Elie:
IANAP, but based on his public persona and recent revelations, Weiner strikes me as a textbook Histrionic Personality.
Elie
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
I think you are exagerating my very mild observation that we may also contribute to the noise. Of course people of all stripes are interested and titillated.. You are NOT driving this by yourself…its the collection of all of us driven by our own nature and also by Wiener’s pathology. It IS hard to avert our eyes. Just noting that obvious fact. i’m sorry if I came across as judging you. I’m not.
Brachiator
@Elie:
Christ Jeebus. By this standard, maybe 80 percent of the people in Washington have some “personality disorder.” Weiner was just another guy cell donging to meet chicks. Not much different from that quarterback Brett Favre or even teenagers who text people. This is why the SNL skit, “My D##k in a Box,” is funny. Because it happens a lot and people can relate to it. People do crazy, stupid, reckless stuff. It would be better if folks, especially elected officials, showed better judgement, and it is necessary that they be punished when they go too far over the line, but it just is not some major sign of an outbreak of mental illness among the elites.
I remember the earlier days when Mark Foley was chasing pages in the House, and his peers would just gently chide him on it, and the press who knew he was a hypocrite bent over backwards because his private life was his business. More innocent times.
Elie
@Cacti:
Whatever he has, its been long standing and has made him something of a pill to his peers – arrogant, hypercritical and big trash talker. Interesting article on that in the NYT today…
I did not originally support him stepping down, but now I am not so sure. I think it may be impossible for him to stop being the way he is and that is always going to lead to trouble as he pushes the envelope with his grandiosity. That grandiosity is not strictly related to sexual issues. I guess we have to ask whether he can actually be different than he is… my guess is, not easily.
Elie
@Brachiator:
Its not an absolute kind of thing and yes, I believe a lot of successful people in DC and in business, have certain of these traits. Again, its the scope of how much a person’s personality is dominated by it and how far they take the risky behavior. Believe me, you know when you are around one of them who is out there and out of control
eemom
feh. Resign, not resign…..rehab or no rehab…..who the fuck cares at this point?
Can’t we please, PLEASE, just stop talking about him and his goddamn dick?
Davis X. Machina
@Davis X. Machina:
Long arm of coincidence: Phye from Herodotus turns up in my favorite blog’s recent post.
ABL
@eemom: fat chance. TMZ just released new pictures.
ugh.
Yutsano
@ABL: Is it wrong of me to think that honestly he really does have a decent body? Otherwise I’m of the opinion that I don’t live in his district therefore I don’t care.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@efgoldman: I thought it was “Gold Old Boy Party.”
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Brachiator: oh bullshit. He texts unsolicited fantasies about choking women. No two ways about it, getting off by choking women is sick.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
Steve Kornacki, a liberal writer for Salon.com, wrote two seperate articles, one in 2010 and one in 2009, warning bloggers not to get suckered by weiner, that he was just using them.
He goes on to detail how weiner was pandering to this niche on issues he never cared about his previous decade in office.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Elie:
you miss the point altogether. I could care less about his junk. he can play with it all he wants.
Filing a complaint that recommends his eviction with the co-opt board, stating continuous blaring noise is coming from the weiner apartment, with an audio tape of the ambient noise, does not mean I’m creating any noise or enjoying the noise.
by your logic, any one who links to a photo of a snow storm and calling for a sunny day is in actuality making it snow.
Brachiator
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
I don’t keep up with the details of Weiner’s post. Still, two things. Even as the poster noted, playing therapist is a waste of time. And people, especially some liberals, just love to throw out psychobabble at the drop of a Tweet.
Non-consensual choking is bad. BDSM and varieties of stuff like autoerotic choking is almost mainstream.
I also think that the pseudo-anonymous nature of the Internets, Twitter, etc, encourages some people to express all kinds of stuff that they would either keep personal or only express to intimate friends.
Oh yeah, third thing: that it is a fantasy, makes it less sick than acting out nonconsensually. Just sayin’
Kyle
” Because debating a guy who “looks” like Obama is an accurate measure of what it would be like to debate the real “Obama.” You know—because we’re all the same:”
To believe this implication, we would have to believe that Fox would never use a stand-in for a white Democratic president. In other words, there would have to be some limit on Fox’s penchant for playacting and ideological fantasy fulfillment. No sale!
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Brachiator: you’re ridiculous. If Bill O’Reilly was caught on tape fantasizing about choking women after abusing a falafel you wouldn’t be defending him.
“autoerotic choking is almost mainstream.” hahahahhahahhahahahahhahhahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhaahahaahaahhahahhhhhhhhhhaahhahahahahahahh. You must be having a real party in the Tenderloin.
eemom
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
oh in the name of GOD. Now y’all are ARGUING about Weiner’s sexual fantasies?? Are we all going seriously crazy here?
eemom
@Yutsano:
[primal scream]
shortstop
Turning the magical 27 percent on its head, snap polls show that only 27 percent of Fox’s audience can correctly identify this man as “not Obama.”
Yutsano
@shortstop: Ack. I’d ask for a link but I’m too afraid of that being true.
General Stuck
@eemom:
I think we can all be grateful for the fact that we are not Anthony Weiner, and for whatever other problems we might have, we should all take this time to ask the question, have we hugged our wieners today?
shortstop
@Yutsano: I made it up…but did I?
Tim, Interrupted
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
Mike Kay, could you provide a link to the info about Weiner texting choking fantasies, please? Google shows me nothing about it.
Thanks
Elie
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
Yawn….
Ok Mike.
Brachiator
@Mike Kay (True Grit):
I’m not “defending” Weiner. I’m just bemused at the stick-up-the-ass Puritanism of some Balloon Juicers.
RE: “autoerotic choking is almost mainstream.”
You really need to get out more. Don’t we have examples of a range of people, from Hollywood celebrities to politicians and rock stars engaging in this stuff? Sometimes with tragic results.
Then again, you might just have a safe word and don’t want to share it.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Brachiator: not wanting to strangle or choke or waterboard women makes me a prud.
lol, whatevrs.
Draylon Hogg
For fuck’s sake. Why even hire a black actor to play Obama? Just go the whole hog and break out the black face makeup and do it minstrel style. Absolutely fucking disgusting. Hanging’s too good for ’em.
And as for Weiner…what absolute bollocks. If JFK was around today there’d be no need to spray his grey matter all over Dealey Plaza just tweet a picture of him hanging out of Marilyn with a syringe of military surplus amphetamine sulphate hanging out of his arse. Job’s a good ‘un.
bjacques
It’s offical: politics has become a big, hairy, blue-veined dick joke.