I Got Your Panic, Right Here

Posted by BooMan | Jan 24, 2012 | 47 |

This is choice:

“The only spectacle in American politics more off-putting than Newt Gingrich in self-righteous defense mode is Mitt Romney in self-righteous attack mode.” – William Kristol, January 23rd, 2012

Also, too.

About The Author

BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.

47 Comments

BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 2:23 pm

And, additionally.

Heh.
- joe from Lowell on January 24, 2012 at 4:03 pm
  
  I think we understood that when they hit with the Tiffany’s bill story, and then put “right-wing social engineering” behind his ear.
Bazooka Joe on January 24, 2012 at 2:24 pm

I don’t know who this Bret Stephens is, but that’s how you write an antagonistic op-ed. He’s just throwing firebombs at everybody.
- Lodus on January 24, 2012 at 2:26 pm
  
  Loved this part:
  
  “As for the current GOP field, it’s like confronting a terminal diagnosis. There may be an apparent range of treatments: conventional (Romney), experimental (Gingrich), homeopathic (Paul) or prayerful (Santorum). But none will avail you in the end. Just try to exit laughing.”
  - Phil Perspective on January 24, 2012 at 4:53 pm
    
    What did they expect? These are the candidates that weren’t afraid of a, for them, very winnable race.
- Phil Perspective on January 24, 2012 at 4:49 pm
  
  Bret Stephens is the long-time WSJ editorial page editor. Basically, he’s the WSJ equivalent to Fred Hiatt.
mainsailset on January 24, 2012 at 2:28 pm

Never before or again in our lifetimes will there be a better opportunity to hold onto the WH and churn out a solid win for Congress and Senate.

Then comes all the hard work. If the DNC isn’t working overtime on this opportunity and we don’t back ’em then who’s more the idiots?
- justadood on January 24, 2012 at 4:51 pm
  
  I know better than to underestimate the Democratic Party’s ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of Victory.
  
  Republicans will kill themselves by embracing their lunatic fringe.
  
  Dems will kill themselves because they just can’t help but to shoot off their own feet
ejmw on January 24, 2012 at 2:32 pm

Speaking of off-putting spectacles in American politics, I saw this via Facebook yesterday…I don’t think I am exaggerating by saying this is the creepiest thing I have seen in months if not years.
- BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 2:48 pm
  
  which one is Newt?
  - ejmw on January 24, 2012 at 4:04 pm
    
    The more frightening one.
  - justadood on January 24, 2012 at 4:51 pm
    
    on the right…the one looking like they’d like to rip out your throat….
- Lodus on January 24, 2012 at 2:56 pm
  
  That is seriously f’ed up.
  - ejmw on January 24, 2012 at 4:05 pm
    
    I know. I can barely stand to look at it.
    - joe from Lowell on January 24, 2012 at 4:06 pm
      
      For real.
      
      I scroll back to it, and find myself reflexively looking away with a wince.
      - ejmw on January 24, 2012 at 4:12 pm
        
        Whoever crafted that image probably died of terror after the final ‘click’ in photoshop, leaving it to his or her roommate to post it to the internet for posterity.
      - BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 5:09 pm
        
        So much winning.
  - Brendan Skwire on January 24, 2012 at 5:27 pm
    
    imagine them making love.
    
    Now let us sport us while we may,
    And now, like amorous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour
    Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
    Let us roll all our strength and all
    Our sweetness up into one ball,
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife
    
    you can smell the carrion, and hear the cries of the jackdaws.
- RT on January 24, 2012 at 3:08 pm
  
  The quote that comes to mind is, “Why so serious?”
- joe from Lowell on January 24, 2012 at 4:04 pm
  
  It’s like the Hyman Rothstein character from Boardwalk Empire met the Joker.
- boran2 on January 24, 2012 at 4:17 pm
  
  They both gotta stop having Starbucks.
pillsy on January 24, 2012 at 2:32 pm

Wait, William Kristol was right about something?

