This oughtta give the right something to talk about.
Glenn Beck Hallucinates
I know this makes me an awful person, but this just made me laugh:
My “routine” outpatient surgery (which was on my butt — get all your sophomoric jokes out of the way now) went awry and I was in terrible, excruciating pain. To help, my doctors who were absolutely fantastic, created a sinister cocktail of pain medications so strong that it’s usually reserved only for Hollywood starlets. It included morphine, Percocet, Toradol, some sort of synthetic morphine derivative on a pump, and my personal favorite — Fentanyl, which my doctor told me is an opiate 80 times more powerful than morphine.
That combination took me to an incredibly dark place. I began having trouble breathing, and I started to hallucinate. Every time I closed my eyes it was like I entered my very own movie theater running the movie “Saw” on a loop.
Two things- How does a butt operation go awry, and Beck is just lucky his personal movie theatre was not showing re-runs of the Glenn Beck show. Talk about a freak show.
I Can Has Unity Pony?
Another example of what I am talking about. An interview Obama gave to NPR. Not a stump speech for the masses. An interview that will be heard by people who can juggle actual ideas:
Steve Inskeep: Can you name one concrete thing you can do that other candidates would not do to move things forward?
Obama: Well, it is going to require the American people, enlisting them in putting pressure on Congress to make it happen. This is part of the point that I’ve been trying to make, Steve. There’s no shortage of plans out there. There’s no shortage of policy papers. This is not a technical problem. It’s a problem of politics. It’s a problem of getting a big enough coalition of people who are organized, inspired, mobilized and will then put pressure on those who are elected — in combination with a president who is able to lead — in order to get it done. There are no magic solutions here. And the problems that we face, whether it’s climate change, or health care, or making college more affordable, or dealing with our foreign policy is less a problem of, you know, getting the perfectly calibrated policy. It has to do with are we able to get people to work in the same direction, and that’s what I can do.
If we are inspired and work together we are just magically going to defeat the people who have spent the last thirty years opposing single-payer, global warming reforms, etc. Yeah. I am just a concern troll.
In a somewhat related vein, read this Barney Frank piece at the HuffPo.
BTW, for fun, I have decided that I am going to compile a list of things that Obama supporters claim he has transcended. Off the top of my head, we have race and politics.
Call Me Karl Rove
Given the crap I have taken for pointing out that “lofty” rhetoric and “elevating the spirits” of a few excitable people is not enough to win a general election, I enjoyed reading this prevew of what is to come from Karl Rove should Obama win the nomination:
The fourth and biggest reason why Mrs. Clinton won two nights ago is that, while Mr. Obama can draw on the deep doubts of many Democrats about Mrs. Clinton, he can’t close out the argument. Mr. Obama is an inspiring figure playing a historical role, but that’s not enough to push aside the former First Lady and senator from New York. She’s an historic figure, too. When it comes to making the case against Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama comes across as a vitamin-starved Adlai Stevenson. His rhetoric, while eloquent and moving at times, has been too often light as air.
Mr. Obama began to find his voice at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner, when he took four deliberate swipes at the Clintons. He called for Democrats to tackle problems “that had festered long before” President Bush, “problems that we’ve talked about year after year after year after year.”
He dismissed the Clinton style of campaigning and governing, saying “Triangulating and poll-driven positions . . . just won’t do.” He attacked Mrs. Clinton on Iraq, torture and her opposition to direct presidential talks with Syria and Iran. Then he rejected a new Clinton era by saying, “I don’t want to spend the next year or the next four years re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s.” It deftly, if often indirectly, played on the deep concerns of Democrats who look at the Clinton era as a time of decline for their party and unfulfilled potential for their cause.
But rather than sharpen and build on this message of contrast and change, Mr. Obama chose soaring rhetoric and inspirational rallies. While his speeches galvanized true believers at his events, his words were neither filling nor sustaining for New Hampshire Democrats concerned about the Clintons and looking for a substantive alternative.
Flame away, but I am not out in left field when I point this out. This is a weak point for Obama, and while all of you are high on the ether of his “positive message for change,” Karl Rove and his friends are taking notes and loading up. Although I suppose what you will really do is ignore everything and just accuse me of parroting GOP/Clinton talking points.
Jimmy Carter: An Editorial
This has got to be the funniest thing I’ve read on The Onion in a long time:
Oh, what’s that I hear? The weather’s all screwy? You got a global warming problem? Boo-fucking-hoo! I was telling you morons to turn off your lights and unplug all your shit at night to conserve energy in 19-fuckin’-75, for chrissake. Gee, I wonder what woulda happened if we’d all switched to solar power like I fucking did back when we had a fucking chance to do something about it. Think we’d still be sucking Saudi Arabia’s dick like a five-dollar whore? I sure as fuck didn’t get no fancy Oscar for that little spiel, though, did I? No. But Al Gore, that cum-sucking pig, steals the shit from me and now he’s the greatest thing since Jesus Christ made a fucking sandwich.
Well, he can lick my asshole right after George W. Bush, that fuck. […]
You had your chance with Jimmy Carter, and you fucking blew it. So get fucked. Fucking country.
Richardson’s Out
That’s unfortunate. I was an original supporter of Richardson, and I think he probably has more relevant experience than anyone in the Democratic race, foreign and domestic. I never understood why his campaign never took off.
Hugh Hewitt Suicide Watch
“Yes, my lord. If we count the votes from Eriador and Gondor, and add them together, it does look better.”
I was a little hesitant to read Hugh this morning, because I need to face facts, after a Romney loss in NH last night I might actually overdose from schadenfreude. However, I recognize my duty to you all, so I checked to see what the GOP establishment’s Grima Wormtongue was up to:
I will update the box above when the final results from New Hampshire are posted.
The first thing to note is that even with Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s Independents added in, Romney has won more votes in Iowa and New Hampshire combined than McCain, and almost certainly significantly more Republican votes.
Someone call Al Gore and let him know he is President.