conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join
the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been
married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life.
There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability
to forge that same relationship with the person they love.
It's surely welcome to hear Huntsman coming out in favor of basic civil rights.
And who knows? Huntsman is, as is commonly acknowledged, an electrifying political presence with a lot of influence with his party's base, and he has until 2016 to convince the American right that marriage equality is, indeed, a defining "conservative" belief. He has plenty of time to lay the groundwork for a primary candidate who supports gay rights but at the same time has a strong record as a rock-ribbed economic right-winger.
Right now, given Huntsman's advocacy, you just gotta consider Andy Cuomo the frontrunner for the 2016 GOP nomination. It's his race to lose.
Until now, I have not weighed in on the Great Platinum Koin Konspiracy of One-Thirteen, so I quite forgive you for not as yet having made up your minds regarding the wisdom of the ploy. Allow me therefore to present Dispositive Evidence as to why the president should immediately get on the phone to the Treasury and say, "mint me that coin right fucking now." And hang up.
McArdle's post is shouty gibberish of the "everyone is wrong except Megan McArdle" class, and need not detain us. All one ought to consider is that lazy hacks are not even right once an ever.
Which brings us by inevitable vicus of regurgitation back to Ann Althouse and environs. Althouse fondly imagines that she has slain K'Thruglu through an ingenious combined attack consisting of pig-ignorance, preening allodoxia, and willful idiocy. Which is to say, the usual horseshit.
There seem to be two kinds of objections. One is that it would be undignified. Here’s how to think about that....
The professor is about to teach us how to think. Get ready!
... we have a situation in which a terrorist may be about to walk into a
crowded room and threaten to blow up a bomb he’s holding.
Okay. A hypothetical. I'm up for hypotheticals. And it's an analogy,
because the trillion-dollar-coin thing isn't promoted as a solution to
terrorism. But terrorism is something that you can picture quite
concretely and you understand it as very real and scary — unlike the
debt ceiling problem which is awfully abstract. (Even to say "ceiling"
is to resort to metaphor.)
Well, she concedes, or senses, that Krugman is using a metaphor and not advocating literal clown-based law enforcement, which is for Althouse a major achievement. However, "the debt celiling problem" is only "awfully abstract" if you are either genuinely or disingenuously sufficiently cretinous to take the several minutes it requires to understand it.
Which is why Althouse doesn't, or can't (who cares) acknowledge why the extended clown metaphor Krugman uses works. If a gang of utterly absurd cretins manages to engineer a ridiculously dangerous situation, what can you do but send in the clowns? It takes a joker to catch a fool.
I mean, look -- in 20-thousand-10 a lawless bunch came riding into town; they reached for their guns with their tiny little hands and they shot the sherriff down. They terrorized the citizens, they caused a saloon brawl, and no one would stand up to them, even though they were so small.
So the platinum coin would come to right a wrong.
(Yes, yes, that is an obscure joke. Permit me my small joys, redsnouts. At any rate comparing The Tea Party to The Terror of Tiny Town is in every respect thoroughly cringe-worthily apposite.)
Nothing Althouse says equates to a "point"; she doesn't understand the actual issue, and on that basis crowns herself Queen Honeytwit of the Dipshits.
When Jim Hoft is linking to yourhysterics over the outcome of one poll and I can honestly say that I, as lefty as they come, am laughing with Jim Fucking Hoft, and not AT him, then that's probably a sign that it's time to step away from the computer for the day.
This election is not over. But it's not too soon to envision the dangers and opportunities should Obama win.
My worry is not with increased threats from abroad. I am convinced
those threats will be reduced with Obama's election and the beginning
of a much more sensible and trustworthy American foreign policy.
By my lights, the primary threat to the success of a President Obama
will come from some Democrats who, emboldened by the size of their
congressional majority, may try to kill trade agreements, raise taxes
in ways that will destroy jobs, repeal the Patriot Act and spend and
regulate to high heaven.
Yes, simply because Obama and congressional Democrats may be elected on a theme of "change," that is hardly a reason to, you know, actually change anything.
But below is what elevates Kerrey's op-ed to the giddy heights of all-time classic concern trolling:
Obama understands that to succeed, he must make peace with John McCain just as he has done with Hillary Clinton. When this historic election concludes, I expect the two to sit down, without precondition, and negotiate an agenda of reform.
Hell, this election is just so horribly divisive, let's just cancel it and let Obama and McCain share the presidency on alternating weeks. Then everyone will be happy and we can all have cake and candy and soda. (Note to Kerrey: Obama and Clinton belong to the same party. Really. I looked it up.)
Visigoth that I am, I have this vulgar notion that in a democracy the results of the presidential election should determine the policies taken by the executive branch of government. I hope this attitude, which may in fact be so widespread as to cause a lot of people to vote for the Democratic party this year, does not shock Mr. Kerry unduy. I'd hate for him to have to grope for his smelling salts as he swoons on the settee.