Things may never be the same!
Cecilia on January 24, 2012 at 2:36 pm

I don’t even recognize the Obama that Bret Stephens describes.
- Arthur Gilroy on January 24, 2012 at 3:31 pm
  
  You don’t?
  
  It’s this one.
  
  Barack Obama described in 1996 by Dr. Adolph Reed Jr. as “a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics.”
  
  Obama to a “T”. Bet on it.
  
  Nuthin’ new…Dr. Reed pinned it 16 years ago.
  
  Where’ve you been? In Progressive NeverNeverLand, that’s where.
  
  Wake the fuck up.
  
  The National Defense Authorization Act is the most dangerous piece of neofascist legislation ever to be passed in the U.S.
  
  Read it and weep.
  
  The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains provisions that would rip holes in the Constitution, passed the Senate last week on a 93-7 vote. An equally awful though somewhat different version of the bill passed the House of Representatives several months ago. Unless the end product is radically improved during conference committee negotiations–an unlikely outcome–some alarming mix of House and Senate NDAA provisions will reach President Obama’s desk very soon.
  
  It is hard to overstate how bad this legislation is. It would essentially make Guantanamo permanent, and enshrine the Guantanamo approach to fighting terrorism as the country’s default counterterrorism policy. Detention without trial would become a normal feature of US law, and the military would become the presumptive detaining and prosecuting authority in entire categories of cases. The bill’s broad powers would even threaten American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.
  
  These provisions wouldn’t just take the country back to the War on Terror framework, they would, in many ways, expand it beyond its earlier boundaries. During the Bush Administration, even as Guantanamo attracted public scrutiny, hundreds of terrorism suspects were prosecuted in the US federal courts. Defendants like Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are now serving life sentences after court proceedings governed by the same rules as other criminal cases.
  
  This brings me to another important point. As any review of the record will show, it is not just human rights and civil liberties that the bill shreds. From the standpoint of effectiveness, the law is a disaster. It takes responsibility for bringing terrorists to justice away from the federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities that have the necessary expertise in investigating and prosecuting terrorism, gravely handicapping future counterterrorism efforts.
  
  Obama faked left and then went right on this play.
  
  Bet on that as well.
  
  Back in May, when the House was debating its version of the bill, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy that threatened a veto. Using strong and principled language, the White House objected to provisions of the bill that threatened to establish a never-ending War on Terror, and that foreclosed Obama’s stated plans to shut down Guantanamo.
  
  Although President Obama’s record on human rights and national security issues has not been terribly consistent, there have been recent encouraging signals that he is planning to follow through on his veto promise. Last week, just after the Senate approved the NDAA package, a National Security Council spokesman issued a statement that renewed the president’s threat of a veto.
  
  If ever there was a moment when presidential leadership was needed, this is it. Not only is a veto necessary to stop a damaging bill from becoming a pernicious law, it is needed to change the larger political dynamic.
  
  The president needs to seize the initiative on these issues, instead of leaving them to the political hacks and conservative ideologues in Congress. It is the current policy stagnation–marked by Obama’s failure to challenge the Guantanamo status quo of detention without trial–that leaves the door wide open to bills such as these.
  
  What did he do? He signed the damned bill and then said that he would never use the offending provisions.
  
  Weak?
  
  Stupid?
  
  Conniving?
  
  One or two of the three, for sure.
  
  #1-He’s a liar.
  
  #2-If he isn’t a liar. does he speak for succeeding presidents? Of course not.
  
  #3-Wake the fuck up.
  
  You been had.
  
  By a “smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics.”
  
  Bet on that as well.
  
  Station WTFU signing off.
  
  Again.
  
