Topic: GOP Will Eat Itself (Read 64295 times)

Arc · « **Reply #200 on:** February 15, 2009, 09:08:00 AM »

Quote from: Thad on February 14, 2009, 10:55:40 PM

Frank Rich op-ed

Goldmine.

The piece expresses numerous thoughts of my own, all but ignored by the oddball talking heads on the boobtube. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the article to forward on to your crazed aunt who sends you Obama Mooslim chain mails and the like. Hitting upon a gauntlet of subjects, Rich leaves no prisoners, past, present, nor future.

The most important point?

Quote from: NYT

Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.

There's a reason why Rahm Emanuel is crowing to the Wall Street Journal. The first paragraph is the giveaway:

Quote from: WSJ

Emanuel conceded that the White House "lost" four days of the clash, but said it was because Obama focused too much on bipartisanship at the expense of talking up the benefits of the still-emerging proposal.

Thank you for unanimously opposing popular legislation!

No traps here, no siree.

Quote from: Thad on February 14, 2009, 11:28:25 PM

Clinton's 1993 budget passed the House without any Republican votes,

219-213 in the House, and Gore had to break the tie in the Senate, eight months into the Clinton presidency. His failed sixteen billion dollar stimulus, from the April before, was due to a similar Republican glut. That Obama passed his stimulus twice as fast, and nearly fifty times as large, only further emboldens the words of Axelrod in the Rich piece, and David Plouffe's off - the - record comments:

Quote from: HuffPo

"What we were focused on... was really not what was coming out of the coverage every day, and our candidate was very good about it. ... The McCain campaign was much more focused on putting ads out to dominate cable chatter for a few hours. ... That was never what we thought was important."

"You put out a snarky TV ad or something controversial, that's all NBC, CNN and Fox are talking about, but that's not how you win elections. I think that discipline paid off."

The audience for these 24/7 news stations are only so large, and only so persuasive. When a populace is facing (non-ignorable) difficulties day after day, the effectiveness of doublethink deteriorates exponentially.

Thad · « **Reply #201 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:03:13 AM »

Quote from: Arc on February 15, 2009, 09:08:00 AM

The most important point?

Quote from: NYT
Having checked the box on attempted bipartisanship, Obama can now move in for the kill.

There's a reason why Rahm Emanuel is crowing to the Wall Street Journal. The first paragraph is the giveaway:

Quote from: WSJ
Emanuel conceded that the White House "lost" four days of the clash, but said it was because Obama focused too much on bipartisanship at the expense of talking up the benefits of the still-emerging proposal.

Thank you for unanimously opposing popular legislation!
No traps here, no siree.

And any Republican whining about a lack of bipartisanship is going to look awfully silly, at least to people who have attention spans and trouble maintaining cognitive dissonance.

OTOH, they've still got filibuster power, and if Reid's going to successfully make them look like petty obstructionists he's going to have to show the balls to make them ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER.

Arc · « **Reply #202 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:18:11 AM »

Oh, the Republicans were squawking on about being cut out of the process just last week. This is despite the Democratic leadership claiming that Obama met with them more in the past two weeks than Bush ever met with Democrats during his entire reign. Republicans aren't losing sleep over looking silly, because of their flawed assumption that the media can make up people's minds for them.

Romosome · « **Reply #203 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:20:57 AM »

Did anyone post the thing with Pete Sessions saying the Republicans should be more like the Taliban? I kind of assumed it'd already be old news by now.

Arc · « **Reply #204 on:** February 15, 2009, 11:32:54 AM »

Which ties in nicely with our current topic, since it was in 'response' to the 'lack of bipartisan outreach'.

Quote from: National Journal

"Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban," Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. "And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- I'm not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that's not what we're saying. I'm saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with."

Who would want to act in a bipartisan fashion after reading that?

Well, we must work to change the fundamental gridlock in Washington.

... One slit throat at a time.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #205 on:** February 15, 2009, 10:01:05 PM »

These goons are conservatism's last hope in America. That's the part I hate most about it.

Thad · « **Reply #206 on:** February 15, 2009, 10:02:21 PM »

I think clinging to the notion that there's any vestige of traditional conservatism in the modern Republican Party is just delusional at this point.

