Steve Benen highlights this three minutes of stupidity from Rick Perry. The guy just repeats his belief (“abstinence works”) when faced with statistics showing that Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Steve adds:
In a case like education and lessons on sexual health, the left tends to look at this in terms of results: what works in preventing teen pregnancies and the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases? For the right, the question is philosophical: what’s consistent with their morality.
This is basically right, but I’ll add that the elusive and oft-courted “center” is also concerned with, and will vote for, pragmatism, if it’s presented to them in the right package with the right kind of bow on top. That’s a huge and sometimes under-appreciated part of the Obama administration’s rhetoric and style.
Also, too: I haven’t watched much Perry on video, but after watching this one, I’m struck with the force of will that it must take the DC Perry-fluffing contingent to ignore just how much he looks, talks and thinks like Bush.
dmsilev
You have to admire that reporter. He gave a good honest try to pound the question into Perry’s skull, even if he did have to give up in the end.
As to the content of Perry’s answer, or word salad pretending to be an answer, I guess conservatives are okay with government wasted spending if it’s spending for something that they regard as morally correct.
Aimai
Click that link. It’s like watching the boy in the bubble take his first steps outside. He doesn’t even begin to grasp the question.
Samara Morgan
Perry is just another cowboy cat with a sixgun.
There is a demographic that this appeals to, mistermix.
Like your apparent secret lech for glibertarians.
Morbo
Too bad he didn’t have any popovers on hand.
NonyNony
@dmsilev:
Conservatives are always okay with wasteful government spending so long as it’s spending on things they approve of.
Conservatives are also okay with big government, so long as its big government in service of things they approve of.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, the fact that Perry looks, talks, and thinks like the deserting coward is a feature, not a bug, for the Village. They loved them some deserting coward. Couldn’t get over his flight suit package.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dmsilev:
Heck yeah, locking up the people they don’t want to see – blacks, drug addicts – is totally morally correct, so they have no trouble building prisons. On the other hand, locking up upper class white people is bad, so spending on politicians to prevent this from happening is also worth the money.
jacy
You know what? I have yet to see or hear Perry speak. No video, no audio. And, darnit, I’m planning on keeping that way. It’s for my mental health.
bkny
it’s been astonishing watching how perry is being mainstreamed to be an acceptable candidate.
Captain Haddock
Why do you think they are ignoring it? They always loved Bush, they just don’t want to admit it.
sb
He sounds exactly like GWB, no more so than at 1:45 of the video.
Nemo_N
This is bad news for Planned Parenthood.
MazeDancer
The media cannot have been unaware of how Perry is a W doppelganger, energetically, visually, and audio impact wise. A few have mentioned the sound-alike situation. “The Democrats call him Bush Lite” phrase they use that seems to be referring to polical stance is referrential.
But for average viewers, the first time they spend more than a sound byte listening to Perry, the reaction is visceral: NOOO!
No matter how much one might have read folks posting for weeks “He’s W” – until you’ve experienced the energetic repulsion for yourself, you cannot fully understand what a liability this is for Perry. Bet he gets speech lessons to tone down the accent and stop the W facial grimaces before his first debate.
sherparick
Right now the Boys and Girls on the Bus (See Timothy Crouse, 1972 Campaign) have an “interest.” That interest is in having a long and interesting Republican Primary season for the next 12 months to keep eyeballs on the Cable Channels, interested in opening up Newspapers, and going to web sites. A Romney coronation will be deadly dull (think 1996 and Bob Dole). Hence, the interest in the nartative that builds up Perry as “the Manly, Handsome, Decisive, Tough Talkin, Job Creator from Texas.” And there is also the high school nature of the press corps, how they all go warm and fuzzy for those they like (right now Perry) and will be mean and vicious with those they don’t like (Romney and to a lesser extent Bachmann).
Violet
@bkny:
I don’t think he is being mainstreamed. He’s in his honeymoon phase. He only just declared on Saturday. He’ll get a week or even two of being the shiny new toy for the press. Then they’ll get bored.
His “Bernanke is a traitor and we’d lynch him in Texas” comment did get quite a bit of press. And then he doubled down. His “Texas miracle economy” is being dissected and shown not to be true. And Rove and the Bushites are out on Fox questioning his candidacy.
On paper he looks like he should be a reasonable candidate. That’s what people are reacting to at the moment. I’m not too worried about it. He looks and sounds too much like Dubya. I don’t think people are going to want to vote for a third Dubya term.
bkny
keep in mind, this is the same national political press corpse who successfully sold the country on a dry drunk you’d like to have a beer with….
cleek
@Villago Delenda Est:
yup. he’s like a more-authentic version of what everyone thought W was, and he looks like a young Reagan. a dream, for alpha-male fetishists.
wilfred
Good qualification. Once pragmatism is introduced into politics you’d better know where you stand. Thus, if you want to reduce, say, illegal immigration, an electrified fence with machine gun positions every 50 meters is eminently practical but rather immoral.
Knowing when to be practical and when to be moral is a good place for beginning civics.
Zifnab
What are you talking about? DC loved Bush, right up until they found out he wasn’t cool anymore.
This is like dating Bush’s slutty younger sister.
Tom
@sherparick:
That strikes me as an accurate take. 12 more months of this madness.
GregB
This man is brilliant. He makes Paul Krugman look like The Situation.
If America buys this shitheel we might as hang up a closed sign and all go home.
Tom
@wilfred:
Not to be a dick or anything, but pragmatic is about weighing the costs and benefits of a course of action. Your hypo, while perhaps effective (but perhaps not, illegal aliens will simply find other throughputs), is not in fact *cost* effective, and thus not the pragmatic option to solve illegal immigration.
Paul in KY
@Aimai: I think he grasps the question, he just knows he can’t say anything but ‘abstinence works’.
wrb
That isn’t ignored it is a feature, for many people.
Bush nostalgia is big according to polls.
The Bush years are remembered as being when you had a job a house and a future. Causality is complicated and there will always be someone on the tv who disagrees. So much easier to go with the gut. Life glowed more during the Bush years, thus the more Bush-like candidate might bring the glow back.
For similar reasons, making life miserable under an Obama administration might be good for Republican power, if not for Republicans’ lives.
I suspect
Paul in KY
@Zifnab: I like your analogy, LOLing!
drkrick
@MazeDancer:
I’ve seen a lot of comments by longtime observers in Texas that the accent is mostly a put on – he didn’t used to talk like that at all.
Of course, they say Bush could actually speak the language before he became governor, too. Maybe they should take a good look at the Governor’s mansion in Texas and see if something’s up there causing people’s speaking patterns to change.
Violet
@wrb:
Do you have a link to those polls?
Jewish Steel
@Violet: Bush is still less popular than m_c on a thread last I heard.
Paul in KY
@drkrick: It’s called ‘running for re-election in Texas’.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing about abstinence education is that we know it works, because just look who one of its most prominent spokespersons is…Bristol Palin.
Who is still a virgin, due to the rigors of abstinence education!
Violet
@drkrick:
The Governor’s mansion was extensively damaged in a fire a few years ago. Since then Perry has been living in a very expensive house costing taxpayers a lot of money each month. Don’t blame the mansion.
bkny
@Violet: other polling shows consistently the public recognizes the collapse of the economy was on bush’s watch and don’t hold obama responsible for that; although people have obviously lost patience with his ignoring the jobs issue.
wrb
damn, don’t have permission to edit my own comment
Dennis SGMM
Those who are hoping for Americans to take a visceral dislike to Perry’s Bush-alike mannerisms may be overlooking the idea that many Americans have a visceral desire to get back to the Good Old Days and therefore be attracted to Perry. Cargo Cult politicking and an economy in the shitter may just put Perry into the White House.
RedKitten
Oh my lord, what a maroon. I love how the audience was getting some serious lulz out of Perry’s statements that abstinence works.
jibeaux
The best example of Steve Benen’s point is the whole HPV vaccine “debate.” From where I’m sitting, if you’ll accept your daughter getting cervical cancer when there’s a simple vaccine rather than confront the truth that at some point in time she may choose to have sex with someone, you’re just a shit parent. I’m getting that vaccine even for my son when he’s old enough.
Samara Morgan
@Dennis SGMM: nah. their only hope is to get Ryan to run.
and its not cargo cults, its a ghost dance.
Mike Goetz
Bachmann is already dead in the water. Perry is in the process of dying: he is where Bachmann was about three weeks ago. (Sweet Bruce Bartlett quote: “Rick Perry is an idiot, and I don’t think anybody disagrees with that.”)
Romney just keeps plodding along, and he will win via the two most beautiful words in the English language: De. Fault.
And then he will be filleted, grilled and eaten by Obama, because not even Republicans want any of these jokers to become President.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dennis SGMM:
The fact is, Perry is not near.
That is a compelling reason to vote for him for some Americans, regardless of whatever policy prescriptions he might advocate or contemplate.
The color of his skin is far more important than the content of his character, for some.