  Later…
  
  AG
  - Brendan Skwire on January 24, 2012 at 5:37 pm
    
    while this is true -booman calls the NDAA provisions “zombie lies”, but if the powers described don’t exist,. why did O promise not to use them- the other side of this very sad coin is that McCain/Palin would have been worse. Further, Romney, Gingrich, and the rest of the clown show would be worse. Finally, Ron Paul would be entirely unable to turn any of this back because he’d still have to get it through the reactionaries and cowards in the House and Senate.
    - BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 5:46 pm
      
      I didn’t say that every criticism of the bill is a lie. I was very specific about what I was talking about.
      
      The Zombie Lie is that the bill puts all kinds of protesters at risk of being labeled terrorists and then indefinitely detained. The risk of that is basically zero.
      
      As for using this as an excuse to bash the president, that’s fine I guess, but last I checked 93 votes are more than needed to override a veto.
      
      The bill was written by Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan. Maybe we could start off by blaming his sorry ass.
      - Brendan Skwire on January 24, 2012 at 6:07 pm
        
        i have no love for that bald-headed motherfucker Levin either, believe me. Or anyone that supported this bill, including the shit-heel Boob Casey.
        
        I’m sorry, I don’t agree with your reading of the bill. Obama got what he wanted.
      - BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 6:29 pm
        
        Did I say he should veto it?
        Did I say that the bill was terrible?
        
        Yes and yes.
        
        But it doesn’t establish gulags. If you think it does, then you’re reading too much Greenwald.
      - Brendan Skwire on January 24, 2012 at 6:52 pm
        
        time will tell, that’s all I have to say.
        
        However, I’m concerned by your comment above that you think I’m suggested you supported the bill. I’m not: I know you disagreed with it and said that it’s a bad bill.
        
        But I got my reading from my former editor, who is nothing like Greenwald. This was a guy who regularly toned down my columns for the Weekly (too much, IMO). He spoke to constitutional scholars and professors, did his due diligence.
        
        You can call it zombie lies, paranoia, whatever: I don’t trust our elites, D or R, on anything anymore. Why should I, considering the hash they have made of everything?
      - Brendan Skwire on January 24, 2012 at 8:21 pm
        
        by the way, I want to clarify: my “zombie lies” comment refers only to the language we talked about in that email. I wasn’t trying to make it sound like you were a cheerleader for the bill.
        
        Just making that clear, even if we disagree.
      - Arthur Gilroy on January 25, 2012 at 12:45 am
        
        Did I say he should veto it?
        
        Did I say that the bill was terrible?
        
        Yes and yes.
        
        Did he pass it?
        
        Is it terribly dangerous?
        
        Yes and yes..
        
        How can you possibly continue to support this two-faced hustler when Ron Paul is still some sort of viable candidate?
        
        Ohhhh…he’s unelectable!!!
        
        Multiply this by millions of truly concerned but media-fried citizens and you have the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy upon which the PermaGov is based!!!
        
        Lissen up, B. O. Don’t worry about Ron Paul. We’ve taken care of him already. He’s unelectable!!!
        
        HAH hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!!!
        
        The laugh’s on you.
        
        In the media-controlled dungeon.
        
        Bet on it.
        
        Before they come for you!!!
        
        First They came… – Pastor Martin Niemoller
        
        First they came for the communists,
        and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
        
        Then they came for the trade unionists,
        and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
        
        Then they came for the Jews,
        and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
        
        Then they came for me
        and there was no one left to speak out for me.
        
        Watch.
        
        Four more years?
        
        Eight more years?
        
        Eventually…they will be coming.
        
        For us!!!
        
        Bet on it.
        
        AG
      - seabe on January 25, 2012 at 7:55 am
        
        This is loltastic. Why do you think the government needs a law like this to do what you think they’re gonna do? If they want to do it, they’ll do w/e the hell they want — law or not.
      - Arthur Gilroy on January 25, 2012 at 12:37 pm
        
        I have often thought about this, seabe. The only conclusion that I can reach is that in order to keep the populace in a state of control by the media, PermaGov needs to be able to claim “lawfulness” in its behavior. Once it’s “law” it’s OK.
        
