Steve M and Atrios both flagged this excellent Dave Weigel piece on the incoherence of Republicans’ attacks on Obama:
The Obama campaign seizes on Romney statements, like the ones in the “47 percent” tape, to build its argument that Romney’s an out-of-touch rich jerk who’ll make you pay higher taxes so he can pay less. The Romney campaign’s approach is more random. One day, Obama is a stealthy socialist. The next day, he’s an incompetent Washington politician. A few days before that, his vice president was making coded appeals to black racism.
It would be better to focus on Obama-fucked-up-the-economy to the exclusion of all other messages. Everyone must believe this. So why don’t they do it?
Someone — I don’t remember if it was here or elsewhere — suggested the other day that this is in the nature of talk radio. They have a lot hours to fill and they can’t say EXACTLY the same things over and over again. You got to feed the monkey.
The mythology of Paul Ryan is equally complicated and contradictory. As Ed Kilgore says:
Half-Wonk, Half-Jock. Half-Objectivist, Half-Catholic. Half-Punk, Half-Wall Street. Paul Ryan is like a projected fantasy of what every high school Young Republican wants to be when he grows up. No wonder GOPers and reporters alike are writing his name all over their notebooks.
I don’t know if the richness and complexity of the legend Paul Ryan is also the result of right-wing radio, or if there’s something deeper about contemporary conservatism’s tendency to construct elaborate, incoherent fictions.
cathyx
Maybe they aren’t talking about the economy because when asked what they intend to do differently to fix it, they have no answers.
Ben Cisco
And completely full of shit.
Splitting Image
Half-wit, half-assed,….
Ben Franklin
Septembers Economic numbers will be out tomorrow, but I think the GOP knows Obama fucked up the Economy is getting no traction, so they’ve moved on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/15/us/politics/obama-erases-romneys-edge-on-economy-poll-finds.html?ref=newyorktimespollwatch
huckster
Or maybe because their ideas for fixing the economy are too unpopular.
Chris
Because just attacking Obama’s record, especially on something as murky and boring as economics, isn’t enough for the Republican base. It doesn’t satisfy that primal, visceral thing in their gut that doesn’t give a damn how things are under Obama but utterly loathe him because of who he is, because of who he represents and because he had the gall to win an election against them.
Birther theories posing him not as a bad president but as a usurper to the throne who isn’t even allowed to be there; stories about how he doesn’t love you or America and secretly likes these other people better; conspiracy theories about hidden Muslim identity, hidden allegiance to Cold War terrorists and hidden plans to murder your grandma; might all be ludicrous or pathetic, but that’s what feeds the base. And the base has only ever gotten louder, hungrier, more obnoxious, and harder to ignore for the last fifty years.
cosima
My husband said something the other day that was “blah blah blah when the Republicans come to their senses blah blah blah…” And I had to break it to the man, Republican who hasn’t voted Republican since 2000, that it is not going to happen.
I thought for a while after 2008, when people saw how stupid Palin was, how hateful, how far right of the majority of US citizens, that they’d wake up and smell the coffee. It didn’t happen then, it got worse, and now I think it’ll never happen. I don’t see how they can take the party back from the nutters. If there are any sane Republicans out there — and it may be an oxymoron, as I’m not really sure that David Frum counts — they will have to take their toys and go create their own new party. Don’t know what they’ll call it, and don’t know how many people they’ll get to play, but at this point the far-right owns the Republican party and they won’t give it up. The name leaves a nasty taste, which will be even nastier after we’re done seeing the Romney/Ryan hijinks up until Nov 6th, and can never be redeemed.
quannlace
And another fiscal conservative who never had to struggle once in his life, spending the rest of it preaching economic morality to people who’s lives he doesn’t have a clue about. And couldn’t care less.
Hill Dweller
@Ben Franklin: Ironically, the Republicans’ intransigence and obstructionism has been so blatant, they’ve mitigated some of the potential political damage to Obama for the slow recovery.
Nemo_N
Acknowledging reality can be dangerous since it might very well disappoint you or worse, prove you a moron.
Better to come up with fantastic nonsense that makes you feel good.
Ben Franklin
@Hill Dweller:
Heh. The Boy who cried Wolf !
dance around in your bones
Paul Ryan gives me the same vibe as W. Bull-Fucking-Shit.