Brian S
@Paul in KY: Yeah. My voice changes a little to match the place I’m living in. Hell, sometimes to match the people I’m talking to. It happens subconsciously.
Bubblegum Tate
Benen has it exactly correct. Belief always trumps fact for the right wing.
Cat Lady
Oh to be Mitt Romney, looking at this and thinking “I’m losing to this cowboy clown? What am I, chopped liver? How do I buy my soul back?”
Fucking integrity, how does it work?
Comrade Javamanphil
Much like Perry’s preferred course of education regarding evolution (teach the controversy including creationism and allow the student to make their choice as to the correct answer), propose we teach the controversy in Sex Ed class. We’ll teach abstinence and birth control and let the kids decide.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jibeaux: My oldest son is getting the shots right now, and we’ll get it for the other two when they get older. The same viruses that cause cervical cancer also cause warts, so not only will his getting the shots help his future girlfriends, he gets some benefit as well.
Samara Morgan
@Jewish Steel: hes going to go down as the worst president in history. and that prolly isnt strictly fair, given that he was just continuing established practice.
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Ok, this implies a consistency of thought process that simply does not exist in the minds of Christianists.
wrb
@Violet:
Not handy, just memory.
I specifically remember a Politico feature from December that reported that Bush’s popularity had risen 22% since he’d left office and that he’s passed Obama in popularity.
I recall reading somewhere else that Bush was 6% more popular in key districts currently held by Democrats.
a quick google yields:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46019.html
John PM
As I was telling a co-worker yesterday, I normally think that calling someone an idiot is a weak tactic when arguing about a topic, but in this case the entire Republican Party is filled with actual, literal, dictionary definition idiots, so calling them idiots is not an opinion but a fact.
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Goetz:
Seems like only yesterday when Bush became the Republican nominee. “That goober doesn’t stand a chance!” I thought. Bush’s numerous gaffes, and the fact that he was running against the sitting VP of a popular administration in a good economy had me convinced that Bush was headed back to Texas.
You could say that his first term was stolen. His second term sure as hell wasn’t.
Sam Houston
Now my venerated friend, you will perceive that Texas is presented to the union as a bride adorned for her espousal. But if, now so confident of the union, she should be rejected, her mortification would be indescribable. She has sought the United States, and this is the third time she has consented. Were she now to be spurned it would forever terminate expectation on her part, and it would then not only be left for the United States to expect that she would seek some other friend, but all Christendom would justify her course dictated by necessity and sanctioned by wisdom.
jonas
@NonyNony: This is about all you need to know about current conservative thought in America. I’ve always put it as: “For Republicans, there is no government program too large, and no program too expensive, redundant or inefficient, as long as the primary effect of said overreach and spending is somehow to the detriment of poor or brown people.”
Try to find a case where that isn’t true. I dare you.
OGLiberal
The story about Perry shoving his mouth full of food to avoid questions about his statements re: the un-Constitutionality of Social Security has already been mentioned here and elsewhere. But I wanted to point out something else in that same story. As Perry was leaving, he tripped over one of the women asking the questions and said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/08/rick-perry-encounters-protesters-in-new-hampshire.html
Remember the uproar when Obama called a reporter “sweetie”? I can only imagine how much the DC press corps is going to erupt over this blatant sexism displayed by Perry.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The problem with the vaccine, obviously, is that it preempts the invisible sky buddy’s plan of punishment for engaging in sexual activity, for both sexes.
Which is why the vaccine must be stopped.
jibeaux
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): No kidding. It’s just common sense. But some people, you could announce there’s a vaccine for HIV and they’d be bummed about how this is now going to open the floodgates for sex in the streets.
Villago Delenda Est
@OGLiberal:
This is exactly right. You can only imagine it, because it will never happen. There will be no Village outrage over this comment, unlike when that near guy dared to call some stenographer “sweetie”.
John Weiss
Rick Perry is a dumbass with a good haircut. Molly had it right: “Good Hair” Perry.
jibeaux
@Cat Lady: I’m not convinced Romney ever had a soul, but if he did it’s been parceled off like horcruxes in Harry Potter, and all the horcruxes have been destroyed at this point. I think the last one fell when he argued against raising the debt ceiling.
Mike Goetz
@Dennis SGMM:
Bush had the family machine at his back. Perry, to put it mildly, does not. He’s just a cocksure airhead out there all by his lonesome. I literally have not seen any other Republicans out there supporting him. He’s even more of a media shibboleth than Huntsman, given breath solely because the media hate Romney.
jacy
@Brian S:
My husband remarks that I start speaking with a Canadian accent every time I watch a hockey game.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Remember, right now Perry is running for the GOP nomination; to that end, he’s working the batshit base because they’re the ones who will vote in the primary. He doesn’t have to appeal to anyone else yet.
Once he clinches the nomination, he will moderate his tone to have wider appeal.
Appearances to the contrary, Perry isn’t an idiot. He’s one of the purest political animals you will ever have the misfortune to meet. Not for nothing has he managed to be Governor longer than anyone else in Texas history.
Dennis SGMM
@OGLiberal:
See; Perry is not just like Bush. In the same situation Bush would have said “No foul, sweet cheeks.” The press would have held it up as an example of his roughhewn manly charm.
noodler
Did anyone see the ad that Ron Paul is runing in TX? “Have you ever had sex with Rick Perry?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/have-you-ever-had-sex-with-rick-perry–the-wishful-ad-ad-hominem/2011/08/18/gIQA8emzNJ_blog.html?hpid=z5
OGLiberal
Also, watch Ben Smith defend Perry here:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0811/Ask_him_why_he_doesnt_believe_in_science.html?showall
He is so focused on “the trap” being laid by that evil woman (ie – voter) using her kid to ask “gotcha” questions that he ignores the insanity and ignorance in Perry’s answer. He’s so focused on the fact that Perry didn’t say, “The earth is 60,000 years also because that’s what Jesus told me”, that he ignores that yes, in fact, we do know with pretty decent certainty the age of the the earth, give or take a few million years.
Then he’s so impressed with Perry figuring out “the trap” (apparently, Smith’s definition of a trap is getting a candidate to admit to the stupid stuff he says/believes) and getting away from the evil lefty woman and her demon spawn that he repeats Perry’s answer on evolution and creationism while ignoring the fact that, per the official curriculum of the Texas BOE (those crazy god squaders), they don’t even teach intelligent design, much less creationism. Or that a court case found the teaching of creationism in public schools to be un-Constitutional. (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/perry-says-texas-public-schools-teach-creationism-in-violation-of-the-constitution.php)
Our press just sucks. Sucks. And Ben Smith is a Mark Halperin wannabee – I remember him fluffing up McCain in 2008 almost as the other tools.
kindness
C’mon….the DC Village Elders are professional harlots. They loved fluffing bush43 admin people. They still do except they are more discrete now as history shows us how wrong that administration, and their MSM enablers were.
So fluffing Perry…..well, it brings back the starbursts & the tingle shooting up all their legs. I’m waiting for the first blogger to ask one of the Village Elders where they buy their kneepads.
Amir Khalid
I see two men talking at cross-purposes here. By saying that abstinence-only sex ed works, Rick Perry seems to mean only that it’s more acceptable than the other kind: i.e. that it doesn’t corrupt young people by discussing sex — beyond simply saying don’t do it. The interviewer is questioning its effectiveness, particularly in preventing teen pregnancy, but Perry doesn’t seem to give a damn about that.
What this says to me about his decision-making process is that he prefers policy that stays within his social-conservative comfort zone, even if it doesn’t actually work as advertised. A Perry presidency would be four years of ineffectual grandstanding, but at least the party supporters would be entertained
graves007
Wow, this clown is Bush v2. He talks like him and appears to share the same level of (lack of) intelligence. Religion has this peculiar way of making people really fucking stupid.
John Weiss
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Hey, Grumpy. Having the misfortune to see this guy Perry close up, I’ve lived in Texas for most of my life, I’ll opine that he is an idiot, but politically speaking, he’s an idiot-savant. The ‘salt of the earth’ folk in rural Texas think he hung the moon. Unfortunately, those rustic folk still are the majority in the Great State.
Hopefully the moon-pie crowd won’t carry the day in a national election.
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Goetz:
True, Bush had the family machine at his back. Obama will have unemployment hung around his neck. I think that might balance it out. As for Republican support, it’s still early days and, if I recall correctly, only those candidates who were already anointed had support early on.
ppcli
That clip is the first time I’ve heard Perry speak. And he does something I wouldn’t have thought possible: his accent, inflections, facial gestures, etc. make me think I’m listening to Bush, except much, much dumber. Maybe Bush after a couple of hits of nitrous oxide or ether.
Stefan
@jonas:
Too be fair, Republicans are also willing to waste vaste amounts of money to the detriment of white people, assuming those white people are women, gay, union members, and/or live in the Northeast.
Davis X. Machina
A scene like this is the inevitable result of having a political press corps that assesses candidates on their message discipline, and not particularly noticing, or caring about, what the message is.
Politicians, and candidates respond to incentives.
