The incivility, effrontery, partisanship, etc., inherent in these choices will surely cause the Beltway media to collectively arise from its fainting couch, snap shut its peacock fan with an exasperated little squeak and furiously sally forth in search of knuckles to rap:
The non-racists at Townhall are already observing that “Benghazi YouTube video liar” Susan Rice is “moving on up” to a deeeee-lux appointment in the sky. Noise-cancelling headphones won’t be sufficient to protect tender eardrums from the high-decibel meeping that will greet the news of Power’s appointment, if appointed she indeed is.
This should be fun.
Scott S.
(stocks up on popcorn)
(prepares to update list of pundits in need of throat punching)
JPL
E-mails prove that the CIA was in charge of the talking points, so they need to be blaming Petraeus.
A Ghost To Most
Wait – there are non-racists at Clown Hall?
Elizabelle
From NY Times article:
I am glad to see Susan Rice get this post. She did not deserve the poutrage hurled earlier; glad to see her prevail over smaller minds.
catclub
@A Ghost To Most: adjust your snarkometer.
Comrade Jake
I hope Power is confirmed. She’d be quite good at the UN I think.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I saw that and wondered who’d spiked the White House breakfast coffee. Then I remembered that this President has a much better sense of what will work than I do.
Which is not to say hilarity will not ensue. Popcorn supplies may be drained.
maya
Are there no appointments available for Bill Ayers? Rev. Wright? Peak Wingnut Aneurism is achievable.
aimai
I would love to see Bill Ayres recommended for the Department of Education, or maybe they could really tweak the wingers by making him Chief Archivist and Ghost Writer.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@maya: Bill Ayers for DoD, and Wright for SCOTUS.
GregB
The Obama’s are out of control, first Barack X slaps all of the GOP Benghazi conspiracy mongers in the face…. Then I saw that Michelle Obama stood up to a heckler! How outrageous and very Amazon-Black-Panther-Marie Antoinette of her. It won’t be long before they are loading white Christian Republicans into catapults and going skeet shooting with them.
different-church-lady
@maya:
It is, but I’m not sure it would be worth the reverse-cleek it would take to achieve it.
Mandalay
Heh. McCain, who is now a victim of his own success at killing her SoS nomination, tweeted:
Don’t expect any similar effort from Rice you loser fuckwad.
Betty Cracker
@Comrade Jake: Should be an interesting confirmation fight. I’m sure it won’t hurt the GOP’s image with women when they disrespect, patronize, sneer at and slander a highly intelligent, accomplished, articulate, youngish and attractive female nominee.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
Unpossible. He’s a white male with stars on his shoulders, so he must be perfect. Meanwhile, Susan Rice is a black woman who never served, so she must be at fault.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: I put this through my Super Sekrit Translator for Republican Women Voters and got this: “I’m sure it won’t hurt the GOP’s image with women when they disrespect, patronize, sneer at and slander a black black black blackity black black BLACK nominee.”
Roger Moore
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Which is why we’re always advising people to buy popcorn futures when the Republicans get a brilliant idea.
Hill Dweller
@Mandalay: McCain literally called Susan Rice dumb back when he was derailing her potential nomination for SoS.
shortstop
@GregB: That was hilarious. But even as I was laughing I was drifting off into a little “what if” reverie…
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: Luckily, Rice won’t need to be confirmed, but Power will. I guess Jen Rubin hasn’t heard yet — no mushroom cloud spotted to the northeast…
shortstop
@Betty Cracker: Damn, I was blathering while not paying attention. Sorry!
NickT
@GregB:
The only way to keep our children safe from catapults loaded with white Christians is to hire more catapults loaded with white Christians to guard our schools.
NickT
@Betty Cracker:
Rubin’s still working up to martini + 3 for the morning, so she hasn’t had time for uppityness issue analysis yet.
We can probably get good quote from Dorothy Rabinowitz though.
Tone In DC
@Betty Cracker:
They cannot help themselves.
They fear/loathe/probably-want-to-be-spanked-by-Michelle Obama so much it’s killing them.