It just always amazed me that other people didn’t get it. Where are their BS detectors? Non-functional?
That’s not even mentioning Mitt Romney (BTW, I love the Money Boo Boo meme). I mean, really???
Linda Featheringill
There is a school of thought that any popular person in the public, actor or politician or whatever, has devotees because he/she can project what the admirer wants to see. Therefore, all popularity is the result of projection. Sometimes, the real persona is not too different from the projected image. Sometimes, it’s way, way off. Consider John Edwards, for example.
Reagan, according to this theory, was so popular and remains popular because he had no core [it had eroded] and could reflect back anything that was projected on him.
I suppose the same thing could be said about popular villains.
I think my point is that Ryan is popular because he is a shape-shifter, covered with mirrors. “Hey, Girl. I can be whatever you want me to be.”
Chris
@cosima:
Yeah. Not to beat a dead horse, but I think the best we can hope for is that the base and the party split in two (1912 or 1968 style) over an issue that neither of them are willing to compromise on (immigration would be my guess).
When that happens, one of the two factions usually migrates over into the other party. I’m honestly not sure which of them I’d rather see us absorb – the economy-focused elites and the identity-focused base are equally repugnant.
Mnemosyne
Finally a non-Costello song lyric I can get right away!
Joseph Nobles
The Obama campaign has the easier time of it, yes. They just take everything Romney does and work it into the desired narrative. I think this is so easy for them because the core message (out of touch jerk raising your taxes and lowering his) is basically true.
Whereas the hit-and-miss quality of the Romney portrayal of Obama is because the true organizing principle of the operative narrative cannot be spoken aloud – the NiCLANG Event Horizon. Combine that with being unable to speak policy specifics aloud (because the result would be losing the state of Utah as well) and you get this miasma of purpose and the instant adoption of the scandal-of-the-day that feeds right into Obama’s Romney-narrative.
It is a beautiful thing to behold.
Schlemizel
@cosima:
I think we are at least two election cycles from the GOP removing their collective heads from their collective colon. When they get whacked this time it will be ‘not a real conservative’ Willards fault so they will demand a double down for ’14. If they get whacked then after a full-on wingnut assault they will be really cranked for ’16 & we should get a Santorum/Perry level nut bag at the top of the ticket. If that goes down in flames that might be the end of the death grip of on the GOP. But any win/appearance of success could push that back.
My hope is that the formally sane Reuplicans drift into the new GOP forming in the Democratic Party while the left brakes off to form a new party that drags the nation back toward populist principles.
Liberty60
I’m old enough to remember when the conservatives were the green eye shade guys, who always pointed out that stuff needs to get paid for.
Those conservatives were shivved and buried as the Tax Collectors for the Welfare State.
Nowadays the conservatives are the modern incarnation of the Marxists, with a fanatical belief in an inerrant theology that always needs yet another dose, stronger and more pure this time.
James E. Powell
The richness and complexity of the legend Paul Ryan seems to be a Village production. He is, after all, serious.
The Village Courtiers may be a lot of bad things, but they are not pig-ignorant bigots like the Republican base voters and they are not no sex, no science, no dancing because Jesus people like the great mass of Republican senators and congress-creatures. So they have to find one or two people who don’t fit that mold and don’t project that image.
Paul Ryan is this decade’s Jack Kemp. He’s not destroying any and all programs that benefit minorities or women because he’s a misogynist bigot; he’s doing it because he has the courage to do what’s fiscally responsible!
IowaOldLady
@Linda Featheringill: Popularity as a result of projection is a fascinating idea. I once heard someone theorize that Twilight was popular not in spite of the main character’s lack of personality but because of it. Girls could project themselves into her. Wow. God knows Reagan was an empty vessel.
Schlemizel
@Chris:
I’d expect the Dems to absorb either the free-dope, free-love libertarians or (more likely imo) the fiscally sane bunch. It would depend on how the Dems work the electorate over the next decade. Maybe the libertarians will join with the actual liberals to form that leftist party we need.
Irving
The Republican Party won’t come to its sense until Rush Limbuagh is off the air. The Tea Party literally grew up listening to him and his ilk; they think that conservative governance ought to be done the way he talks about it. Until he’s discredited, they’re up the creek.
Nancy Darling
@James E. Powell: I can’t tell if you are serious or this is snark.