Dennis SGMM
@Stefan:
To the detriment of California, also, too. They seem to be born hating California and their fury at not being able to plunder our coast for oil burns with the heat of a thousand suns.
Anya
OMG! He sounds exactly like Bush the Lesser. I listened to the video while I was busy shuffling paper, so I had to look again to make sure it was not some mix of W and Perry.
jcricket
Pragmatism: The problem with the Democratic party and also our greatest strength.
It’s why you can legitimately have Baucus and Pelosi and McDermott and Grayson and Ben Nelson in the same party. Basically I think even if we had 100% Democrats in Congress we’d still functionally have two parties because of the ideological spread of Democrats.
Course this means we air our dirty laundry in public and dither about every issue. In the “long run” I’m pretty sure we’ll win out because pragmatism has the value of allowing you to adjust to what, you know, actually works and doesn’t.
Take a look at what’s happened as Republican ideological purity has driven out groups like teachers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and demographically blacks, gays, Muslims, Jews, and increasingly any minority group that doesn’t swear fealty to white christian evangelicals’ view of the world.
Basically Republicans are creating enemies faster than they can replace them with allies. It’s only through Democratic apathy Republican “GOTV” efforts and voter-restriction laws that they even win at a national level anymore. That won’t go on forever.
NonyNony
@Mike Goetz:
I am beginning to think that this is mostly right (Perry as a media creation), but I don’t think it’s that the media hate Romney, though. They want a horse race, and they’re afraid that Romney can’t get the GOP nomination. They’re afraid that anyone else up against Obama won’t give them the horse race that they need in order to dust off the stories they have in their filing cabinets that they pull out to run every 4-to-8 years.
So they’re casting around for a Republican that they think can give Obama a serious run for his money. And lo, here’s a Texas governor who has good hair and a square jaw who’s known for winning elections and being tight with the Christian and corporate elements in Texas. He’s be a perfect foil for their campaign narrative! Why they can dust off those Gore vs. Bush stories, change the names and a couple of details, and print ’em almost without any work!
PurpleGirl
They have to lay off all those teachers because they aren’t teaching abstinence correctly or implementing the programs the right way. If they had Texas would have so many teen pregnancies.
anon
Rick Perry spoke at a “Politics and Eggs” breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire on Wednesday, the 17th. Afterwards, some man approached him and stated, in a voice loud enough to be captured on the C-Span recording, “Bank of America… We will help you out.” It’s both bizarre and revealing.
Watch the video here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-americas-dead-drop-rick-perry-we-will-help-you-out
ppcli
@ppcli: Don’t get me wrong – just because he’s paramecia-level stupid doesn’t mean I think he won’t get elected. Nearly 30 years living in this country have taught me a few lessons.
I fondly remember sitting around with mes chums in a student dorm TV room at the University of Toronto, watching the Carter – Reagan debate. By the end, we were sure that Reagan was toast. Nothing but silly catch-phrases and fact-free fantasia rhetoric. Carter had complete control of his dossier, and gave disciplined, substantial answers. Our jaws collectively hit the floor when the next day’s papers reported the polls – Americans overwhelmingly thought Reagan had won. Ah, those happy, naive days of youth….
.
.
.
Now where did I put that passport?
Ajay
Couldnt go thru this video. He reminds me of moron we had for 8 years from the same state.
Hill Dweller
The feckless assholes in the beltway have no scruples. If they did, people like Karl Rove would have been laughed out of town years ago. Rove is about as close to evil as one can get in our political system, yet he is treated like some sort of genius.
“Journalists” like Ben Smith and David Gregory aren’t just hacks; they do real damage to the country in pursuit of their career goals.
Mike Goetz
“Basically Republicans are creating enemies faster than they can replace them with allies.”
A pithier statement of the truth I have never seen. Exactly so. And the allies they are acquiring are – how can I put this delicately – riding the midnight train to Slab City. (h/t Moe Syzlak)
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
This is exactly it. The media is addicted to the horse race meme as the only way to cover an election. Heck, that poltroon Ben Smith is depicted sitting on the railing of a horse track, with binoculars in his hands. It’s all a game to these people, and they cover it like a sporting event. The thing is, Arod and Roger Clemens have no impact on your life except as people involved in your passive leisure activities. Politicians are charged with making decisions and crafting legislation that can have profound impact on your everyday life, your family, your community.
Steeplejack
@Ajay:
Had the same reaction. I tried to tough it out but got only about two-thirds through. I found myself flashing back to 1999 and 2000 (when I was much less “political”), when I would catch a snippet of Dubya on TV and would think, “What an idiot! No way this guy gets elected.” D’oh!
Villago Delenda Est
@Steeplejack:
In Back to the Future, do you remember Doc Brown’s reaction when Marty told him who the President was in 1985?
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
The GOP inceasingly reminds me of the post-NEP Communist Party in the early Soviet Union…
“I know it works in practice, but does it work in theory?”
sb
zimzam
Does he even give two sh*ts whether abstinence education works or not? I doubt it. It’s good for the base, and what’s good for the base….well, f*ck the rest of you!
Steeplejack
@Villago Delenda Est:
Heh.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@wrb: That was from last December, and more telling than anything was Bush’s 51 percent disapproval.
There’s this AP poll from May that shows Bush at 50-49. 30 percent strongly disapprove.
It also probably helps that Bush is fading in the rear-view mirror. Less so when you’ll have ads from the Obama campaign re-hashing Katrina and the economic dive while saying ‘do you feel lucky, America?’
Paul in KY
@ppcli: That Carter was such a downer, talking about policies and stuff. What a drag.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: That is one hell of an analogy! Sorta like Stalinist USSR, with Stalin being the standard Republican primary voting whackadoon.
Lot of culty religion parallels as well.
Will
This may be the first time I’ve really heard Perry speak (just been reading all the articles). Oh my God. It’s the exact same voice as Bush. The exact same voice. That is really creepy.
gogol's wife
@jacy:
Same here.
Comrade Rich
@noodler:
I LOLed when I saw this ad. Who decided that the ‘Star Wars sans serif’ font was a winner?
Nemesis
Politics is now presented as entertainment in the US. 24/7 cable news has far too many hours of daily programming to fill for the networks to be overly concerned with trivialities like truth and facts. They are concerned with one thing: profit.
No, its better to entertain. Thats one of the many reasons tv machine pundits appear to be anti-Obama. He is not a crazed, wild-eyed zealot. Media needs teh crazy to sell its product. Media is too lazy to actually report.
So in this day of political entertainment, or politics as entertainment, politicians who can help reporters do their jobs-make the reporting easy-have an advantage.
The more outlandish the statement or position the better, because the story sells itself.
pragmatism
Please be concerned with, and vote for me gopers. Pretty please
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Rick Perry has never impregnated one of his rent boy so abstinence must work.
Brachiator
Yeah, Perry is an idiot on the issue of abstinence, but this:
This is typical insufferable condescending liberal bullshit.
The idea that the “center” (a stupid, meaningless description) is made up of people who need to be lead to the truth by their noses, while liberals are singularly able to understand unvarnished reality, is plainly ludicrous.
In this, committed liberals are just as dumbass as conservatives, libertarians and other ideologically driven fools who all believe that they solely have a grasp of a truth that has to be prettied up before it can be comprehended by the center (or the masses).
Of course, while the right often wrongly believe that a simple adherence to moral principles will make everything turn out right, the left foolishly believe that “education” independent of ethics and values will lead to some kind of nirvana.
eyelessgame
I’ve noticed this about almost every issue – conservative friends of mine will respond to “we should do X because it will work and improve conditions Y and Z” with “But it’s *wrong* to do that, because (property rights/nanny state/disincentive to work/etc).
Doesn’t matter whether their god is Jesus or the Invisible Hand – either way it’s a moral, religious argument.
artem1s
@jacy:
I am so with you there. hated the sound of GHWB’s voice. Swore up and down I would leave the country if he got elected again. The sound of Shrub was 10KX worse. Nearly put me over the edge. Pretty much gave up TV news and did not listen to a single state of the union for 8 years.
Not gonna listen Governor good hair. too much PTSD involved.
cleek
because his dink is equipped with rear-facing barbs that extend in the presence of numbers.
now you know.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
I don’t know where you get this notion from. Ethics and values are important in formulating the best possible outcome for the most people. Unless “values” means “catering to the ungrounded in reality bigotry of some groups”.
The problem is when you abandon ethics for specific values, as Christianists often do. They have no problem with telling lies if it advances their belief system.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
How is this much different from the bizarre and unfounded consensus among many Balloon Juice posters and others that Romney will be the GOP nominee, based on little more than wishful thinking, reaction to dopey media speculation and abuse of early, inherently meaningless polling?
MattR
@Brachiator:
Maybe it is ludicrous to describe the “center” that way, but it is a perfectly accurate way to describe the “masses”.
ericblair
@Brachiator:
The right doesn’t really adhere to moral principles. If they did, you could actually have intelligent arguments with them. It’s about tribalism, tribal markers (like abortion and the Fox News outrage of the day), and opposition to People Not Like Them. No government spending is too much if it benefits The Tribe, and no government spending is too little if it benefits The Others.
