(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)
Erick “Voice of the Gated-Community GOP” Erickson did not have a happy Hump Day. First, his fervent plea to man-crush Rick Perry to become “the catalyst and kingmaker so many have been looking for” — by dropping out and endorsing, gawd save the marks, Newt Gingrich — was not well received among the RedState faithful. (I haven’t read all 600+ comments, but the only concensus seems to be that Romney is an untrustworthy flip-flopping quasi-liberal RINO who will inevitably lose to President Obama. Go, Team Dem!) Later, the day’s events reduce him to mingling tears with Senator James DeMint (R – Crazification Factor):
Republicans in Congress cut deals with Democrats. The Republicans’ favorite reporters and pundits tell us just how awesome those deals are. Then those deals blow up in our faces…
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On Facebook yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint noted this folly. Republicans were supposed to have big wins on the debt ceiling and on the Keystone XL Pipeline. They told us they had played the Democrats. Instead, we played ourselves. From Senator DeMint:The two political victories leading Republicans planned on celebrating today only showcase how much we have to lose by compromising with the Democrats.
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The non-binding vote of disapproval on the debt ceiling increase held in the House today and the Obama Administration’s decision not to authorize the Keystone Pipeline were supposed to be excruciating political exercises for the Democrats. They turned out to be a walk in the park.
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Instead of generating a great public uproar over the debt, economy, and jobs, all President Obama had to do was reiterate his long-held positions—that the debt ceiling should be increased and the Keystone Pipeline should not be authorized.
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Giving the President exactly what he wants and then asking him to remind the public that he wanted it after the fact isn’t a strategy to win. It’s a strategy to cover-up a stunning loss under the guise of a compromise.
That’s right, Senator DeMented… the GOP’s big failure has been too much compromise with that crafty fella in the Oval Office. It’s almost as if President Obama were smarter than you guys…
Yutsano
I don’t really buy the 11th dimensional chess theory (though I have used it as a metaphor) but damn if the President ain’t the luckiest sonofabitch on the planet when it comes to his opponents.
AA+ Bonds
Don’t worry, Rick Perry will be ;) “kingmaking” all the good boys back in Austin soon enough
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
we are all obots now.
seriously, is there any doubt when staring across the abyss that the gop-universe sounds exactly like a bunch of firebaggers?
Michael
That cartoon is perfect
Arm The Homeless
I personally do not discount Obama’s ability to paint people into corners, rhetorically, and it seems that he understands people’s interests, even if they don’t seem to, and then stay at least a step ahead of them as the ‘negotiation’ unfolds. BATNA is a biotch
AA+ Bonds
Romney . . . Rove cannot correct for the loathing of the press.
Because nowadays, who could possibly loathe a Buyout Bitch in Heels more than a reporter?
AA+ Bonds
I hope this sort of rolls up quick here in the polls by summer so Good Democrats can get back to telling Obama to get the fuck out of Afghanistan
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
As Louis Pasteur said, luck favors the prepared.
AA+ Bonds
As Louis Pasteur said, if we heat this business up we can kill the fuck out of some pathogens
Villago Delenda Est
How can this be?
He’s a golsorned ni*CLANG*!
Of course, Jim DeMented being the Ralph Wiggum of the GOP doesn’t help.
OK, so one of several Ralph Wiggums.
OK, so part of a platoon of Ralph Wiggums, and that’s just in the Senate…
Jay C
Erick E’s bitching and moaning about being “played” by President Obama (Barry may just have loafed around the Oval Office chipping putts into a cup: the Repubs have managed to “play” themselves just fine) is just so sadly typical of what passes for political insight on the Right these days. There Is Only One Right Way – the GOP Way – and nothing other than absolute, total and unthinking support of the Right Way is an acceptable position for any elected officials: When in the majority (i.e. the “natural” order of things), “conservatives” ought to just enact their Right-Thing Agenda regardless of circumstances; when in the minority, they should fervently and mindlessly oppose anything outside the Agenda: after all, liberals and Democrats aren’t just opponents: they’re enemies.
srv
You can’t triangulate when one of the vertices is in wackospace.
Delia
Here’s the big unforeseen problem with the right wing elitist oligarchy. It’s so anxious to keep itself pure that it’s inbred itself into idiocy almost before anyone had even defined it.
Frankensteinbeck
It is a delight to me to see the GOP finally figure out what I’ve seen this whole last year – Obama has smiled politely and stabbed them in the back with every single negotiation.
‘Obama caves’, my ass.
…actually, I think I could have phrased that better. Oh, well.