Detonator · « **Reply #207 on:** February 15, 2009, 10:07:01 PM »

Go libertarian, Bill. They have more respect at this point.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #208 on:** February 16, 2009, 12:25:50 AM »

The libertarians are unrealistic. What use is it to be closer to the right idea if they're not able to do anything with it? Compromise is necessary. I'll vote for a libertarian when a sane one runs in my district.

Here's something about Jeb Bush. Submitted without comment.

Kashan · « **Reply #209 on:** February 16, 2009, 05:28:20 AM »

Quote from: Bongo Bill on February 16, 2009, 12:25:50 AM

The libertarians are unrealistic. What use is it to be closer to the right idea if they're not able to do anything with it? Compromise is necessary. I'll vote for a libertarian when a sane one runs in my district.

Here's something about Jeb Bush. Submitted without comment.

I think part of the reason libertarian candidates are so crazy is because they have to be. Running a campaign when you know you can't win isn't something reasonable people do. Especially when you consider that libertarianism isn't the most idealistic view. If the neocon elements of the Republican party continue to practice a politics that marginalizes their party, then you'll see legitimate libertarian candidates show up, either from within the party or outside of it.

Man, the Wall Street Journal really wants Jeb Bush to run for office.

Jeb talks a good game in the piece, and if Republicans are really going to make a play to be a national party again then the ideal of limited government is what they're going to have to built it on. People aren't going to want limited government for at least the next 6 years, but after that a candidate that could be legitimately believed when he talked about limited government, fiscal conservitivism, and reform might be able to play on a national stage. There is the wonderful line in there about how "there are times in history when it's important to use the power of government.", and that legitimizes his brother's spending as president. Well that line is what gave us 90% of our national debt, and it wears thin pretty quick. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a line Jeb used to not call his brother a terrible president that destroyed the GOP brand.

Mongrel · « **Reply #210 on:** February 16, 2009, 06:30:52 AM »

Jeb Bush is trapped in a hell of a Catch-22.

If he's a smart enough man to be a worthwhile leader, he's smart enough to know that as a Bush he'll be (figuratively) dead before the first ballot.

If he's too dumb to see the baggage as insurmountable and thinks he can run, well...

I'm not sure that he will though. He needed to grab that senate seat to make the jump in a reasonable amount of time.

Thad · « **Reply #211 on:** February 16, 2009, 10:49:14 AM »

People are going to have a hell of a time listening to anyone named "Bush" tell them about limiting government and fixing the economy for a good long while.

Classic · « **Reply #212 on:** February 16, 2009, 12:06:25 PM »

There Thad goes overestimating the memory of the average voter again.

Thad · « **Reply #213 on:** February 16, 2009, 12:41:58 PM »

I think the public will be a lot quicker to forgive the Republicans as an abstract than to forgive the Bushes specifically.

That said, Jeb's still plenty popular in Florida, and I think it'd be easy for him to get a Senate seat of he wanted one.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #214 on:** February 17, 2009, 03:02:47 AM »

I think that lowest-common-denominator-style people believe that brothers, even politician brothers of other unpopular politicians, can have different opinions and qualifications. However, as soon as somebody attempts to convince them otherwise, they will believe it's not true in this particular case. It's the sort of proposition that it's very easy to convince average voters of.

TA · « **Reply #215 on:** February 19, 2009, 03:14:14 PM »

The name's Poochie D
And I rock the telly,
I'm half Joe Camel
And a third Fonzarelli.
I'm the kung fu hippie
From gangsta city,
I'm a rappin' surfer,
You the fool I pity.

Mongrel · « **Reply #216 on:** February 19, 2009, 04:38:13 PM »

Hey, it never hurts to forget just how conservative uneducated retards of any stripe can be.

Kazz · « **Reply #217 on:** February 19, 2009, 09:40:23 PM »

don't link the moonies here

they'll moon us

Doom · « **Reply #218 on:** February 19, 2009, 10:34:57 PM »

Quote from: TA on February 19, 2009, 03:14:14 PM

The name's Poochie D
And I rock the telly,
I'm half Joe Camel
And a third Fonzarelli.
I'm the kung fu hippie
From gangsta city,
I'm a rappin' surfer,
You the fool I pity.

"Barrack Obama appeals to young people with his blackness!"

THIS IS WHAT REPUBLICANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #219 on:** February 20, 2009, 09:07:49 AM »

I think you've been reading too much Conservapedia, Doom.

News:

Author Topic: GOP Will Eat Itself (Read 64295 times)