MattF
So, the primary target of Ryan’s con is other wingers. That hadn’t occurred to me– and it’s an interesting idea that explains some things. Wouldn’t have thought of it myself, which demonstrates that winger thought-processes, such as they are, are opaque to me.
Litlebritdifrnt
I have been discussing this in two previous threads. Even the bobbleheads are now noticing that the Romney/Ryan ticket are running against a “Fantasy Obama” that does not exist in real life. They are listening to the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world who keep saying that POTUS went on an apology tour which is blatantly untrue and they are being called out on it on the airwaves, by random acts of journalism. On the SPT thread the Holmes piece said that POTUS had taken vacations in Hawaii and Europe, which is blatantly false. One of the commenters said that he was “probably confusing the trip Michelle made to Spain”, I don’t give a fuck what he was confusing, if he thinks somehow that POTUS and FLOTUS are the same person then he is a fucking moron and he blatantly lied in his piece.
The Obama they are running against is a figment of their fucking imagination, it doesn’t exist, people, especially voters KNOW THAT, they know what they have seen for the last four years and the RWNJ Obama does not exist. How can you ask the voters to vote for you when the guy you claim to be running against is a figment of your imagination? It is like asking voters to vote for you because you are not the Easter Bunny.
Amir Khalid
The silly gotcha games Mitt and Ryan a,re playing, taking Obama’s words out of context and launching these disjointed easily refuted attacks oh him, are just pitiful. Do they even realize they’re just shooting themselves in the foot?
Hill Dweller
@Schlemizel: Both parties have shifted right over the last 30 years. The current Democratic party essentially subscribes to the same policies Republicans did 30 years ago. There is no sane policy to the right of Dems now. Consequently, in their effort to differentiate themselves for Dems, the Republican party has become the John Birch Society.
Linda Featheringill
@IowaOldLady:
Popularity and projection:
It does explain some things, doesn’t it?
MattF
@Amir Khalid: This is the level of ‘debate’ on FOX News and the WSJ. Welcome to winger-land.
kay
Kristol said this morning that the election is a “referendum on a choice”
Rather than admit they were wrong about their central premise, that this election was a “referendum on Obama” they are willing to spout absolute gibberish, like “referendum on a choice”
Scott Walker did a variation on this theme on FOX.
They have to spin off “referendum” because if Obama WINS on a referendum, they’re in a bit of a trap.
Schlemizel
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I think you have hit their problem cleanly on the head there. Its been mentioned in earlier threads here recently about how this came to be. I wonder how long it will take the wingnuts to come to these two relizations.
Just Some Fuckhead
Because a majority of voters blame Republicans for the stalled economy. Another not-insignificant percentage blame both parties equally. That campaign message ain’t gonna work.
geg6
In the particular instance of Obama v. Rmoney, it’s more that one is a great campaign strategist who surrounds himself with very, very smart people. The other is an MOU who surrounds himself with yes men. And the yes men will never tell the MOU that he is completely out of touch with reality and that his campaign “strategies” are stupid.
Obama can just keep on the message that Mittens is an out-of-touch Richie Rich because he and his campaign have spent months and months and $ and $ to frame Money Boo Boo exactly in that way. And I suspect that they had young Mr. Carter with his source with a recording in the bag, ready to pull out when needed or the timing was just right. Mittens has spent his time hanging out in Boca with wealthy idiots just like him. When he does get out, he describes an Obama (whichever version he’s pushing that day) that is unrecognizable to your average American. Most people can’t deal with the amount of cognitive dissonance wingnuts deal with every and even seem to crave. So they look at Obama and see a perfectly nice guy who seems to work hard and care and with beautiful, admirable family. They might not like everything about him, but they think he means well and is sincere. Between allowing Obama and his team to define him and Willard’s inability be like a normal person and air of the entitled “aristocrat,” his campaign has committed malpractice and should be sued. But because the campaign is run just like Bain, no one has the balls or incentive to tell him the truth: that he knows nothing about campaigning, strategy, retail politics, foreign policy, and on and on and on.
They had the money advantage from the start. Why did these campaign professionals not spend some time defining Romney themselves? I submit that it was the fault of the person running the campaign: W. Mitt Romney. He’s trying to do this like he ran Bain. He’s an idiot, pretty much like every other “financial whiz” I’ve ever known. There are exceptions, but I don’t think I’ve ever met more stupid and self-centered dimwits than the people I know in financial services.