The lefty-left is the same way. All the public option/14th Amendment stuff looks a lot more like winning rhetorical points than fixing the actual problem, and the insistence on using the Bully Pulpit seems to be a lot more about asserting tribal dominance than convincing anybody to do anything productive.
It’s the technocrats and academics who seem to believe that if you explain things clearly and often enough, everyone will be convinced that you’re right and will change their minds. Except, not really, because the technocrat isn’t in the right tribe so is by definition Wrong, and anything that sounds sensible is just a pack of lies.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Hello, Brachiator #98… You must have much more faith than do I in the intelligence of voters (the so-called undecided center — are they undecided or just stupid, I wonder?). I think that a lot of voters will simply hold their noses and vote for what appears to be the non-vote-rocking politician or policy. Herd animals.
ant
@anon:
lol.
Perry says “sure”.
That should make for a nice question for someone to ask him about.
He wont have any shame about it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Well, you could have made this precise argument in 2008, when it seemed like McCain was doomed because he wasn’t loony toons enough for the GOP primaries. Among Republicans, there were many who were of the “anyone but McCain” persuasion and were looking for an alternative. Yet, when push came to shove on primary day, many held their noses and chose McCain as their nominee.
The Republicans now have an insurmountable problem in their nominating process. You have to be sufficiently reactionary to get the nomination, but then you have to backpeddle from those positions very fast to be competitive in the general. One of the things that unquestionably hurt McCain is that he chose one of the true believers as his veep, and that turned even a lot of Republicans off.
Which is why folks here at BJ, using 2008 as a template, think that Romney is the most likely nominee, because the GOP establishment wants to win, not score brownie points with the GOP base, and they know that the more GOP base friendly you are in the primaries, the more difficult it is to put up a credible fight in the general. Romney has the best chance of pulling off that transition, even though he has loads of problems, to include his incessant flip flopping.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ericblair:
Exactly right.
A large fraction of our politics (what, you want something less vague than “a large fraction”? Okey, dokey, how does 80% sound?) is tribalism (and mostly cultural tribalism at that) with post-hoc rationalizations sprinkled on top to make it look prettier, so we can pretend that policy matters as something other than a marker for who belongs to which tribe. This is just as bad on the left as it is on the right, with the very major and significant difference that our holier-than-thou left have no power worth speaking of and our right wing nuts have a co-share in running the fucking country.
The Worst Person In the World
Wow. I have studiously avoided subjecting myself to this Perry moron thus far, and I am glad of that.
But watching this, just wow: I had no idea he was as aggressively, profoundly, willfully stupid, maybe more so, than Dubya. And the speech and body language similarities are creepy.
And the voters of this country are just moronic enough to vote into office a dude who is the mirror image of the worst president in American history, so yeah, we’re fucked.
A Mom Anon
@Nemesis: You know,I am tired of hearing how the news(I use that term loosely)networks have 24 hours to fill every day and this is somehow an excuse for not covering anything. Bullshit.(this is not directed at you,sorry if it seemed that way).
They have 24/7 to oh,I don’t know,COVER THE FUCKING NEWS. In Depth. Seriously,if they only had 8 hours a day to work with that somehow they’d have more time to cover real stories and not this idiotic gossipy bullshit they make up? Really? What the hell?
Off the top of my head I could think of a dozen newsworthy topics that an enterprising network could cover and even make interesting. Jesus. That irks the hell out of me,they have 24/7 and they use maybe an hour of that repeated over and over all freaking day. Gah. Sorry,I needed to vent that,it drives me crazy,lol.
celticdragonchick
@eyelessgame:
Yep. I got in a nasty exchange with the glibitarians at Radley Balkos place last night, and the “all taxes are THEFT!!” religious conviction was in full force. It seems the outrage was over the possibility that a
womanmoocher with cancer was goingt o be helped with tax dollars that werecollectedtaken by Nazi jackbooted stormtroopers at gunpoint.One of the more entertaining responses to me…
It seems I fellate the collosus of statist authoritarian tyranny. Who knew?
Of course, whether or not she could be helped was utterly besides the point to them. You see, they weren’t asked whether she should ever have been helped to begin with…and they make it fairly clear that the moochershould sell every last possession before crawling on her knees to beg for charity.
Ben Cisco
Good news, everyone!
__
The usual suspects are “dead dropping” their support of Gov. Goodhair: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/bank-americas-dead-drop-rick-perry-we-will-help-you-out
__
Also, too, pardner, set your eyebones on this video (check about 40 min. in): http://c-spanvideo.org/program/PerryRe&showFullAbstract=1
__
Yee Fucking Haw!
wrb
@ericblair:
This
A Mom Anon
@celticdragonchick: I have a feeling that the world these assholes advocate for would be one even they couldn’t stand living in. I normally don’t wish bad things on anyone,but I really wish one of these nitwits had to choose between food for themselves or a child,or making a house payment and medical care. Where in the fuck does that level of selfishness come from?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@A Mom Anon:
The problem isn’t the sheer number of hours they have to fill, it is the very high ratio of the number of hours to fill divided by the total amount of money available to pay for filling it with content. Good content costs money, and the evidence to date suggests that Americans are not willing to pay for high quality content in sufficient numbers to support anything other than the dreck we have on TV now.
Jewish Steel
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
When I moved to Seattle I thought I would enjoy being among my kind and found that the kind of unexamined, received wisdom thinking I loathed in here in R-country was a universal.
How naïve of me.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Realistically, abstinence does work. No fuckee, no baby. The problem is with abstinence only education.
I wonder how much of the teen pregnancy rate in Texas is due to Catholic Hispanics, especially ones recently from south of the border? It would be an interesting statistic to know.
jrg
It seems to me that in the fundie, authoritarian mind, something cannot be both “good” and “bad” at the same time.
Since people like Perry have decided that abstinence-only education is “good”, the fact that it doesn’t prevent teen pregnancy is not something they are capable of processing. If something is “good”, it’s “good”. 100%. Trade-offs don’t exist.
It’s kind of like the beginning of the Iraq war. Saddam was “bad”, therefore any effort to remove him (no matter how damaging or expensive) was “good”. If you opposed the Iraq war, you therefore must be “bad”, and therefore you must “hate America”.
Always remember, we’re dealing with profoundly fucking stupid people.
Felanius Kootea
Oh my god I had a bad GWB flashback listening to that.
OT: I liked this from the Borowitz report: Rabid Dog Briefly Mistaken for Tea Party Candidate.
Villago Delenda Est
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Oh, I don’t know. People pay a premium for HBO and Showtime.
The problem really is not with generating viewer interest, but with the corporate bottom line mentality. Profit margins are higher with cheap content as opposed to more expensive content. Bean counters rule, and dictate how news is covered.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Jewish Steel:
I’ve come to the conclusion that courtesy of our evolutionary history we are a species that lives and dies by heuristics, especially when dealing with something complicated and unpredictable like other humans, and that this tendancy of people to muddle thru on the back of pre-conceived notions forms a sort of upper bound on the scale and complexity of a workable human society, an upper bound which the present day US is already flirting with. Honestly I think the time has come to start thinking about splitting the US up into a smaller and more manageable set of subnations.
The Spy Who Loved Me
@anon:
With the painfully obvious mic dangling overhead, and cameras everywhere, do you really think this was real? You are extremely gullible.
Ben Cisco
Totally OT, but needs to be seen: Ohio union reps gave Kasich a big ole F.U. at a meeting to “discuss” SB5: http://media2.newsnet5.com//photo/2011/08/19/kasich_sb5_20110819103339_640_480.JPG
__
Story here.
aimai
@Paul in KY:
You know, I don’t think he grasps the question. Because to him abstinence does work–regardless of the rate of teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy is seen, to the moralist, as the natural *punishment* for failure to be a moral, abstinent, person. A high teen pregnancy rate is sad, but its not a bug, its a feature. It serves as a warning to the better children that they’d better avoid sex. Perry had trouble understanding why the rate of teen pregnancy was being used to critique the teaching method because in Perry’s mind (and that of his voters) there’s no such thing as good unmarried teen sex. Anything that makes that sex safer–and he explicitly says that in the clip–would imply some level of adult complicity in an absolute evil. Abstinence only education is good/effective because it lets teens know where adults stand on their sex lives and that is more important than protecting teens from the long term consequences (STDS, pregnancy) of unwise teen decisions.