MattF
Get the feeling that Obama has had his fill of GOP-Stupid? It’s so rude, but just maybe…
Higgs Boson's Mate
Damn. I was hoping that Obama would first put up John Bolton and then Power (After the “Scanners” head explosions) for the UN gig.
Tone In DC
@GregB:
Seeing the Prez with a shotgun a few months ago made a large quantity of heads asplode (it’s apparently much worse than just exploding heads, more splat per square inch).
This will be like that Doomsday flick with Rhona Mitra. Many more heads asploding.
kindness
@GregB:
Where can I get tickets to that? Can I actually participate? Do I have to get as drunk as Dick Cheney was before I can shoot these people?
NickT
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gop-rep-obama-is-vengeful-liar-with-no
Oklahoma will NOT allow South Carolina to claim the KrazyKlownKrown without a fight.
Roger Moore
@Tone In DC:
I’m kind of hoping for a Mars Attacks! level of heads exploding, except with wingnuts instead of Martians.
burnspbesq
@shortstop:
Imagine our surprise.
Tone In DC
@NickT:
He’s actually worse than Inhofe. I didn’t think that was possible in the known universe (Einstein did warn us about the inexhaustible supply of teh st00pid).
Tone In DC
@Roger Moore:
LULz.
With plenty of incessant, semi-pointless screaming by Dakota Fanning from War of the Worlds.
danimal
@GregB: ” loading white Christian Republicans into catapults and going skeet shooting…”
Obama has finally released his Death Panel recommendations! Hurray!
mai naem
@Hill Dweller: McCrackain holds a grudge like an elephant. I guess Susan Rice called stupid or whatever during one of the Iraq war deals he was pushing and she’s been paying for this ever since. Also too, she went to an Ivy League, entered college at an early age, I think she’s a Rhodes Scholar etc. etc. way more accomplished than the guy who lost in 2 runs for Prez , blew up 2-3 planes, graduated towards the bottom of his Naval Academy class etc. etc. etc. and, oh yeah, I forgot she’s a woman.
@NickT: I finally saw the Rabinowitz Youtube clip. Haven’t seen this woman for years. She looks like a heavier black haired version of the super skinny sandy hair colored Nancy Reagan.
shortstop
@mai naem: He really has the tightest grip on a grudge I’ve ever seen in a body of world-class grudge holders.
@burnspbesq: Watch and learn how grownups admit mistakes. It’s easy and fun! You might even make a friend, get a good review from a client or keep a wife around. Or you could choose to just keep being you, which is your tragedy.
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker: Au contraire, Betty.
maya
Obama should next deliver a speech on the benefits of a low salt diet for the American population.
Alex S.
This proves though that the Obama circle is very small and insular. Your best chance at getting a job in the administration is having a job there already. Anyway, in my opinion this is the post she should have gotten in the first place, i.e. instead of the aborted SOS nomination.
handsmile
An absolutely superb choice for UN ambassador!
Samantha Power is an international authority on human rights whose 2002 book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide is one of the key foreign policy volumes of the past decade. Her subsequent book was a biography of Sergio Viera de Mello, the UN Special Representative in Iraq who was killed in a Baghdad bombing in 2003.
An early supporter and foreign policy advisor to the 2008 Obama campaign, Power was a director on the National Security Council staff until February of this year. Her husband, UChicago and Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein served in the Obama administration as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs until last summer.
As inspiring as this nomination is, of course, BettyC is precisely right that the Right-Wing Wurlitzer will be playing at banshee-levels to destroy Samantha Power. One can only hope that the usurper in the White House got the approval of the Presidents of US Foreign Policy, Gramps and Huckleberry, before this latest assault on American freedom.
Marmot
“’Benghazi YouTube video liar’ Susan Rice is ‘moving on up’ to a deeeee-lux appointment in the sky.”