AA+ Bonds
No I think that is just about perfect
freelancer
@AA+ Bonds:
To which Darwin replied:
Chance favors “any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form.”
Brandon
@Frankensteinbeck:
The irony of it is all is that Obama seems more than willing to cave to Republicans in real negotiations over policy. But these are not real policy negotiations. These are hostage negotiations and in those cases, Obama seems to eat their lunch in the end. The biggest problem I see in all of this is exactly as DeMint said, it makes it less likely for Republicans to actually negotiate on policy matters where they could actually win some real concessions because they fear the Obama monkey paw.
patrick the pedantic literalist
@Yutsano:
Literalist is in my moniker for a reason — so I really can’t tell if you are being ironic. But if someone kicks ass about twenty times in a row, it stops being a matter of lucky in their opponents.
Brandon
@patrick the pedantic literalist: You have to admit though that drawing Alan Keyes as a Senate opponent after Paul Ryan’s kinky sex fetishes were disclosed from his sealed divorce file was at least partly lucky. It was otherwise looking like a competitively polled Senate race against Seven of Nine’s moronic, cheating, BDSM craving ex.
Jamie
Hm. Maybe the debt isn’t the biggest concern of the proles at the moment, the economy is being actively harmed by Republicans, and that the job situation isn’t improved by hiring 9 year-olds to clean toilets while cutting taxes on Our Great Savior Of The Layoff.
I’m sure Bobo is alarmed.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@AA+ Bonds: @AA+ Bonds: Does Balloon-Juice have a Rejoinder of the Day honor? One that’s not necessarily Post of the Day, but just a recognition for quick-wittedness/stylish repartee/etc.? If so, I nominate this:
Pathogens is what they are. Nice. “Throwaway” comments like this – almost everybody here seems to have a moment here at some point – are what keep me coming back to this blog.
KG
@Jay C: you have to remember, there’s an old trope on the right, perpetrated by Limbaugh (he used to talk about this almost everyday when I listened to him years ago), is that “compromise” for Democrats was “they get want they want and Republicans bend over.” After years of hearing this, Republicans have become convinced that either they can’t win if they compromise with Democrats, or that if the Democrats want to compromise, they have to give the Republicans everything they want.
Emerald
@Yutsano: Well he deliberately eliminated at least one of his likely opponents when he and his team identified Huntsman as a real threat–and offered him the ambassador job in China. Huntsman bit, and it rendered him unnominatable.
So there’s that one, at least.
patrick the pedantic literalist
@Brandon:
I will happily admit that. I would guess half of the commentariot here could have beaten Alan Keyes in Illinois. I’m just sayin’ after awhile and against a lot of different opponents Obama has a pretty good string going.
Hill Dweller
If the reports are right, and Obama does run against Congress, he has an enormous amount of ammo. The republicans shattered the filibuster record; crippled the confirmation process; tried to default on the debt; and attempted to shut down the government multiple times. All while Obama was fighting to prevent a depression.
In a just world, the Republicans would pay a heavy price for their nihilism.
Nutella
@Brandon:
I shudder to think what those might be, but if you’re talking about Obama’s senate race it was Jack Ryan’s visits to sex clubs that got him out of the race.
Brandon
@Emerald: I seriously doubt that was the only thing that made Huntsman “unnominable”. I fault more so his penchant for wingnut punching by sucking up so unashamedly to the “liberal” media establishment and talking smack about the “truth” about climate change and evolution. Did he seriously believe that he could act like Joe Lieberman during the primary and still win? My guess is spent his whole Ambassadorship in China in opium dens. But when you look at his campaign, he was really setting himself up for a run in 2016 anyway. Unfortunately for him, his party is going to go even more Palin-style populist know nothing Tea Party wingnut if Obama beats two rich “moderates” in McCain and Romney.
@Nutella: Oops. Yes it was Jack and not Paul. I wish it were Paul though too.
cthulhu
I never understood the GOP painting the Keystone deal as a big victory. By all reports at the time, simply trying to will it into existence prematurely was fantasy. I understand fossil fuels are their thing but while it could be argued that Americans, as a whole, aren’t ready pay a lot to go green, they also long ago stopped believing that the oil companies will suddenly give everyone $1 a gallon (or $2 a gallon or…) gas if only they can rape the land and sea more. Thus the general public didn’t seem to give a crap whether Keystone was built or not.
JGabriel
Erick, son of Erick:
Oh NOEZ! Ewick noticed Newt’s lack of Hayekian modesty!
.