It takes Perry a very long time to work his way around to figuring out that one aspect of the question is “financial” like a “cost benefit” style analysis and even then he more or less rejects that as a “comperable” because he doesn’t see the teen pregnancy rate as a “cost.” He sees adult compicity in sex education as a cost.
aimai
Paul in KY
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Sometimes I wonder if college/pro team sports contributes to this. People are very tribal when it comes to their sports teams (I know I am) & maybe that type of support travels over to their politics.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think there is a big difference between news content and entertainment content in terms of the potential income from re-broadcasting of the latter but not the former. You can show the same movie or series over and over again (TCM anyone?) and reap residuals, but who is going to pay for the news from 2 years ago, at least in the mass market?
celticdragonchick
@A Mom Anon:
I had a similar reaction, albeit a little more forceful…
#36 | celticdragonchick | August 18th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
@Dave Krueger
Yeah, in a truly just society, she should be able to make other people sell their stuff to pay for her medical bills. Or better yet, the money should be taken from other people before they actually get to buy stuff with it, because the moment people buy stuff, they selfishly tend to think the stuff is theirs and balk when government, and its innumerable cheerleaders, want to take it away to satisfy their own sense of moral superiority.
You really are a pathetic, bitter, son of a bitch.
Remind me not to save you from a car crash or some other mishap, since that would mean I might have to use a resource that I could better put to use satisfying some other whim of my own. Watching you die slowly could be used as an object lesson in not depending on others, after all. Galt-y people stand on their own or not at all, amirite?
Jebus fucking Christ. You actually resent some of the tax dollars you contributed going to help people with horrible diseases.
I have no way to express the contempt I have for you.
Villago Delenda Est
Look out! A money bomb is scheduled to explode on August 20th!
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: I think you must have touched a nerve there for young ‘CK’ ;-)
celticdragonchick
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Good observation, and it has been noted that there is no guarantee that the United States will survive this century in its present form.
RedKitten
@anon:
“Politics and Eggs”? Seriously? That’s what they named their event?
Paul in KY
@wrb: I consider using the ‘bully pulpit’ as a way to educate low-information voters. Those people are hearing BS 24/7 from the Repub propaganda machine.
Goebbels said that even a great big whopping lie can be believed if you repeat it enough (and there is no counter-narrative).
Linda Featheringill
@The Spy Who Loved Me: #117
Number of Teen Pregnancies by Race/Ethnicity
Texas
Non-Hispanic Whites, 2005
19,210
African Americans, 2005
11,460
Hispanics, 2005
42,360
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/state-data/state-profile.aspx?state=texas
This was a few years ago but it might still hold true.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Paul in KY:
I don’t know if sports coverage causes political tribalism. I’d be more inclined to believe that both of them reflect underlying aspects of human nature. One of the things which clued me in to just how tribal politics is, was noticing the stylistic resemblence between political discussion and sports talk radio, etc. You could take most of the “Obama is teh suxxors” rants from the progressive blogs and convert them into your typical Monday morning “our QB is teh suxxors” water-cooler and AM radio talk you hear routinely after any NFL game, just by changing a few of the names and some of the domain-specific jargon around.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
LOL! Utopians tend to have very brittle ideologies that cannot withstand determined critical examination.
Jewish Steel
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Bible Belt border guard would be a growth industry in my area.
I could do that.
Paul in KY
@Ben Cisco: I wish they had shown up, but just to lambaste Kasich & further the points that have him scurrying for cover.
Would have been a good chance to get the Union’s message out on TV & hopefully make Kasich into even more of an ass.
OGLiberal
@Ben Cisco: The BoA dude in that video is apparently a Boston Irish Dem, Jim Mahoney, who is buddies with Jerry Brown and the Kennedys:
http://www.bostonirish.com/node/14801
That’s “our side” there telling Perry that “we will help you out”.
Whores. Fucking whores. We’re doomed.
PS – Of course, Mahoney is probably saying the same thing to Obama’s folks. Always play both side when you’re not sure who is going to win.
RedKitten
That’s EXACTLY it. For the life of me, I could not figure out why the right-wingers weren’t worried about what actually worked. It’s because they’re more interested in PUNISHING those kids who have the temerity to have sex, rather than ensuring that if they’re going to have sex, they do it safely.
In their world, if you have premarital sex, then you fully deserve to be punished for the rest of your life for it .
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Spy Who Loved Me: I grew up in Abilene, Tx, in the 70s and 80s. We had the second highest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation, and that was well before the Hispanics were a large fraction of the population. I figured it had something to do with Abilene also having the second highest church per capita ratio in the nation.
SiubhanDuinne
@RedKitten:
Every January in Georgia there is a huge “Eggs and Issues” breakfast. I had to go to it this year. Never again, if I’m lucky.
@mistermix @ top:
Can I possibly be the first person to see what you did there with that post title??
(ETA: admittedly I have not carefully read all 140 or so comments)
D.A.
Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Brolin reprises his role as W in “W Too, Electric Bugaloo”
FlipYrWhig
Like aimai, Amir, and others have said, it seems to me that the nature of the exchange is that Perry wants to insist that _abstinence_ works, and the questioner wants to talk about the policy of _abstinence-only sex education_. So for Perry the problem isn’t the agenda, it’s the randy teenagers failing to live up to that agenda.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Excellent points, aimai. I do think that he just can’t acknowledge that there is any other form of sex ed than abstinance. Due to fact that non-abstinence means they are not abstinent.
His voters don’t care about the evil brown kids fornicating & don’t care if he doesn’t talk about them. For their young snow flakes, abstinence is the only ‘method’ that can be talked about in polite society (IMO).
Thus, if he acknowledges other methods, that is emboldening (that’s a good Dubya word) the kids to research/check out those other methods. It is stupid, I know, as these kids will certainly suss out the other methods Rick Perry or no. But most of those kids can’t vote & it’s their parents that he is after.
I will note that I couldn’t watch the whole thing, as Rick Perry gives me Chimpy McBatshit flashbacks.
Steeplejack
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
Well, if you read down on that ZeroHedge page:
ericblair
@RedKitten:
Same deal with right-to-life; having the baby and having to raise him is the mother’s punishment for being a slut. Otherwise, you’d think they’d be a little more concerned about the mother’s health during pregnancy and the baby’s health after birth. But they’re not, and the only thing that explains it is punishment.
Linda Featheringill
Geez! If you listened to those guys from the US Southwest, you’d think that nobody every had sex at all.
I spent a good third of my life in Texas and Oklahoma and I’m here to tell you: They do engage in sex. Quit a bit, actually. They have adultery down to a fine art and probably do more of it than people in other places I’ve lived. Their teenagers do what other teens in other places do. Their middle-aged folks have fantasies that start out with “you know, I’ve never had sex with a . . . .” [fill in the blank]. And their senior citizens are known to have an active sex life up to the point and after the point of entering the old folks’ home.
Then, of course, they all go to church on Sunday and talk about how sinful other people are.
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: You go, girl!
OGLiberal
@Steeplejack: Yeah, the source is a Paulite site but I don’t think there is any doubt that the video is real. And that looks an awful lot like the Jim Mahoney guy from BoA. His job? Director of Public Policy/Affairs. That is, his job is to do exactly what he did in that video – so it’s not surprising that he’s doing it. Again, he’s probably telling the Obama folks the same thing but it’s scary how brazen he is about it. It’s also scary that he’s supposed to be on our side. Dude is a lifetime Dem, worked for Jerry Brown and Joe Kennedy. He donated a decent junk of change to the Dodd campaign (no surprise there) in 2008. And now he’s cozying up to this lunatic.
RedKitten
@ericblair:
Exactly. Part of me is fully convinced that their rage is not because of an embryo dying (if it was, then wouldn’t they be picketing fertility clinics?). Instead, they’re just frothing at the idea of someone escaping their rightful punishment, as it were.
FlipYrWhig
@Steeplejack: I would want to be cautious about this… “We will help you out,” said from a guy who sponsored an event to the guest of honor at that event, can mean a lot of things, many of them rather mundane. It could be anything from “We, Bank of America, will cut you a giant check” to “We, the event organizers, will give your bus driver directions to the highway.”
phx
This is very true, and I think Dems will ignore it at their peril.
dww44
@Grumpy Code Monkey: Perry can go moderate all he wants if and when he gets the nomination, but ANYONE who espoused/promoted that Texas secede from the Union as recently as 2 years ago and is now running for President doesn’t deserve serious consideration by anyone.
Personally, I think the big money guys are behind his candidacy as a means to weaken Bachmann. Their end goal is not yet clear. Maybe they want a candidate who won’t have the smarts to challenge being bought and paid for. And although Perry may be a barnstormer on the campaign trail, he’s still an idiot. He just isn’t well-informed or well read. His pronouncements on Bernanke and the printing of money, while clearly a pander to the base, simply highlight his lack of Presidential bona fides.
Paul in KY
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Just a theory of mine. In sports, it’s usually ‘your team, win or lose’. In politics you are supposed to evaluate the contenders & make an informed, mature decision.
If the philosophy is ‘my candidate, right or wrong’, then to me that’s the sports fan paradigm. I think the Repubs want this, because it stops their true believers from checking out the other team. How many Alabama fans become Auburn fans?
OGLiberal
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. But since this is clearly a real video shot by C-SPAN and since I’m sure it’s been forwarded to a number of reporters/journalists, I think it’s probably the role of our Fourth Estate to follow-up on this, confirm that it’s Mahoney, ask him what he meant, and then ask Perry what he thought Mahoney meant.