If Americans wanted "bipartisanship" right now the Republican Party would not be in the shitter it's in. And if the Democratic party follows Kerrey's advice, the Democrats won't have a majority anymore after November 2010.
Michael Bloomberg has taken to the editorial pages of the New York Times, where, reckless of consequences, he boldly challenges the fearsome forces that are arrayed against the brave, lonely champions of bipartisanship. Hark to his proud defiance.
More of the same won’t do, on the economy or any other issue. We need
innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership. That’s not
just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our
toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream.
Childe Mayor to the Dork Tower Came. Anyway you know it's not empty rhetoric and that he's proposing controversial specific policies because he doesn't actually mention any, which is in and of itself sort of a brave move, in that he's not afraid to be praised to High Heaven for spouting obvious mindless bullshit that will get him soundly fellated by nitwit fossils with opinion-page sinecures. Talk about your desperate last stands.
He also issues an ultimatum, or diktat, or commandment, or some similar class of Haughty Pronouncement:
I believe that an independent approach to these issues is essential
to governing our nation — and that an independent can win the
presidency. I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but
I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. I have watched
this campaign unfold, and I am hopeful that the current campaigns can
rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership. The
most productive role that I can serve is to push them forward, by using
the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate.
In
the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the
national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away
from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward
substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president,
the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have
changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent,
nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge
party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the
White House.
Right. Because Michael Fucking Bloomberg commands Armies of Voters and thus needs to be courted, and if you defy him, FEAR THE WRATH OF HIS HORDES OF THREE DOZEN MEALYMOUTHED CRETINOUS ASTHMATIC FLYING BRODERITE MONKEYS!
The prospect of which, I'm sure, intimidates somebody.
(Below: Michael Bloomberg, Mighty Nonpartisan Sorceror.)
So who are these angry voters? I call them "restless and anxious
moderates," or RAMs. Most come from the third of the electorate that
identifies itself as independent, but some Democrats and Republicans
have also joined this new bloc. These voters tend to be practical,
non-ideological and unabashedly results-oriented -- people such as Gary
Butler, 60, who lives in Show Low, Ariz. Both parties, he says, "are way too far apart, and nobody is looking out for the good of the people."
"Address my life and the problems I face in my terms," another RAM told
me. "Cut political rhetoric, cut political fighting, cut the
game-playing, stop the five-point programs; just address my issues in a
real-world, straightforward way."
You might think that the emergence of a potentially decisive bloc of
disaffected voters would seize the attention of the two major parties.
But they've been strangely oblivious to the RAMs' prodding.
I think the reason they have been "oblivious" to this "bloc of voters" is that this "bloc of voters doesn't actually fucking exist. People don't blame both parties equally for the current shit state of affairs that is our nation right now. They blame the Republicans for fucking things up and they blame the Democrats for not doing a damn thing to stop them. RAM that up your ass.
Apparently Unity '08 is dead. Well, at least they went out with the fly all the way open and the Jurgens' bottle all the way empty.
*Sniff*
Nobody is taking it harder than the owners of the Kleenex corporation, I'm sure.
Anyway, There are two main problems with sponsoring a political movement premised on the idea that Partisanship is Bad.
1. It's stupid. There is not much of a constituency for the idea that you should get interested in politics because you're... disinterested. That is in fact crazy. No, we can't all just get along. That's why we have a political system in the first place. If everyone were freaking St Francis, we'd all have doves on our arms and squirrels on our heads, and that would be cool, if you're into squirrel poop in your eyes, but in reality, politics is about disagreement. Cheez.
2. It's dangerous. Politics should be personal. Personally, I want a stupid war to end, and I want better health care for my family. Duh. I want these ends achieved. That means I want a political fight, and I want to win it.
"Unity '08" and Broderism in general is about disenfranchisement, about telling people they should not be so crass as to vote their interests, even on so basic a matter as how they will pay for medical treatment when they get sick.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a grave to pee on...
Now that Lieberman has endorsed McCain, the long odds of something I wondered about a while ago just got a bit shorter: a McCain/Lieberman independent presidential run. It's unlikely, but not impossible. It would be a revolting, hideous spectacle, to be sure, but don't think it hasn't crossed their little gimlet minds.
Or the minds of the Unity '08 idiots. Speaking of whom, I very much enjoy the graphic they chose to illustrate their Commitment to Exciting New Voter-Empowering Paradigms on their Choose the Candidates page ("The first-ever online convention means YOU choose the candidates. As a Unity08 member,
you have the opportunity to support your favorite candidates or to
draft your own, and then nominate them for the Unity08 Ticket in the
online convention in June 2008. Imagine candidates you choose--not
chosen for you--running for President and Vice President of the United
States. Start thinking about who would be on your ideal Unity Ticket, and sign up to get started!"):