Hill Dweller
@patrick the pedantic literalist: Keyes or Ryan, Obama was going to hard to beat after that convention speech.
I remember my father, a diehard republican who now hates him, talking favorably about Obama after coming back from visiting his brother in Illinois. I had forgotten all about it until his keynote speech. Obama lit the place on fire that night.
gene108
Someone should wave the Constitution in DeMint’s face and point out all the COMPROMISES that were made to get a functional government off the ground.
Our form of government was built on being able to compromise.
@KG: Limbaugh basically said in the 2009 CPAC speech, when Republicans were reeling from 2008 and may have been willing to compromise, is that compromise for Republicans should be getting Democrats to do everything you want done.
For whatever reason Limbaugh and the right-wing media basically bullied elected officials to not compromise with Democrats at all.
Yutsano
@Emerald:
Sort of a risk-reward situation. There would be no guarantee Huntsman would accept, save he was qualified and not really doing much else at the time. It’s also possible Huntsman thought accepting would help his own ambitions. We know the results of that now.
@patrick the pedantic literalist:
My statement is not a knock on Obama’s political skills or intelligence. But he definitely gets things falling in more or less the right order when it benefits him. He’s messed up and sometimes failed miserably (the Congressional cowardice on Gitmo and his failure to get them to act on it still sticks in my crop) but overall he’s had both skill and luck on his side.
JGabriel
@srv:
In a right angle triangle the Democratic side is 5 unit lengths and the GOP side is 12i unit lengths. What is the length of the hypotenuse President Obama must bridge to forge a compromise?
.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Here’s another amazing load: Supreme Court Says Congress May Re-Copyright Public Domain Works from Wired.
dogwood
@Brandon:
This seems to be conventional wisdom now, but Obama was polling about 10-12 points ahead of Ryan before the divorce records were unsealed.
dogwood
@Yutsano:
He was the sitting governor of Utah.
Yutsano
@dogwood: When he was appointed? Or was his term ending?
middlewest
Obama’s first ad is a response to Koch-sucking ads on Solyndra? Is that really necessary? Does anyone actually give a fig about Solyndra outside teahadist cells?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuF1P_1FIsE
Martin
@middlewest: That’s not about Solyndra. It’s about Super PACs and wealth, and it’s not a coincidence it landed on the same day that Keystone got killed (which was also about those same Texas billionaires).
Expect to see a lot more of that kind of thing which will eventually force parallels between the Kochs and Romney in terms of the role of wealth in elections and the electorate. This is one of the real benefits of Romney as a candidate as Obama can launch a broad campaign on income inequality and get both the Kochs and Romney in the same effort. I think this is going to be a more more populist-based campaign than 2008 was for Obama, in part because the Kochs and Romney almost force it to be.
boss bitch
@middlewest:
That’s his first response because some super pac is doing an ad blitz about Solyndra in swing states. He can respond now or watch the lie take hold. Its quite possible that once Mitt wins the nomination, the MSM and the Mitt campaign will drudge it up again but pretend like its the first time they heard about it. The Obama camp probably thought it best to deal with it sooner than later.
freelancer
Paging Anne Laurie, your next post is waiting…
:)
scav
Semi OT, but Gingrich is still busy throwing new and juicy red meat steaks about: Newt Gingrich: I would ignore supreme court as president Republican presidential candidate would order military to defy judges’ ruling extending legal rights to terror suspects.
Wonder if they can drop down onto the stage instead of balloons after a speech? Sort of an indoor variant of turkeys?
The prophet Nostradumbass
If anyone’s interested, I’ll be at the Southern California Linux Expo this weekend, even though I actually live in Northern California. It’s at the LAX Hilton.
If you’re interested in coming on by (there’s a bar at the hotel), lemme know via twitter.
freelancer
@scav:
There shall be no mention of “turkeys” going forward with respect to the GOP primary.
scav
@freelancer: o! dear, I am always so behind in the memerace. . .sigh. Can I still have the T-bones, porterhouses and ribs dropping from a big net onto the stage? plop plop plop?
freelancer
@scav:
That’s SO
raven!AKA racist to make a point.scav
@freelancer: O deary deary deary dear. . . There’s not much here on the vegan meme-ue to choose from.
freelancer
@scav:
I’m going to have the edamame, purge, and go to bed.
Amir Khalid
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Not as bad as it might sound. According to Wired, the previous US law allowed the copyright of some foreign works to lapse in the US, before it had lapsed elsewhere in the world per the Berne Convention (to which the US is a signatory). The law at issue was just a fix for that mistake.