Schlemizel
@Hill Dweller:
So where do the sane Republicns go? It has to be to the Dems. That (Please dear Pasta) make the current Dems an overwhelming majority which will allow for the left to squeeze out & try to drag this country back toward the light
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Yep. Kemp got forced out of Reagan’s HUD because the poor bastard actually thought he was supposed to be helping people in urban areas.
He wasn’t very bright, and he was a true believer in “trickle down” until the day he died, but he was still head and shoulders above an unrepentant Randian like Ryan.
Schlemizel
@efgoldman:
From your lips to His Noodley Appendage
shoutingattherain
@Chris:
FTFY. We’ve really seen the wingnuts come totally unglued the past 4 years. I don’t remember Them ever being this irrational and incoherent.
Sly
It’s not just talk radio, but also the GOP funding base. Republicans are caught between mutually exclusive constituencies; those who give money to their campaigns, and those who will give them a voter base advantage. It used to be that GOP candidates could focus on one set of issues for one constituency and another set for the other, but when there is one pressing issue on the minds of everyone, that strategy runs into problems, the side-effect of which is appearing schizophrenic. This becomes more pronounced as it becomes more and more evident that the strategy is failing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Liberty60:
Those conservatives never existed. Barry Goldwater savaged President Eisenhower as a profligate New Deal spender. Thirty years later, Reagan Republicans were calling Goldwater a liberal. Thirty years later, the current group of mouth-breathers are taking out all yesteryear’s Reagan Republicans for being big spenders.
It’s a con they run.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Heck Willard didn’t think beating Obummer would take anywhere near this much work. All he thought he’d have to do is say, “Obama sucks!” and get crowned as the prophecised White Horse.
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh BTW don’t know how many of you watch Up with Chris Hayes but this morning they were doing a piece on Occupy and what they were doing. Well guess what they are doing a lot. In the “what you should know” piece at the end of Chris’s show one of the lawyers from Occupy said they were launching an “occupy the debt” initiative, in which they were going to be attending the auctions of debt that occur and bidding on peoples debt. These are usually attended by bottom feeding, scum sucking, sausage factory law firms or collection companies who operate at the very fringes of the law when it comes to collection practices. (Twenty years ago one of them told me I should let my house go into foreclosure and live in my car so I could pay my credit card debt – assholes). Anyhow, Occupy will be buying up this debt (he mentioned medical bill debt specifically) and forgiving it, sending the person a letter saying, “hey we bought your debt, you don’t owe us a dime, have a nice day”. Is this brilliant or what?
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne:
I’m reminded of St. Ronnies budget director, David Stockman. He got scacked because he was stupid enough to believe they wanted to balance the budget while fairly cutting taxes. He wrote a rather bitter book about his education. It was explained to him the goal was to bankrupt the Federal government in order to stop it from doing anything ever again.
The wingnut agenda has not been a secret to anyone who wanted to know the truth since then.
MikeJ
@Schlemizel:
Anybody who actually cares about fiscal responsibility is already a Dem. There are no “fiscally sane” libertarians out there who are voting for Romney, but there are plenty of “give me a tax break, you moocher” libertarians who are. In fact, I’d guess that covers 90% of them.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Slightly OT, but our cul de sac had driveways littered with Obama’s America 2016 packets. They are bags filled with promo material – times of c=screenings and explanations of Women for Liberty (or whatever the fuck they call their “grass roots” group). And information about how to make sure your vote counts by signing up to be an election day
voter intimidation agentpoll observer. A ritual incineration will be performed during an appropriate moon phase.Chet Manly
Well, not quite. Everyone except the GOP base believes Bush fucked up the economy, which is why they can’t make the election solely about the economy.
Obama certainly hasn’t covered himself with glory on the economic recovery, but the GOP is too ideologically screwed up to admit to past failures so they have nothing new to offer.
All Obama’s team has to do is keep saying the Romney/Ryan plan is to go back to the policies that tanked the economy in the first place over and over until November.
BruceFromOhio
Flashback:
Anyone else see the pattern? I think its encoded in the DNA.