        “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah” go the talking heads.
        
        Resultant?
        
        “ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” go the sleepy heads.
        
        And so it goes.
        
        It makes little difference what the “laws” say as long as they do not cross certain lines. It’s OK to murder the bad guys but not the good guys and so on. Then it’s simply up to the media to define the words “good” and “bad.” If they have previously defined as “good”. someone who then displeases the PermaGov’s real powers-that-be (Say JFK for instance.) and there isn’t any time to redefine him…which can take months…then there are other actions that they must take. Risky ones. Better to just put laws on the books that are cloudy in their intent and possible interpretation so the definition process is easier.
        
        “This one used to be good but now he’s said/done something that makes him bad.”
        
        “OFF with his head!!!”
        
        “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice.
        
        Me too.
        
        Yup.
        
        Curiouser and curiouser.
        
        Bet on it.
        
        AG
      - joe from Lowell on January 25, 2012 at 12:38 pm
        
        You’re absolutely right.
        
        In point of fact, there was no bill authorizing indefinite military detention when (under Bush) people were being put into indefinite military detention. He just cited inherent executive power.
        
        While, now that there is a bill, nobody is being put into military detention.
        
        Which makes it tough to agree with the argument that the language in the bill is the threat. No, having a President who supports putting people into military detention in the threat. The solution is to have a President, like Barack Obama, who does not.
- Arthur Gilroy on January 24, 2012 at 5:30 pm
  
  You don’t?
  
  It’s this one.
  
  Barack Obama described in 1996 by Dr. Adolph Reed Jr. as “a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics.”
  
  Obama to a “T”. Bet on it.
  
  Nuthin’ new…Dr. Reed pinned it 16 years ago.
  
  Where’ve you been? In Progressive NeverNeverLand, that’s where.
  
  Wake the fuck up.
  
  The National Defense Authorization Act is the most dangerous piece of neofascist legislation ever to be passed in the U.S.
  
  Read it and weep.
  
  The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contains provisions that would rip holes in the Constitution, passed the Senate last week on a 93-7 vote. An equally awful though somewhat different version of the bill passed the House of Representatives several months ago. Unless the end product is radically improved during conference committee negotiations–an unlikely outcome–some alarming mix of House and Senate NDAA provisions will reach President Obama’s desk very soon.
  
  It is hard to overstate how bad this legislation is. It would essentially make Guantanamo permanent, and enshrine the Guantanamo approach to fighting terrorism as the country’s default counterterrorism policy. Detention without trial would become a normal feature of US law, and the military would become the presumptive detaining and prosecuting authority in entire categories of cases. The bill’s broad powers would even threaten American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.
  
  These provisions wouldn’t just take the country back to the War on Terror framework, they would, in many ways, expand it beyond its earlier boundaries. During the Bush Administration, even as Guantanamo attracted public scrutiny, hundreds of terrorism suspects were prosecuted in the US federal courts. Defendants like Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are now serving life sentences after court proceedings governed by the same rules as other criminal cases.
  
  This brings me to another important point. As any review of the record will show, it is not just human rights and civil liberties that the bill shreds. From the standpoint of effectiveness, the law is a disaster. It takes responsibility for bringing terrorists to justice away from the federal, state, and local law enforcement authorities that have the necessary expertise in investigating and prosecuting terrorism, gravely handicapping future counterterrorism efforts.
  
  Obama faked left and then went right on this play.
  
  Bet on that as well.
  
  Back in May, when the House was debating its version of the bill, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy that threatened a veto. Using strong and principled language, the White House objected to provisions of the bill that threatened to establish a never-ending War on Terror, and that foreclosed Obama’s stated plans to shut down Guantanamo.
  
  Although President Obama’s record on human rights and national security issues has not been terribly consistent, there have been recent encouraging signals that he is planning to follow through on his veto promise. Last week, just after the Senate approved the NDAA package, a National Security Council spokesman issued a statement that renewed the president’s threat of a veto.
  
