There is nothing I dislike more than our current crop of Republican leaders. But a close second are the Washington Elite Punditry. Whether it is Peggy Noonan or Maureen Dowd, Brit Hume or Alan Colmes, Paul Begala or Mary Matalin…I can’t stand any of them. And I don’t think I am alone in feeling this way. How can anybody like Cokie Roberts, for example? Or George Will? Wolf Blitzer is the biggest tool I’ve ever seen. Chris Matthews is the worst kind of suck-up. Donna Brazile? James Carville? Pat Buchanan? What’s to like?
That’s why I find articles like Jim VandeHei’s today so distasteful.
VandeHei sees everything through the eyes of a Washington insider. And he sees the resignation of Andy Card as some kind of victory for the elite snobs that make it their job to advise Bush how to best implement his torture, his rendition, his crackdown on civil liberties, and his unholy war in a more palatable form.
Look at this crap:
Through one full term and the first year of the second, a signature of this administration was the indifference — even contempt — it showed for the capital’s political and media culture, and for the endless flow of commentary and unsolicited advice that its inhabitants deliver daily to all presidents….
…the Card move is only the latest sign that — with his presidency under the stress of low public approval ratings, an unpopular war and a stalled legislative agenda — Bush is more often deferring to the expectations of Washington conventional wisdom.
This is such crap. Let’s be realistic. Andy Card is stepping down for one of two reasons. Either he is burnt out after serving the second longest term as chief-of-staff in our nation’s history, or there is some shithammer about to drop out of Fitzgerald’s office. Bush didn’t fire his ass because he did a bad job on Katrina or the ports or to satisfy Peggy Noonan and the other nattering nabobs. But don’t tell it to insider pundits.
Bush’s fatal mistake, Podesta said, was going too far in the direction of avoiding, if not alienating, important people in Washington. “You have to tip your hat enough to the chattering class so they don’t spend every day thinking about how to flay you,” Podesta said.
What’s sad about Podesta’s comment is that he seems to think it is true that the press is looking to flay Bush at every opportunity. What goddamn world is he living in? I am the one that wakes up each day looking for several new angles to flay Bush and Bushism. My enemies are the knucklehead suck-up news junkies that parade across my television set each day talking absolute nonsense and garbage…the DC cocktail set that says things like, “sometimes it glimmers with this man, our president, that kind of sunny nobility.”
Bullshit doesn’t glimmer. Neither does torture. When Lou Dobbs wakes up each day trying to figure out how to throw the President in the Hague rather than fetishizing about hispanic hordes, then I’ll be with Podesta on the need for the President to be more deferential to the chattering class.
Andrea Mitchell, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Matt Cooper, Judy Miller, and every other journalist that covered for Rove and Libby throughtout 2004 can go jump in the Potomac for all I care…or for all Bush cares.
If there is one decent quality about Bush it is his recognition of what vile rats the DC punditocracy are. He treats them with more respect than they deserve. And they return the favor with stuff like this (from May 9, 2003, HARDBALL):
MATTHEWS: We have a visual while we’re looking here. In Hollywood, they say how did you get the part. I fit the costume. You know, it’s an old joke in Hollywood. I fit the costume…
(LAUGHTER)
NOONAN: Right
.
MATTHEWS: … because they have the — this guy fits the costume, doesn’t he?
NOONAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: I mean Bill Clinton — do you think they had jump-suits in Bill Clinton’s size?
NOONAN: Oh…
MATTHEWS: Just asking.
NOONAN: Oh, well, Bill Clinton used — you remember Bill Clinton landed on the Theodore Roosevelt back about 1993 or ’94 and he was in his bomber jacket. Do you know what I mean? It was lots of show business then.
The key with Bush, however, is that, you know, he seems like one of these guys and one of these gals because he’s just like them. He’s a regular American male. He also…
I’ve got to tell you what I think — can I tell what you I think the key to the great landing on the aircraft carrier was?
MATTHEWS: That’s why you’re here, Peggy.
NOONAN: All right. This is what I think it was. It wasn’t just it was showy, it was showbiz, it was “Top Gun,” it was Tom Cruise’s suit, it was all that wonderful stuff. It’s that the American president not only put himself in harm’s way going to see American troopers, but he showed them by coming in on that ship I trust you.
MATTHEWS: A little risk. Just a little bit of risk.
NOONAN: It wasn’t just risk. It was trust. It was faith. You’re going to take care of me. You’re going to hit that second trap, the third trap, or the fourth. I’m safe in your hands. It was a compliment, you know.
MATTHEWS: Even a daytime carrier landing is tricky.
NOONAN: Oh, absolutely. I mean it’s taking a chance. I’ll tell you one of the ways you know you’ve gotten a little old? If I’d been in the White House now I would have told them don’t do that, that’s a bridge too far, you’ve got to be crazy, and, instead, it turned out to be, I think, one of the brilliant moments…
MATTHEWS: It’s like knowing to bring…
NOONAN: … indelible political moments.
MATTHEWS: … a meg — to bring a bullhorn to ground zero on September 14, not to bring a mic. It’s that little difference. If he’d had a mic there, if he was like Wayne Newton with a mic or some show-business guy, he would have looked like a lounge act.
NOONAN: Barney Rubble.