Schlemizel
@MikeJ:
yeah, I think the libertarian bunch is only held together by the other two parties. If they actually had to be a real party they would fracture along those lines. As long as large parts of the nation refuse to vote for a Dem there will always be fiscally sane members of the GOP. They have to keep it on the DL for now & play along for fear of getting primaried by a full-blood wingnut.
I expect that bunch to come out & join the Dems once they can be sure their seats are safe when they do.
JoyceH
@IowaOldLady:
Oh, geez. So I’d sell more books if I stopped giving my characters personalities?
I… don’t think I can do that.
Linda Featheringill
That imaginary Obama must be confusing to a lot of people. Even folks who disagree with his policies realize that he isn’t stupid and he isn’t mean.
One of Clint’s problems with the empty chair was that he made the imaginary Obama use coarse language. Everyone else know that the Prez would have found an elegant way to express himself, even if his meaning was hostile.
If they want to persuade people to disapprove of Obama, they’ll have to offer up an image that is at least believable. They haven’t done that yet.
j
It’s all based on the boner. They fell in love with Palin, they couldn’t stop talking about that ripped (“not gay”) dude from Illinois, they salivate over Ryan’s body fat.
In the GOP mindset Reagan was a HE=MAN who threw missiles at perceived enemies they they created in their own 12 year old minds. In reality he was an old guy with Altheimers who died his hair and wore a diaper and slept 18 hours a day like an old cat.
But he alone brought down the “Evil Empire”. In his sleep. years later.
This GOP wank fest is nothing new.
They are all latent homos. Girls want to be him, guys want to be with him, or something like that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@BruceFromOhio:
Because it used to work.
Things are bad now. Manufactured bullshit ain’t putting money in America’s pockets.
Roger Moore
@Just Some Fuckhead:
This. The Republicans tried talking about the economy, but it didn’t swing the voters. Now they’re flailing around trying desperately to find something else to convince us that They’re the people to trust with the country.
Suffern ACE
@Chet Manly: Yes. But the voters handed the keys of congress over to the republicans in Congress. And a lot of statehouses. 2 years after kicking them out. The dems mentioned not going back to the same policies that drive us into the Ditch and were creamed everywhere.
Woody
Murdoch and the Limbaugh types are basically canaries in a golden cage.
Sure, they have a solid 27% in a fragmented media landscape. But their audiences will disappear should they ever stop feeding them the outraged prolefeed. In fact, their audiences need the purer, more hardcore stuff to feed their monkey.
They’re stuck – the only direction they have is Moar Rage. And their preferred party is stuck right along with them, because Murdoch and the Limbaughs get paid regardless of GOP electoral success.
mainmati
@Schlemizel: Actually, a fiscally conservative, liberal party is not at all inconceivable. But it would be a party not hostage to corporate subsidies and the endless DOD toys for the boys party and one that got rid of a lot of tax loopholes and instituted a more progressive tax system than the one we have now. Even going back to the rates we had in the 1970s would keep us fiscally fine even with the demographic challenge we face now. (Though we really need to go to single payer and end the health insurance scam industry.)
Having said that, I don’t see that combination happening without a truly awful crisis in this country.
srv
@cosima:
If Hitlery could get a term after Obama, just imagine what shape these folks will be in. 12 years at that blood pressure alone would be causal for millions of heart attacks. So they may just kill grandma yet, just not the way the nutters think.
Bill Arnold
@Just Some Fuckhead:
However, Rockefeller Republicans did exist.
My father was one of these small-c conservatives, from a family that was Republican since the Republican party started. He switched with Clinton in 1992 due to having strong feelings pro-environmental protection and feeling that the Republican party had gone radical with respect to environmental conservation.
(Incidentally and unrelated, I was discussing Bill Clinton’s speaking style with my father recently, and he told me that Bill Clinton always reminded him stylistically (and even in profile) of FDR, “except for those silly glasses”.)
Mike in NC
@Yutsano:
While channel surfing earlier today I paused briefly at MSNBC, only to see them bring on the odious Jennifer Rubin, who proclaimed that the Rmoney campaign was about to reboot itself using excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book. Yadda yadda yadda. Talk about a face that needs a fist in it.
chopper
@Ben Cisco:
and 300% asshole.
quannlace
Yup. With the Romney campaign, everything is……just…..around…..the……corner. Anyday now. We promise. Really!
J. Michael Neal
@Mike in NC:
Fixed that for you.
slightly_peeved
Well, Bill Kristol doesn’t anymore..