Jeeeez-us. How do they write things like that? It’s pretty sickening.
shortstop
@Alex S.: Every single administration is like this. Every one.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: Ha! Jenghazi is in a snit over Rice as expected, but I’m frankly shocked at her sanguine attitude toward Power. Most of the Americans who think we should outsource US foreign policy to the Likud Party are highly suspicious of Ms. Power because of one comment she made that they misinterpreted and then plugged their ears and went “lalalalala” when she clarified.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Why oh why did I not buy stock in companies that make white sheets when Obama was elected?
The lost opportunities are the ones that always haunt you.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: Your comments are so much better when you’re playing it straight than when you’re playing the asshole, and for that reason I’ve resisted pieing you all this time. But it occurs to me that there are other competent lawyers and experienced financial professionals in these threads, and they pretty much contribute what you do when you see fit to play it straight anyway. So, fuck it. Pie filter it is.
Betty Cracker
@Marmot: In fairness, they didn’t actually write the “deee-lux” part — that was me completing the “moving on up” headline that does appear at the site.
ETA — they did actually write the YouTube liar thing too.
Jebediah
@Tone In DC:
Well, if you’re the type who’s hankering for a spankering, you could sure do a lot worse than FLOTUS. (Current FLOTUS only!)
shortstop
@Betty Cracker:
I haven’t been around that much lately: is this an established witticism or a new Betty bon mot? Either way, I’m putting it in my backpack and walking off with it.
RaflW
Interesting, esp that Rice gets in w/o Senate bullshit filibuster antics.
I’m sure the GOP will go full mental jackoff over this, but I wonder if deep in their reptile brains, they might actually, grudgingly have more respect for Obama. He’s showing that he’s not a weakling, IMO.
Mandalay
@mai naem:
I think publicly calling out McCain for his folly over Georgia is what really made him hate Susan Rice:
I don’t think he ever got over that, and has been going after her ever since. Like white on Rice.
rikyrah
Samantha Powers to the UN!!
Betty Cracker
@shortstop: Can’t take credit — I first saw it from one of her many detractors in her blog comments section. ;-)
RaflW
@Alex S.:
Proves is a rather strong word. But most second term administrations have a harder time reaching outside the central circle. It’s partly the nature of staying in office that long: those eager to serve got in for term one, and many burn out or want to cash in early in the second term.
If Obama pulled someone in who was fresh and outsider-y, the Village would freak out about an unproved untested unknown when so much is dangerous in the world. Or some such crapola.
Citizen_X
@RaflW:
Are you KIDDING? He’s bla…bla…bla…arrogant!
/Repub
JD Rhoades
Love it. It’s the perfect “Fuck You” to the Benghazi conspiracy nutz
Betty Cracker
@Mandalay: What you did there. I saw it.
If I live to be 1,000, I’ll never understand how John Fucking McCain became a respected foreign policy grandee, at least in the eyes of the Beltway media. What has he NOT been wrong about?
TaMara (BHF)
@GregB:
Oh, please, please, please. I would donate money to Jimmy Carter’s next Habitat for Humanity build if I could watch this.
different-church-lady
@Alex S.:
Because, you know, the person you want as National Security Adviser is an outsider, who needs to spend a lot of time being brought up to speed.
RaflW
@handsmile:
As has been noted, but I’ll second (third?), the GOP will be attacking Rice, Powers and the DC court nominee’s two women and a black man.
The right always gets so fussed about identity politics (because being for the white male is defacto and being for anyone else is ‘identity’) but this is brilliant.
Obama is offering to the GOP to cement their image of Republicans and conservatives hating on competent, smart women and blacks.
shortstop
@RaflW: It’s a question of trust, too. When events are unfolding quickly and attacks are flying from all directions, as they usually do in a second term and as they’re certainly doing here, there’s no time to vet and introduce new people hoping they’ll be good allies. You stick with known quantities in whom you already have faith and with whom you feel safe.
Paul in KY
@GregB: Didn’t I see that in a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode?