Won’t hold my breath.
Steeplejack
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m just saying that the guy did not appear to be a “plant,” which is the suggestion I inferred (perhaps incorrectly) from the previous comment.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
I felt a bit bad about being so harsh, but some of the pushback signified I had hit the target. Anarcho libertarians really distill down to “I’ve got mine and fuck the rest of you!”
They elevate property rights over every other human concern in a way that resembles a form of pathological obsession. I am reminded of the Twilight Zone episode where the guy obsessed with books is left by himself after a worldwide nuclear war with all the books he wants…and his glasses break.
The “All taxes are theft!!” crowd wants all the great things that come with a modern society, but refuse to pay into it. That is why they are the actual “moochers” since they want to have the cake without paying for it.
Paul in KY
@RedKitten: Hope Samkitten is havin fun & growing like a weed.
OGLiberal
@FlipYrWhig: Mahoney does appear to be on the Board of Directors of the New England Council, a co-sponsor of the event:
http://www.newenglandcouncil.com/about/board-of-directors/
Not sure why he would identify himself as “Bank of America” instead of “I’m with the New England Council, one of the sponsors, and we will help you out”(of here).
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: I think you could have been harsher. You layed it out in stark terms & I think that’s the only to enlighten them (certainly, guys).
Ash Can
@celticdragonchick: I don’t recall hearing any accounts of Ayn Rand selling everything she owned and going begging to private charities to cover her cancer/end-of-life care. I’m sure all those fine folks over at Radley’s place could supply me with all the details, though.
FlipYrWhig
@OGLiberal: Oh, definitely. Doesn’t hurt to follow up, because of the shady possibilities. But if the guy really had a record as a bigtime Democratic donor, I have a hard time seeing him falling for Perry. Even plutocrats are more discerning than that. I hope.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
RE: the left foolishly believe that “education” independent of ethics and values will lead to some kind of nirvana.
The UK still has a high rate of teen pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted disease. The Netherlands has a very low rate of all these indices. The US is much closer to the UK than it is to the Netherlands.
Dutch sex education programs are very comprehensive. But there is also this (from a BBC News story): “The Dutch would argue that the attitude is created not just by education, but the strong religious traditions, both Calvinist and Roman Catholic, practised in the country. These religions along with close family ties are aspects of Dutch life which a British Government would find hard to legislate for.”
The Dutch also heavily stigmatize teen pregnancy (not the same thing as stigmatizing sex). Parents and teachers are largely on the same page, and communicate their values along with practical knowledge. By contrast, a Wiki article on sex education in the UK makes the following observation:
In the US, I often have heard sex ed advocates talk about the need for sex education in the schools to make up for the reluctance of parents to talk to their kids, and to make up for the ignorance of parents. But this also has tended to make US sex education values free (in part to avoid controversy and opposition) and, like in the UK, to focus on biology and “facts” over values and relationships.
Everybody lies to advance their belief system. It’s human nature, and hardly limited to Christianists. An obvious example are those people, many of whom are lefties who lied and continue to lie about autism and vaccines.
PeakVT
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I view sports as a way to channel humans’ innate tribal urges into less destructive behavior patterns. It doesn’t always work, and probably reinforces those tendencies in some people. But the proxy conflicts are on balance a tad less destructive than actual conflicts.
Mike in NC
@Paul in KY:
Is it possible there’s a secret laboratory somewhere in Texas where they clone these fuckers? Can we call in an airstrike?
dianne
Every time I see Rick Perry, I think of the scene in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” where the football team is there (Aggies, no less) and one comes running out in his underwear whooping and shooting a gun. He was (if I remember correctly) Rick Perry’s double.
OGLiberal
@FlipYrWhig:
So do I. But I’ve been losing that hope over the last several years. He did also contribute to Barney Frank and the DSCC in 2010, Ted Kennedy in 2006, and Kerry in 2004. The only GOP contribs I could find for him was Sununu in 2006. (and that could have been more of a regional/cover all bases deal – and that wasn’t even an election year for Sununu)
FlipYrWhig
@Mike in NC: I don’t think it’s cloning, because Dubya wasn’t even born in Texas. Maybe there’s a sim-Texas somewhere, where kids are raised to be exaggerated shitkicker stereotypes before they’re released into the general population. Kind of like the faux Americans in that movie The Experts.
Paul in KY
@Mike in NC: If there was such a place, I might be gathering up my fertilizer & racing gas.
Flipyrwhigs theory sounds more plausible. Like a Potemkin Texas, with unlimited yeehaw & stupidity & sagebrush.
Yutsano
@RedKitten: Nothing should make you more grateful for your parliamentary system then watching our mishegas of a political system. On a related note, has Harper tried killing HealthCanada yet? I recall that was one of his promises if he ever got a majority government. And if we both need to bail, I hear Australia is nice…
debit
OT: the west Memphis 3 are going to be set free. http://news.yahoo.com/us-judge-accepts-plea-deal-frees-memphis-3-170209977.html
A Mom Anon
@celticdragonchick: Hee. Good. Not that it made it into that thick skull around all the empty cans,cobwebs and dust bunnies. These guys must be in huge demand as party guests. Holy crap,can you imagine having to live with that mess?
MikeJ
@debit: Free, but on a lea bargin, so still guilty. Which means no chance of lawsuit for restitution.
Brachiator
@Linda Featheringill:
Problem is that the numbers don’t tell much about the rates, and when you follow the link to the source data, it doesn’t tell you whether the rate is per 100 or per 1,000. Either way, some of the pregnancy rates in Texas are higher than in the US as a whole.
debit
@MikeJ: I know. It sucks, but at least the guy on death row no longer has that hanging over him.
Violet
@wrb:
Sorry, I stepped away from the computer for awhile. Thanks for the link. Reading the article:
I don’t think the public has forgiven him or forgotten what he did just yet.
RedKitten
@Yutsano: He hasn’t killed it yet. I don’t think we’d stand for that. But it wouldn’t surprise me if it wound up suffering death by a thousand cuts.
@Paul in KY: He’s doing great, thanks! We just celebrated his 2nd birthday. He’s a busy, happy, mercurial, boy, who’s addicted to trucks, trains, balls and Dora the Explorer. The toddler years are interesting, but he’s just so damn much fun at this age. (New photos and a video at my URL, btw.)
bemused
I was talking to an inexperienced young staffer of a US Rep not long ago on the defunding of Planned Parenthood issue and she shared her personal beliefs that she has vowed to stay abstinent and didn’t see why our tax dollars should pay for 18 year old girls’ birth control. Spending money to save money and keep people and our country healthier has no sway with these people with rigid, moralistic mind sets.
twiffer
@jibeaux: in debates in CT about making the HPV vaccine mandatory for girls, the opposing side’s argument was, actually, that giving a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease sent a “subtle message” that pre-marital sex was endorsed.
fucking idiots.
Paul in KY
@RedKitten: Thanks for the update. He’s looking great. Eats cupcakes like I do :-)
Yutsano
@RedKitten: Defenceman. Calling it now. The inevitable three am rink runs are coming.
The biggest cut he could do and get away with it is liberalize private payments for more specialties. Which of course would create a private insurance market again. And costs go boom. So of course cuts HAVE to be made. It’d be a vicious cycle.
ETA: I welcome with open arms and great enthusiasm SamKitteh to the wonderful world of chocoholism. It’s more of a sickness than a disease. :)
Paul in KY
@bemused: She’s pissed that those hussies get to fornicate with no strings attached! Very dog in the manger-like.
Frankensteinbeck
@Paul in KY:
I think this is it with abstinence-only education. Punishing sinful kids who do the sexx0rz is a small side benefit. The important thing is *no boy will have sex with my daughter*. Even when they don’t have an at-risk daughter they go with that reasoning, because that hypothetical situation is the only one they care about.
This is completely in line with the ‘think of the children!’ mentality in this country in general, where a few authoritarian rules are used to assuage the guilt of a culture of abusive and neglectful parents. It’s a giant game of ‘it must be someone else’s fault’.
Violet
@RedKitten:
SamKitten is adorable. Is the video the one where he’s eating the cupcake? Such a cutie!
@ericblair:
This is it exactly. The issues with birth control and abstinence are all about controlling the behavior of girls and women. They have nothing to do with actually caring about babies. If they DID care about babies they’d be all over providing good pre-natal care, well-baby checkups, good pre-schools and child care, etc. But that stuff gets cut any time programs are on the chopping block, if it’s even allowed to exist in the first place.
But if I girl gets pregnant, she’d better damn well have that baby. Serves her right for not keeping her legs shut. Punish the slut. That’s all the forced-birthers are about.
karen marie
@Grumpy Code Monkey: And he’s going to wave his magic wand and “disappear” his record as governor and all the stuff he said during the run up to the primary. LOLZ!
bemused
@Paul in KY:
People resent others who they think are getting something they aren’t, no matter what it is, sex, tax payer money or more vacation time. Then they use religious or an ideological stance to claim a higher moral ground justifying their jealousy or selfishness.