  If ever there was a moment when presidential leadership was needed, this is it. Not only is a veto necessary to stop a damaging bill from becoming a pernicious law, it is needed to change the larger political dynamic.
  
  The president needs to seize the initiative on these issues, instead of leaving them to the political hacks and conservative ideologues in Congress. It is the current policy stagnation–marked by Obama’s failure to challenge the Guantanamo status quo of detention without trial–that leaves the door wide open to bills such as these.
  
  What did he do? He signed the damned bill and then said that he would never use the offending provisions.
  
  Weak?
  
  Stupid?
  
  Conniving?
  
  One or two of the three, for sure.
  
  #1-He’s a liar.
  
  #2-If he isn’t a liar. does he speak for succeeding presidents? Of course not.
  
  #3-Wake the fuck up.
  
  You been had.
  
  By a “smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics.”
  
  Bet on that as well.
  
  Station WTFU signing off.
  
  Again.
  
  Later…
  
  AG
Richard Bachman on January 24, 2012 at 3:16 pm

“The problem is that voters also know that Gaius Gingrich is liable to deliver his prime-time speeches in purple toga while holding tight to darling Messalina’s–sorry, Callista’s–bejeweled fingers. A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a Republican in the White House.”

OUCH!!!! Take that, GOP primary voters!
seabe on January 24, 2012 at 4:06 pm

Have you been briefed on the SOTU yet? Anything for us?
- BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 5:05 pm
  
  The WH has been uncharacteristically tight-lipped on the SOTU speech. I’ll probably get an advance “embargoed” copy a couple of hours before the speech, which means I can read it but I can’t quote it. Or, it might come only a few minutes before. I forget the timing from last year.
  - Lodus on January 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm
    
    What’s the point of getting it a few minutes beforehand?
    - BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 5:50 pm
      
      It gives me a chance to read it and start writing about it so I can have a piece up by the end of the speech. That helps me get readers, because people look for reactions as soon as it is over.
      
      It’s just a favor the White House confers on most left-wing bloggers. They do it for most speeches.
      - Lodus on January 24, 2012 at 6:08 pm
        
        Ah. Well, good on them.
  - seabe on January 24, 2012 at 5:58 pm
    
    Yeah, Andrew Sullivan said he’s been contacted, posted, and read it — though said nothing that was in its contents other than, “get your caffeine ready” — and he was apparently chastised by someone in the uppers for saying he’d even been contacted. Wonder why they’re being so tight on this.
    - BooMan on January 24, 2012 at 6:26 pm
      
      well, he can’t say he wasn’t warned.
boran2 on January 24, 2012 at 4:16 pm

No doubt that Bret Stephens has an easy explanation as to why Obama’s positives are up, it just doesn’t happen to be accounted for in his rant.
Blixt141 on January 24, 2012 at 4:36 pm

There is so much wrong with the linked WSJ editorial. It seems sad that a formerly respectable, if conservative leaning, business newspaper has devolved into the USA’s 1%er NOTW.

Basically the piece is so filled with false assumptions and wingnut diatribe that it gets everything wrong except that the Republicans deserve to lose. The economic assumptions ignore that Congress has blocked everything he has tried to do the resuscitate the economy and create jobs. The idea that people loath Obama AND BLAME HIM FOR THE ECONOMIC MESS is just not born out by opinion polls.

WSJ seems to lack the self awareness that enough Americans think that the alternatives offered to Pres. Obama are so terrifying that Obama may well get a landslide like Johnson (go Newt!).
- Phil Perspective on January 24, 2012 at 4:52 pm
  
  The news pages were once respectable. The op-ed page never was. The op-ed pages have always been a RWNJ cesspool. Even before Rupert.
  - priscianus jr on January 24, 2012 at 6:20 pm
    
    Go Newt!
    KMA, WSJ.

I Got Your Panic, Right Here

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