MATTHEWS: Because he had that bullhorn, he was a guy like them. We’ll be talking more…
NOONAN: He was a guy with his arm around the…
MATTHEWS: … about this accoutrements of…
NOONAN: … other firemen.
MATTHEWS: … greatness with Peggy Noonan, an expert at the verbal discussing the pictorial.
Card’s Departure Seen as a Sign President Hears Words of Critics, By Jim VandeHei.
Critics? What critics?
“Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs …”
Right.
Here’s another priceless exchange from May 2003. Tweety and a convicted felon yuck it up and make fools of themselves.
MATTHEWS: Well, I think we now know the Democratic Party talking points for this week. G. Gordon Liddy’s a radio talk-show host and author of the book “When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country.”
Gordon, my buddy, thanks for joining us.
I’m now giving you a shooting gallery of opportunity here.
G. GORDON LIDDY: Yes, you are.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?
LIDDY: Well, I — in the first place, I think it’s envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man.
And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I’ve worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic.
You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count — they’re all liars. Check that out.
I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
MATTHEWS: You know, it’s funny. I shouldn’t talk about ratings. I don’t always pay attention to them, but last night was a riot because, at the very time Henry Waxman was on — and I do respect him on legislative issues — he was on blasting away, and these pictures were showing last night, and everybody’s tuning in to see these pictures again.
LIDDY: That’s right.
MATTHEWS: And I’ve got to say why do the Democrats, as you say, want to keep advertising this guy’s greatest moment?
LIDDY: Look, he’s — he’s coming across as a — well, as women would call in on my show saying, what a stud, you know, and then guy — they’re seeing him out there with his flight suit, and he’s — and they know he’s an F-105 fighter jock. I mean it’s just great.
Why would Bush have to do anything to improve his press coverage?
already available in orange.
great Booman. I’m cleaning up the vomit from my keyboard after reading all the Matthews quotes.
I was hoping you’d post on Kos.
A while back, I did an I hate James Carville rant which ended up on the Kos rec list, but yours is so much more on target.
Thanks.
thanks, it’s over there on the reclist right now.
I just recommended it!
Ick! I feel like I need a shower after reading the Liddy portion.
It’s hard to tell who was more turned on by Bush’s flightsuit: Noonan, Liddy, or Tweety.
The Liddy portion immediately reminded me of this famous skit, LOL.
you like his quote on Bush’s ‘manly characteristic’?
How about them saying it was Bush’s most brilliant moment?
Looking back, it might be accurate. Heh.
Further on the flight suit.
Was I the only one who noticed the toilet paper stuffed into his genital area. Could we get some photos up and some comments on this, please!
I was watching Headline News, Kelli Arena was talking about people supporting the death penalty for Moussoaui and she summarized their position as “he lied, people died.” It’s such a simple case when you break it down like that. I think I’ve heard that phrase somewhere before, and it wasn’t from people advocating death.
Head.
Great post.
how you been k/o?
been missing your voice lately.
Old dreams, lost dreams of some unattainable valor, which many of the more public members of the commentariat thought would unfold before their beady little eyes allowing them to write commentary that would bring fame, honors, and maybe a fat retirement annuity.
Bush is a complete failure. Clinton’s Presidency is so vastly superior to Bush’s that it is hard to compare the two without lapsing into absurdity. Yet, the pundits thought Clinton’s time was gauche and banal, simply read back through the social commentary of the 90’s be it about Beavis and Butthead, or hip/hop, or inter-racial marriage….we were losing our class! DANGER, DANGER, Losing class warning!
So, it followed that the arrival of Dubya would save society! Save the WORLD! Ummmm, WRONG!
Bush has been a disaster. No amount of perfumed commentary stops the stench of the crony corruption, no amount of TV news show bloviation can hide the incompetence, and for God’s sake no amount of thunderous “farting” at blogsights can conceal the very sickness, the complete indecency and towering illegality of Bush’s war in Iraq.
These are sad times for the Republican leaning commentariat. There are few excuses for Bush’s foul Presidency left for them to exploit anymore.
Sen. Trent Lott and some senior Republicans beg to differ with Vandehei on Card’s departure.
Cursor.org notes USATODAY and LAT quoting Lott assessing, ‘this shake-up falls short’ and a senior Republicans saying
‘what the White House needs is a renovation, not just a new front door’
GOPs we gather are not just nervous, but in deep angst.
Any renovation contractors among us? Fat chance, Halliburton has all the no bid contracts.
For all these millionaire mannequins in the pundit class, it’s just a big game to them, a game in which each of them has as their goal to acquire more influence, more notoriety and more power for themselves as their game of circular “one-upsmanship” is played out relentlessly like a broken record.
Self-absorbed narcissists to a man/woman, things like truth, accuracy or the best interests of the country are so far down the list of their priorities that they’re incapable of doing their job well even on a good day. They’re their own biggest fans, each and every one of them.
Here’s another thing to make me wanna throw up today: Bush Heads to Mexico, Doesn’t Pack Speedo (actual AP headline)
With respect to Card it is being reported in Salon that he is perhaps leaving to run for the soon to be vacant position in the Governor’s office which is now being occupied by Mitt Romney. If that is the case then once again we have events shaping the President rather than the President shaping events. All of the talk of him listening to his advisors is just that…talk.