Brachiator
@Linda Featheringill:
Hah! Very true. And there is this from a recent story on the Web:
Now, the stats here may not be very rigorous, but still the data suggests that there is a lot of hanky panky going on in the Lone Star state.
chopper
@RedKitten:
mine got addicted to dora out of nowhere. one short video and it’s all she wants now. it’s like crack for 2.5 year olds.
Frankensteinbeck
@Violet:
I disagree. Obviously it ISN’T about caring about the baby. It’s about being able to feel righteous and yelling about baby killers. Why do you think of all womens’ issues abortion is the one they go ballistic about? Because it makes the best battle cry. Second to that is tribal identification. Their religion forbids abortion, and enforcing their culture on everyone around them is vastly more important than more or less human suffering. Controlling women is a distant third. It’s too abstract. Only the particularly misogynistic (which, weirdly, includes a lot of women) care about that anymore.
Paul in KY
@Violet: With some of them, there’s also the subtext that if the girl in question is white (and the father is also white, very important), they want her to have that baby, because the evil brown people are breeding like bunnies & we need Teh Whiteses to have these babies due to the coming RAHOWA.
Paul in KY
@bemused: Boy do they ever. I think that behavoir has been noticed in chimps & monkeys as well.
Keith G
More on how Perry has been screwing Texas from my hometown paper. Here
Edit – link fail
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7703436.html
Brachiator
@MattR:
Only if you are an elitist.
@ericblair:
Fair point.
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
This is comical. There are those on the left and right who shout about the rightness of their positions, but who never, never, ever re-examine their assumptions, but insist on the loyalty of voters. In California, there is a huge bloc of voters who identify themselves as independents. Whenever they are polled, interviewed or surveyed, they will tell you that they are independent because they have been burned by both dominate parties as the Democrats and Republicans lie, put self-interest above public interest, and cynically ignore voter calls for honest compromise and co-operation.
And yet, people still wonder whether this group is “undecided or stupid.”
RosiesDad
Sounds unbelievably like Bush.
After 45 seconds I was left lamenting that it is a shame that Perry’s parents didn’t practice abstinence.
Villago Delenda Est
@celticdragonchick:
DING DING DING DING DING!
That’s one of the problems with the entire Rand oeuvre . The “producers” don’t actually produce anything. They come up with the idea, and then let their underlings do the actual work. The denial of the group effort that makes those dreams a reality eludes the Randites. Rand is the author, but she isn’t the book binder, or the guys down at the pulp mill coming up with the paper for her brilliant ideas to be propagated. They miss that part of the process entirely. They take it for granted, when they should not.
karen marie
@Brachiator: I do not know anyone “on the left” who “[believes] that “education” independent of ethics and values will lead to some kind of nirvana,” and I defy you to prove any percentage of Democrats believe ethics and values are unimportant.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Oh, I absolutely agree with you about the flaws in US sex educaton. I recall quite vividly that my sex education (back in the early 70’s, in Oregon) was all about the biology, but the entire social/relationship part was non-existent. So we know what happens when the penis goes in the vagina, but how the penis got there in the first place is left to your imagination.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: They produce the money that gets it done.
If you won the lottery tomorrow, you too would be a Galtian ubermeschen.
karen marie
@Villago Delenda Est: The other thing to realize is it is not in the corporations’ interest to have an informed, educated electorate. Voters might stop voting against their own interests.
Samara Morgan
@ericblair: its white christian nativism.
not all christians are teabaggers, but all teabaggers are christians.
Villago Delenda Est
Oh, and I used a naughty word associated with those terrible spam propagators, the medical terminology for the male member. So I’ve got a comment at 198 in moderation. Woe is me.
Villago Delenda Est
@Paul in KY:
More crap that Smith would have a thing or two to say about, if he were around to bemoan what’s been made of his work.
Bubblegum Tate
@Mike in NC:
Actually, I fear they be getting made at this place right around the corner from me in Oakland.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est: Which is why folks here at BJ, using 2008 as a template, think that Romney is the most likely nominee, because the GOP establishment wants to win, not score brownie points with the GOP base, and they know that the more GOP base friendly you are in the primaries, the more difficult it is to put up a credible fight in the general. Romney has the best chance of pulling off that transition, even though he has loads of problems, to include his incessant flip flopping.
Let’s look at the 2008 Mitt Romney:
The GOP establishment may want Romney to win. I’m still not seeing how this makes him the nominee. And I certainly don’t see how Romney has changed in any appreciable way that will make him more acceptable to the voters who rejected him the first time around. I certainly don’t see him yet as anything like McCain in being rejected the first times at the fair, but finally given a shot.
Ultimately, Balloon Juicers who believe that Romney will be the nominee just because the GOP bosses want it are not engaging in much in the way of thinking or analysis. And they have clearly learned nothing in the lessons offered by other “inevitables” like Hillary Clinton and Rudy 911.
RedKitten
I think that happens most everywhere. The first time I actually received any education in that aspect of things was when I took a Human Sexuality course in my third year of university. It was fascinating to learn about love and relationships, from a sociological and emotional point of view, but it would have been so much more helpful in Grade 7.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I would love to hear his opinion of modern venture capitalists & those of their ilk.
wrb
@OGLiberal:
I think those were personal contributions.
In the video he appeared to be in his work role of representing B of A.
His personal politics might not be the same as the politics he advances for his employer.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Well, I won’t call Romney “inevitable”, but let’s just say he’s “more probable” at this juncture. Which of course means nothing when, next week, something explodes and changes everything surrounding the GOP presidential primary race.
Villago Delenda Est
@RedKitten:
By that time I had figured out a lot of that, but still, it was helpful to get a dispassionate (ahem) reading of all that, and like you, I took the class in my junior year. It also helped me in other ways, such as learning about warming your partner up to enhance everyone’s experience :)
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m curious to see what happens when Romney tries to kneecap Perry. I foresee rapidly growing contempt between those two.
Original Lee
@aimai: That’s absolutely right. Anyone who commits sexual intercourse with an member of the opposite sex who is not their spouse has sinned, basta. Adults should not encourage children to sin, ignorance is bliss, children bear the burden of their great-grandparents’ sins, etc.
HyperIon
@Paul in KY:
His position is that abstinence works. And it does if you actually abstain. Perry seems to think that’s what the point of this question is. He doesn’t understand (or pretends not to understand) that the point is that kids DON’T abstain. Therefore, telling them that abstinence (in theory) works is idiotic.
It seems like a great demonstration of: In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
Only a moron could be confused by this.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Again, Romney’s negatives, including being a Mormon, have not changed. Until he wins primaries, especially in the South, he is more “speculative” than “more probable.”
And here is another thing, and why the “template” for 2008 is meaningless. McCain unleashed a hornet’s nest in picking Sarah Palin, since many of the GOP electorate were clearly more energized by her than they were by McCain himself. In turn, this has set off the chain reaction that has led to the Tea Party People and the yearning among the worst Republicans for the return of Real White Christian American(tm) Republican leadership. The GOP Establishment keeps trying to direct this baleful tide, but they may be fooling themselves if they think that they can contain it when it comes to the presidential election.
So, yeah, the GOP bosses may want Romney, but they have not succeeded in selling him to Republican voters. Also, I don’t watch Fox or Limbaugh, or Hannity, so I don’t know if these pseudo-kingmakers are loving Romney or are neutral.
This is also why I keep saying watch out for Jeb Bush. The GOP establishment love him, and he would be an easy sell to evangelicals and other conservatives.
@FlipYrWhig:
Interesting point. Romney definitely has a mean streak. I recall him getting snippy and going after Rudy 911 in one of the debates. My gut feeling is that Perry will eat Romney’s lunch if Mittens tries to go after him.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brachiator:
I don’t think Jeb is interested in running in 2012 or he would be in the race already. Yes, he could jump in at the last minute more effectively than anybody else who isn’t part of the Bush family (with all their connections), but doing so would still mean chaos in the GOP nominating process, which wouldn’t bode well for the general election. At this point the economy doesn’t look like it is going to be bad enough in 2012 to make beating Obama an easy ride for the GOP nominee and Jeb seems smart enough to realise that he is probably only going to get one shot at the WH, in which case 2016 looks like a better bet as memories of his brother’s administration gradually fade away.
The other bit is, if he wins the WH he is still going to have to at least attempt to govern, and my guess is that the smart money people in the GOP have at this point come to realise that the Tea Party needs to be taken down a notch or two before the bit and bridle can be put back onto them. A Tea Party favorite losing to Obama in 2012 would suit the Bush family (and the branch of the old money GOP they represent) quite well when it comes to the intraparty struggle for power, and it seems to me that this is a case where the Iron Law of Institutions is worth paying attention to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Again, I point to the utter unacceptability of McCain at this point in the 2008 race to so many wingnuts. Yet he did manage to prevail, despite the fact that the Paulistas attempted a birther attack on him, his “maverick” reputation was that he was “too liberal” for the GOP, etc.