Jay C
@Alex S.:
Actually Susan Rice’s SoS nomination was never “aborted”, since it never went up in the first place. The Senate’s Grump Caucus spent a vast amount of time preemptively dumping on her over lame BENGHAZI!! bullshit, and threatening Dire Repercussions if she were nominated; whereupon President Obama went ahead and nominated John Kerry (who, JFTR, had been the majorly talked-about replacement for Sec’y Clinton for about a year). Who was then confirmed 94-3, btw.
Nina
Freak Republic is having one of their patented freakouts over this move, rehashing the usual calls for impeachment of Rice for (I guess) appearing on television while black, or something. Mixed up with misogyny.
The repubs will make Powers’ confirmation hearings a Benghazi-a-thon try Rice in absentia if they can. But at least it’s the Senate and not the House.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: He has great stories about catching aircraft carriers on fire.
Yatsuno
@Paul in KY:
Too soon?
Also too: Did you know John Sidney McCain III was a POW! It’s twue!
shortstop
@Yatsuno: Huh. He should have had his people call some attention to that. He’d have won the 2008 election.
Yatsuno
@shortstop: Hell he shoulda been shouting that from the rooftops when he was running against Dubya. Not only would he have won all 50 states against Gore, they would have repealed the 22nd Amendment just so he could stay in office for life.
Mandalay
@Betty Cracker:
She has now, and she is a predictably unhappy camper:
Why does Obama hate the families of those killed in Benghazi?
Mandalay
@Alex S.:
Regardless of any other qualities she brings to the table, Obama can feel confident of rock solid loyalty from Rice, which is very important. (Compare that with Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld under Bush, who all had questionable devotion to their boss.)
At no small risk to her own future, Rice joined Obama’s 2008 campaign as an advisor very early, when Hilary Clinton was the hot favorite. So Rice has earned Obama’s loyalty in return.
You can view her getting the job negatively if you want, but I don’t understand what your beef is since you also acknowledge that she deserves the position.
gene108
George Walker Bush for UN Ambassador. The more the public is reminded of him and the more Reps have squirm to pretend he didn’t exist, the better theatre for all involved.
Paul in KY
@Yatsuno: Those would have been the days…
Marmot
@Betty Cracker: Oh, I actually got out of the boat this time, so I saw. And thus has the stupid burned once again.
Roger Moore
@Alex S.:
It’s so terrible: they’re promoting people just because they have experience and do a good job. We should go back to the good old GWB days and give inexperienced people important jobs because they’re good fundraisers. Heck of a job, Brownie!
Maude
@handsmile:
I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP in the Senate blocks her right away. This will be interesting.
MomSense
@handsmile:
I love Samantha Power. Those of us who campaigned in the early states in ’07 got to see her frequently on the campaign trail-same with Susan Rice and Sarah Sewall. I am thrilled about the announcements today!
funluvn
@GregB:
Pull !
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Me too. And I’ll be even happier if Hilary Clinton wins in 2016 since the Rethugs want to tie her to the “scandal” in Benghazi.
Patricia Kayden
@GregB: “It won’t be long before they are loading white Christian Republicans into catapults and going skeet shooting with them.”
Don’t we wish?
Patricia Kayden
@shortstop: Power is not Black and she’s the nominee. Rice is an appointment. There’s nothing Rethugs can do to stop President Obama from appointing her.
Patricia Kayden
@Nina: But what does Power have to do with Benghazi?
boatboy_srq
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): In related news, ConAgra (maker of Orville Redenbacher’s products) jumped 10 points on the NYSE today…
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
Like that matters to the Republicans.
AxelFoley
@Alex S.:
1) So?
2) Rice was never put up for the SOS nomination in the first fucking place. The GOP jumped her shit and we never knew if President Obama was even going to nominate her at all.
Mart
How come this Rice nonsense never ends when you can watch a tape of the Sunday CBS show where she essentially said that we are investigating. Right now it looks like an anti video demonstration was overrun by extremists with heavy weapons. We do not know if the extremists were al qaeda, al qaeda libya or one of several Libyan Muslim militias – she spelled them out – and we are continuing to investigate to find out and punish those responsible.
What was the cover-up? What did she say wrong?