Jamey
Either that, or the president and his party are better in touch with what American people wanted all along…
Nah.
harlana
I’m hearing from Morning Ho that the ABC News Marianne Gingrich story is going to run in the next couple of days, all the time Ho lamenting how BIASED that makes them look here with the looming primary.
(yes, I like to torture myself in the morning to help get ready for my day)
Lojasmo
@Hill Dweller:
I am sure I have said this here before, but after the convention speech, I turned to my wife and said: “that guy is going to be the next democratic president (meaning 2008).
Elizabelle
WashPost had a terrific profile today of an out of work working man.
White dude in Conway, SC. High school dropout, but someone who worked hard and enjoyed being the “dependable one”.
No jobs out there now, although he is scrapping to find anything he can. He’s past unemployment benefits. He lives in Jim DeMint and Nikki Haley land.
Post reporter is Eli Saslow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/for-a-jobless-struggling-south-carolina-man-reality-isnt-a-political-debate/2012/01/18/gIQAKTtB9P_story.html?hpid=z2
Jax6655
@Yutsano:
@Yutsano:
I’ve been reading your comments for a while and generally agree with you. Without a doubt, these have to be the two most ridiculous statements that you’ve ever posted on this blog.
eta: emphasis
Michael
The thing about Obama being lucky in his political opponents is that “his opponents” is a self-selecting group. The fact that he never seems to face a shrewd/smart/effective campaigner could be luck, or could mean all such candidates are shrewd/smart enough to know that they’d have better luck in another election, against another person, and take a pass.
amk
@Michael: Bingo.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Michael:
See Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, et. al.
Emma
@Yutsano: the Congressional cowardice on Gitmo and his failure to get them to act on it still sticks in my crop
Huh? The whole thread is about the suicidal form of Republican obstructionism currently in vogue, isn’t it? And if I remember correctly, in this particular one they were joined by MOST of the Democrats. What the hell was he supposed to do? And don’t give me “he could have used the executive power” because the biggest problem was money, and Congress withheld it.
cmorenc
@Nutella:
@Nutella:
PAUL Ryan’s kinky sex fetish is to masturbate in front of a life-size poster of Ayn Rand.
cmorenc
@Michael:
Hillary Clinton is certainly no dumbass or poor on-the-stump campaigner, although admittedly she is a poster-girl for smart people making colossally dumb choices in hiring Mark Penn to be a principal campaign adviser.
rikyrah
I haven’t seen this asked yet, but W-T-F did Romney think he was gonna do in 2008, if he had won the GOP Nomination? did his arrogant ass really think he wasn’t gonna have to release his tax returns?
and, he’s been running since 2007…this mofo is actually arrogant enough not to have been planning for this situation?
Paul in KY
@patrick the pedantic literalist: I think most all of our commenters could have slipped by the nutty one.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: Sad story. Thanks for linking to it.
patrick the pedantic literalist
@Paul in KY:
Well you never know with an anonymous commentariat. For instance, I am a Border Collie who hangs at this blog because I have a thing for Rosie. But then, you’re right, I could have beaten Keyes.
kindness
DeMint and the Reichtwingnutz are pandering to their most extreme base. Were I less suspicious of their actions and pronouncements I wouldn’t think they were dog whistling to their base. But I have grave doubts about the rights motives and their corresponding actions. I fear the right feels it is losing American support. I fear as a result they are ratcheting up their rhetoric and their venom. I fear this isn’t to generate a higher vote count but instead I think they are doing it on purpose in the hopes that one (or more) of that base goes out and does some ‘lone wolf’ operation on ‘their own’. I fear they want to whip up the frenzy so as to have some unbalanced person within their midst do something dreadful, something stupid, something they will then disavow even though they’ve called for it with their dog whistles.
And I fear they all know it.
Ben Cisco
@scav:
I’m betting one of them screeches and throws his own poop before this ends.
feebog
Obama v. Congress has been much more like a heads up poker match then a chess game. Obama knows when he has a crappy hand and folds. Alternatively, when he holds the better hand he almost always gets the Boner and McTurtle to overbet their hand. Once in a while Obama gets burned on the river, but overall, he has a much bigger stack.
satby
@kindness: I think you’re right.
artem1s
@Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy):
yes, this.
AxelFoley
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
Nay, there be no doubt.
Epicurus
Dear Senator De Mint: “Debt ceiling” does not mean what you seem to think it means. You are not authorizing the President to spend more money; you are authorizing him to pay back the money WE ALREADY OWE. Point the second; you are a blithering idiot. That is all….