All those negatives you speak of in relation to Romney are real. The thing is, I can’t see anyone besides Perry at this point being viable in the general.
Not sure about Jeb, though. He’s the brother of the utter failure. That’s serious baggage.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Can’t speak for everyone or every liberal out there, but I DO consider what all parties have to say on an issue. I find that 9 out of 10 times the progressive/Democratic party has the more enlightened, informed, well-articulated position. I don’t see how when there is such stark contrast between Republican/Tea Partiers and Dems that one remains a self-identified independent. Ask 100 people if Hitler is a good guy, and there will be a percentage who will say, “Oh, gee, I just don’t know, I can’t decide without knowing more.” Is this enlighted and fair? Or is it, in fact, uninformed and lazy?
No, I don’t think that all things Dem are shiny and perfect. I’ve known conservatives who are not stupid or mean people, but I do find that they struggle to incorporate facts into their opinions. If I found out that global warming was, indeed, a misread of the data and that scientists (collectively) said global warming was a hoax, I’d switch my position. I entertained the notion for a time that vaccines perhaps were related to autism. The bulk of scientific research suggests otherwise. My wife and I made the decision thusly to have our child vaccinated.
If I still can’t make up my mind, does that make me an open-minded independent, or does it perhaps make me constitutionally lazy?
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I had a high school biology teacher who tried to talk to us about sex ed, but she kept throwing in stories about how sad she was over her relationship with her boyfriend. It was a strange and embarrassing interlude. Ultimately, she had to take a leave of absence to deal with her personal issues.
Brachiator
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There is plenty of time. No primary contest or real caucus has been held yet.
Obama has already been beaten if the GOP can latch onto a reasonable nominee. I say this sadly as a bigtime Obama supporter.
The economy is bad, unemployment is over 12% in California, long term unemployment is still stubbornly high, and the Democrats have done too little about what should have been their priority. The perception is that too much time was spent shoring up the financial markets and working on social issues (and it doesn’t matter that these were worthy social issues). Obama did not even strongly tie health care reform to the economy.
People have short memories. And nobody but hard core Democratic activists would tie Jeb to Dubya. And Obama and the Democrats foolishly allowed Bush’s name to stay in voters’ minds by extending his tax cuts, which the Republicans will continue to sell as the best thing since Wonder Bread.
Damn, people keep misreading this one. The Tea Party People helps legitimize the GOP’s “no compromise” stance. The GOP establishment have absolutely no reason to rein in the Tea Party People, even if they wanted to. On the other hand, they have shown that they are masters of parliamentary procedure, and will invoke all kinds of fun rules in Congress if they win the White House and make any kind of win in the House and Senate.
The GOP don’t care. If the Democrats win, they will obstruct them. If the Democrats lose, the Tea Party self-neutralizes. Since, unlike Blue Dogs, they would never vote with the Democrats, and this gives them little room to move and makes them easier to control, “Iron Laws” notwithstanding.
geg6
@Brachiator:
And California is different from the rest of America in what way, exactly? A large number of voters all across America also call themselves “independent,” claiming that they are sick of both parties. And guess what? The vast, vast, vast majority of those “independents,” so pissed off by both parties, consistently vote for one or the other party, whichever one they lean toward or were before they got on their Holier-Than-Thou horses.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator:
John Ellis Bush is a Catholic. That’s a big hill to climb with today’s Republican party.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Well said, geg6 #220. My late father insisted he was an independent because he had voted for JFK in 1960 (and for Republicans before that point and ever since). Yup, politicians on each side lie all the time, are corrupt, and kowtow to corporate interests and cronies, and I certainly don’t agree with every stance the Obama administration has taken (don’t know if I feel burned, but I do feel chafed!), but I certainly don’t call Republican versus Democratic a coin toss. It’s pretty clear that one side is all about protecting the wealthy at the cost of everyone else, the environment, and our collective future. Being an independent is not synonymous with being a critical thinker who weighs evidence effectively.
Brachiator
@geg6:
California continues to be a bubbling cauldron of attempts to rein in governmental stupidity, even though we keep getting rebuffed. We tried term limits. We recalled a Democratic governor and elected the Governator. Then, when the Republicans tried the okie doke again with Meg Whitman, we kicked her to the curb, along with the majority of Republican candidates for statewide office.
At the local level, in Los Angeles, Democrats and Independents had no problem at all voting overwhelmingly for the nominal Republican Richard Riordan, and then later voting for Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa.
And it is not just that California voters “call themselves” Independent. From a recent survey:
The ideological faithful keep insisting that you gotta be either Democrat or Republican, at least until we get proportional representation and we all go Green. In the meantime, a large segment of California voters reject simplistic either/or options.
And by the way, California Independents lean more toward the Democrats, but refuse to just blindly support all their positions (see some of the stuff at ppic.org for more on this).
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Jeb sealed the deal with a lot of evangelicals over the Terry Schiavo case.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
He also sealed the deal with a lot of other people…like John Cole…with that case.
Which why it may help him with one group, it makes him totally untouchable for a larger one.
eemom
I haven’t read the thread, but whenever the futility of abstinence teaching comes up it always makes me think of this Meatloaf classic.
I mean if they only played THAT in Sex Ed classes, the rates of teen pregnancy would plummet.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est: RE: Jeb sealed the deal with a lot of evangelicals over the Terry Schiavo case.
I absolutely agree. Lest there be any confusion, I abhor everything that Jeb said and did concerning this case.
But that is separate from whether I think this gives him bona fides with conservatives and puts him in position to be perceived as a strong contender for the GOP nomination.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
All this is mere speculation until Romney starts racking up primary victories and actually sealing the deal. If he can. I understand that for many this is just as “real” as arguments about who is going to win the next Super Bowl. But here’s the odd thing: I don’t see much about any voters warming to Romney, or even much about him getting out to do much. And unlike McCain, he is not an incumbent Senator or War Hero(tm), so he doesn’t have much in the way of positive associations to coast on. And he is not sufficiently Mavericky. But we shall see.
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
Hmmm. “Enlightened, informed, well articulated” is not the same thing as accurate, practical, reasonable, realistic, or achievable. And then you have stuff like this:
The Democrats tax policy seems to be that tax cuts for the rich should expire. Really. Because they are bad for the economy and the rich should share the sacrifice and … What’s that? We have to compromise? We have to give up? OK. As long as we have a reasonable position, it doesn’t matter if we can get it done. We’ll get it done next time. Maybe. As long as our position is enlightened, etc.
You try to shift the terms of the argument. It is not that independents have not made up their mind. They don’t see liberals as either heroes or the more desirable lesser of two evils. They may be mistaken in their judgments, but you have the burden of proof, you have to persuade independents that your side is better. And here it is laughable to try to pull some lame stuff like, “I looked and decided that the progressive/Democratic party has the more enlightened, informed, well-articulated position, so you should agree with me.” The obvious response is “So what? Who the hell are you? What else you got beside your deeply held biased opinion?”
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Brachiator, “well-articulated” means (to me) an informed, knowledgeable argument. You took exception to my use of the word “informed” in your comment #227. Should one assume, therefore, that “uninformed” is good? Intelligent, well-meaning people make informed decisions. “Enlighted” (to me) refers to a well-thought-out, again, knowledgeable position. If a solution is not achievable, then perhaps it is not enlightened. (Still, I would argue that we should strive for what may seem unachievable — reducing racism, for instance.)
I do not walk lock-step with Democrats. However, to point out some low-hanging fruit, I think that the Democratic position on global warming is intellectually far superior to that of the Republican perspective on that issue (denying climate change is pretty myopic). I believe that repealing DADT is good, that same-sex marriage is reasonable, that we should not trash the environment, villify unions, or try to block stemcell research. I believe that government regulation (e.g., the EPA) is an achievable, practical, and — oh, eek! — enlighted goal.
harlana
Bush on crack, you mean
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Absolutely! NOTHING is certain at this point, not even the general being some GOP sacrificial lamb vs. the all powerful near Sheriff. Lots could happen in the next 15 months.
Oven Mitt himself still thinks he has a shot. But, as you said, we shall see.
DogMom
So do you suppose Candies will hire him to be their next abstinence spokesmodel? And then maybe he’ll go on ‘Dancing with the Stars’. . .
pluege
For the right, the question is philosophical: what’s consistent with their morality.
for the left, its just as philosophical and moral – ‘people are gonna f*ck’ and no amount of philosophy is going to stop that, but with today’s technology you can easily avoid the bad side affects of unwanted pregnancy and STD.
The right in fact is completely immoral in denying the information and availability of safe technology to people who are going to engage in completely natural and undeniable activity because they are in fact driven to be nature, no matter what the bankrupt and manipulative philosophy of the right says.
Uncle Ebeneezer
Perry: Heliocentrism works!!!
Man in lab coat: But sir, none of the satellites are…
Perry: Heliocentrism WORKS!!!
Paul in KY
@HyperIon: IMO, he is pretending not to understand. Or as I said above, he just can’t get into any sex ed conversation that touches on anything but abstinence.