Bill Kristol: Romney Won’t Win If The Election Is About The Last Four Years
Hammering Obama on the economy may well be the best thing they can do. But all it’ll do is get them a narrower loss. Hence the flailing.
Maude
Reagan was a fictional character. He was all about image. Underneath he was an evil old man.
Stockman has been talking about the debt and how dangerous it is. Oh, my.
Just Some Fuckhead
@quannlace:
Everything seems possible when yer wearing magic underwear.
Narcissus
@Litlebritdifrnt: This is heartening to hear. Money is organized and games the system, so I don’t see why every one else shouldn’t get organized and game the system. I was hoping the internet would lead to this, but mostly it seems to have led to facebook.
Like, a kickstarter campaign to raise money to hire private investigators to research K-street, or something.
Ruckus
@Splitting Image:
Half-wit, ALL-assed,….
FXIT
General Stuck
A brave semi sane winger sticks his neck out, and describes what everyone not living in the right wing fever swamp knows already, as plain as the nose on your face.
From The American Conservative, no less, believe it or not.
Gian
I fully expect Obama to rip Romney a new one in the debates over the first signed into law by ford, and then greatly expanded in the reagan 1986 tax reform earned income tax credit.
Romney, why do ou piss on St Reagan’s grave?
and because I read this as part of a class in undergrad, and it’s really worth reading, I’m going to post a link to an old old regan era piece by william grieder – the education of david stockman. look for the phrase “trojan horse”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/12/the-education-of-david-stockman/305760/
Triassic Sands
And 143.7% BOWHUNTER (using GOP math) — killer (he hopes) of defenseless animals for sport.
I just about puked when I heard that Ryan’s Secret Service name is “Bowhunter.” Imagine President Ryan and a summit between the two shirtless ultra-men — Vlad Putin and Bowhunter Ryan — they could decide the fate of the world while skinning their latest kill.
gbear
@Narcissus:
And comment sections for newspaper articles that turn into insult-fests before the third comment.
Triassic Sands
RE the Weigel piece: It’s not a gaffe if any moron not driven entirely by ideological zeal can tell the difference between what the speaker said and what the opposition wants people to believe he meant.
And context mattters. A lot.
So, “You didn’t build that…” in the context of Obama’s complete statement isn’t a gaffe — the Republicans just want people to believe Obama meant that individual effort is unimportant, even irrelevant.
However, ” And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” isn’t helped by context. The context makes it clear Romney is judging the quality of a large segment of American voters; he’s not simply talking about his chance of getting their votes. He is characterizing them as lazy mooches or shiftless parasites. If he had limited his comments to something like this: “Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect,” his statement wouldn’t be a gaffe, although I’d advise a candidate to modify the claim with something like “not likely to connect” instead of “doesn’t connect.” There are enough perverse American voters that there will almost certainly be some non-income tax payers who will still find Romney’s words attractive, if for no other reason than people often don’t see themselves as “takers” even when they are receiving one or more government “hand-outs.” After all, they earned their benefit, while others are simply bleeding the system.
ARoomWithAMoose
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): yeah, this is the big push using some weird multi-level marketing strategy. Not sure how it works except as their GOTV core effort. The timing is a bit late in the cycle, and the only folks really into it are already full metal wing nut on whatever forums they participate in.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@General Stuck: WOW!
P. Obbard
Is the title of this post a play on the lyrics of “Modern Love”, or something else?
Specifically:
It’s not really work
It’s just the power to charm
I’m still standing in the wind
But I never wave bye bye
But I try, I try…
Gian
@Triassic Sands:
only bowhunter? why not the super hero reference hawkeye?
DougJ
@P. Obbard:
Oh, my god, I got the lyric wrong! Thanks for correcting me.
penpen
@DougJ: Speaking of “feeding the monkey” this post reminded me a lot of this David Foster Wallace article, a case study of talk radio host John Ziegler, which also serves to provide a lot of insight into the nature of talk radio generally. Wallace is at pains to emphasize just how difficult it is to do the job of the radio host, continuously talking while keeping listeners engaged in a visceral way (I love the term he mentions, “the churn” — brings to mind the image of tossing bloody chum into the ocean to draw in sharks).
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/
jake the snake
@quannlace:
I hate to tell them, but they don’t have a Friedman Unit to get that done.