I think Chuck Hagel ought to know his party better than this. They aren’t going to find a new center and this isn’t a storm that is just going to blow through. A bunch of whack-a-doodles are going to get elected, some of them to six-year terms. And then they’re going to nominate for president someone who is either certifiably insane or who pretends to be. That’s what is going to happen. Michael Steele is going to be the most successful RNC chair in history. The Republicans will think they’ve found the secret elixir for winning power: Go crazy.
And the best outcome of it all will be if they only grow powerful enough to prevent us from tackling any problems rather than adding a whole new list of them.
Unless we turn things around in the next two months, that’s what our future will bring.
Boo…Rubio, Daniels, Christie, Pence…they’re not certifiable.
My biggest fear for taking the House and Senate is that Obama will sound “Republican” (i.e. tax cuts), and turn his back on Keynesianism (i.e. spending) between now and November 2nd.
As a radical right-winger…most likely Obama will be re-elected in 2012 with a Republican Congress.
How do I know…he gave credit to Bush, and he is getting grey hair (sign of maturity)
Mike Pence is nuts. Rubio is a crook. Daniels and Cristie are normal human beings.
But you’re missing the point. Angle, Buck, Paul, and Miller are totally insane. As are a couple dozen house candidates.
Rubio is my favorite, next to Christie…why is he a crook?
Is Maxine “two Vietnams side-by-side” sane?
Progressive and Tea Partiers have more in common than do John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi. We both believe.
What concept is more appealing…Freedom (us), or Compassion (you guys)? Male or Female? Yin or Yang?
I don’t know, maybe because he’s a crook.
The worst part (from your point of view) is that he was stealing from the GOP of Florida. They fixed his goddamn minivan for chrissakes.
You want more of that crap?
I know that what I really admire in a progressive is a propensity to steal from the Democratic Party.
And, really, Rubio’s whole operation was just a swamp of bad behavior, poor decision making, and petty and grand theft.
Mike Pence? He’s one of your heroes? He’s not only insane, he’s as dumb as a nail.
That’s what’s weird. The wingers apparently all think he has a brain to rival Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s.
I should add that what really makes it weird is that there are any number of other, legitimately smart representatives who the Republicans could have plausibly chosen to be the symbolic brainiac of their party. But instead they chose Pence, who by most non-winger accounts is, as you say, dumb as a nail.
His gray hair has nothing to do with maturity.
He’s stressed out…that leads to maturity.
Yeah, tax cuts have worked so well for the economy.
Obama’s holding a press conference next week – only the 2nd one in over a year. It could be one of his best opportunities to use rhetoric to help Democratic candidates this fall. But I think we’ll gain from it only if Obama says something surprising. If it’s more of “working with Republicans” and “nothing is off the table”, then it’ll just be another nail in the coffin.
One of the reasons why Obama’s election was so radical was because people voted for someone who had very little political history. We voted because we believed in his process more than we were certain about his positions. The whackadoodles in contrast have the nuance of Laura Ingraham. It’s the one thing that people miss about W.
Thank You!…as a radical right-winger…W really did mean well.
Oh, I wouldn’t be so surprised. I think most liberals… well, I won’t say most, but plenty of liberals will grant you that overall Dubya meant well. The problem is that he and his administration fucked up 95% of what they touched beyond belief.
Meant well? The dude liked to blow up frogs when he was a child. He never meant anyone well in his entire life. Everything he touched turned to ashes within minutes. He was a prick to anyone who wasn’t enabling him. He did two things right in his entire life. He married Laura and he listened to her when she threatened to leave his drunk ass. Other than that, ‘meant well’ isn’t something that would describe him. He’s a vindictive jerk and a bully and an asshole. It’s a personality type we all know, if we’ve ever spent anytime around filthy rich kids from Connecticut or New Jersey. Just the bottom of the barrel for meanness and sense of entitlement and lack of seriousness. Were you talking about policy? Did he mean well when he committed the world to violence because Saddam “tried to kill my Daddy”?
Please. Not a lot of liberals will grant that he meant well.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged…condemn not, and you will not be condemned…”
Sorry, Boo…he really did mean well. So does the President of Iran (at this late hour, I cannot spell his name, starts with an “A”), and so does The True Satan (if I had to guess…certainly the most hated amongst our observers…)Sarah Palin!
Can you at least admit this…Saddam Husein was One Evil Motherfuckerer! Give me this…Saddam was worse than W. Please!
Yes. Saddam Hussein was worse than Bush and worse than Cheney. Satisfied?
You might as well defend Nixon because Mao was worse. So what?
Don’t think ppl around here hate Sarah Palin – she’s a pathetic grifter.
IF he meant well (and he didn’t) the road to hell is still paved with good intentions. Ask the friends and family of the 100,000 Iraqi civilians who are now dead because of his illegal, immoral war about his “intentions.” This is just one example of the consequences of his rule.
I was talking about it in the sense that from Dubya’s foolish, incurious, dry-drunk, selfish perspective, he believes that his policies were good for the country and the world. I think he believed and still believes that invading Iraq, along with the other major policies of his administration, were the on balance the right things to do. I think he sees himself as a good guy who worked hard and accomplished lots of awesome things that history will judge as great achievements in 50 or 100 years.
The fact that he isn’t a good guy, that he is in actuality a vindictive jerk and a bully and an asshole and an utter fool, and that his policies wreaked enormous evil in the world, isn’t what I was driving at. But from his private, inner world, the one that no other human being can ever see or know, my guess is that, yes, he “meant well.”
As for other liberals, though, perhaps I spoke erroneously and am in the very slim minority in thinking that, in which case my bad.
Lodus…thank you. In Reality, all we really have is our “private, inner world”.
Private Inner World…
Progressives…don’t be ashamed of W…I love FDR…even though he bucked things up and prolonged the Depression, I know in my heart that he meant well!
Well, just to clarify, as an American I am profoundly ashamed of W, and I believe he’ll be remembered as one of the great monsters of American history.
ppl differ with respect to how realistically they are able to view themselves. some hold a delusional self concept. maybe that is to be pitied. an adult, however, takes responsibility for the consequences of their actions. a person whose ego is too fragile to do so, who persists in self delusion, perhaps is to be pitied as a person, but not relieved of culpability for their actions.
You put that very well.
thanks
Thanks is not deserved. I meant nothing positive about W. in my comment. Can’t help you here.
I’m hoping that Hagel is preparing for his future job: Department of Defense. Oh god, please let Chuck Hagel be the next DoD.
Is this snark?
No. Why would you oppose Hagel for DoD? He’s on the shortlist when Gates departs.
Another person on the shortlist who I would support is Jack Reed…but I’m not sure I want him out of the Senate.
It seems pretty clear to me that the Republican strategy is to turn the federal government into the state of California.
They can do it and they will if they win enough seats.
The Republicans are beyond merely crazy. They have gone full on anarchist. Only they don’t burn trash barrels at G8 meetings, they shut down the government.
How does the public react when that happens? I mean what’s next? Another election is 2 years after they jam up everything and as we’ve seen in CA (and in the US) elections solve nothing.