Let's get aggregatey! Here are three things I think you should read, because they are excellent and they happen to track closely to my own personal opinions, which always elevates a piece of work in my mind. I know it's a nice summer day (at least here in New York), so maybe you don't want to read a bunch of stuff on politics and the tenor of our current debate. Too bad! I insist that you take a look at what follows.
- Republican economist Bruce Bartlett on misplaced conservative rage: "In my opinion, conservative activists, who seem to believe that the louder they shout the more correct their beliefs must be, are less angry about Obama's policies than they are about having lost the White House in 2008. They are primarily Republican Party hacks trying to overturn the election results, not representatives of a true grassroots revolt against liberal policies."
- James Fallows on the mendacity of Betsey McCaughey: "Beyond the facts, anyone who has had first-hand experience with modern end-of-life issues knows this is not something to demagogue. The combination of what is eternal, namely man's mortality, and what is new, namely the frontiers of high-tech medicine, converts what has always been a painful, fraught, and central aspect of human existence into something with even more painful dilemmas and choices than in previous days. Seriously: I do not think that any decent person who has seen this process, up close, can imagine preaching to anyone else about the choices and consequences. It's just too complicated and painful." (RELATED: Remember that time when Betsey was Lt. Governor and she spent the entirety of a Pataki State of the State speech on her feet? Wasn't that great?)
- John Cook on angry, gun-toting protesters: "These death threats aren't threats-they're challenges. They're attempts to inject into the public debate the sense that violence is a legitimate response to political defeat. As someone in the blogosphere whom we can't presently recall wrote yesterday, the appropriate response to a president who advocates rounding up the elderly and sending them before death panels is-if it seems like he's on the cusp of achieving that goal-to kill or rebel against him. And each publicized call for Obama's death adds to the public perception that we've reached a decision-point about whether it's time for killing. Every sign-even if the bearer is merely an angry loon who could never get close to Obama-is an inducement to someone who is willing to try. It's a message to fellow travelers, a signal that they are not alone in their rage, a promise of glory to come if they actually manage to get the job done."
Did you click through on each of those? Good! I'll start looking for a bear video now as a way of saying thank you.
You know what I don't get? I look back on the Clinton administration, 8 years of relative peace and definite prosperity. And then I look at the Bush administration. And I can't figure out what all these Angry Republicans are angry about.
Blowjobs and black people. Like always.
They're angry because the economy is in tatters. Things were good in the 90's so conservatives could focus on relatively meaningless things like Clinton's sexing. Whether the seeds of this mess took root during the Reagan, Clinton, or Bush years, is largely irrlevant. Obama is feeling the heat for it. The health care fight has become the lightning rod for all of these feelings.
I suppose you could also argue that the internet has given voice to some of these people that would have been extremely localized fifteen years ago.
I don't they've figured it out yet either. They're sure as hell looking for something though!
Cook's bit is great but I have to disagree a little bit. Having recently been in the thick of a lot of them it's really almost all bluster, a great big game much like the NFL where fans scream "murder the bum!" or "God, I wish somebody would dive into To Brady's knee (again)." Our politics has become entertainment for us, and this is just an extension of it.
There is probably some small chance somebody will be egged into doing "something." But how could we even be sure. Look at MCveigh. Look at the Pittsburgh shooter. The vir tech one? Some people are just going to "do something" no matter what.
And if it does happen, we should all be to blame as the "Kill Obama" sign holders are one in a million and yet they get all the media time (from both sides). The "water the tree of liberty" guy with the gun? A pussy who certainly probably doesn't even make the connection of that phrase and having a gun as a threat of any kind because he is not that intuitive. But he gets 9 minutes on national TV. And why did he want to get on TV? Cok says it's to propagate his message of hate and that " it's time to shed the blood of our leaders." I say he wanted to get on TV for the same reason Povich guests and people standing behind Matt Lauer want to get on TV. Because it's fucking T V. And, again, who let him on TV anyway?
Outrage that the right is just letting this go on is valid. Meeting the outrage with... outrage, seems at best unproductive. I would be shocked to see anyone actually take action. They want to complain and they are much more shallowly attached to this issue (healthcare) than the media is making it seem. Just as they were with the French outrage just a few years ago. It's a construct. Now, the second amendment... THAT could be a real issue for them.
This is about platform. This fucking machine I'm typing into has given us all an enormous voice from which to belch the views of (as was said of Ms. McCaughey) "self-appointed experts." Hell, I trade in that myself, day in and out.
So many outlets for outrage, so many phonecams and blogfingers and Ireporters ready to record any hiccup in civility or sanity--lots, eh?--it's a matter of quantity, methinks, not quality, and as is pointed out, Watching the Nabobs, whatever their slant, is now our national pastime.
America, You've Got Talent.
I highly recommend the Fallows, especially the last paragraph, and these two sentences:
"...I said two weeks ago that I thought today's communications systems had caught up with people who invented facts. I was wrong."
Ugh. I know we're not supposed to talk about how ladies involved in "serious stuff", but McCaughey really looks a bit Faces of Meth these days. Not that it has anything to do with herwell-formed thoughts, or whatever the right word is for that stuff that is being squeezed and popped from her meth ... um, mouth.
'In The Company of Wolves' - she looks like a were-beast from that particular Neil Jordan film.
Everyone please be sure to thank Andrew Sullivan for having made Betsy McCaughey what she is today. Apparently he saw it as the only way to accomplish his personal goal of fucking the entire country.
It's been a while since Choire wrote a good, long, post about how Andrew Sullivan is a fucking slimy pigfuck fuck fuck jal;sdkfjas;ifmmmmfbsa
Sorry. Do you guys take listener requests?
Palin was baiting shooters for Obama back during the campaign. The woman is Charles Manson in a wig.
Why did Bruce Bartlett forget that 9/11 changed everything?
This is actually a great point and raises a huge paradox for these people in terms of taking action: BEFORE 9/11 some of these nuts might be more likely to "try something" (see: Timmy McVeigh). BUT! AFTER 9/11 any "terrorist" activity (even against 'tyranny') will be associated with Muslim extremists (as McVeigh's "domestic terrorism" act has retroactively experienced) making such an act the most unamerican (and Osama bin Laden-y) thing any patriot could think to do.
that's only if they agree with his jingoistic policies.
Abe, I remember when the McVeigh bombing happened and all the news for hours afterwards was about how it was probably Muslim extremists. It changed rapidly thereafter, but immediately, that was the first suspicion.
Yes. I was in a CNN newsroom in Beijing humping the wire (when it actually printed out, how COOL!) and there it was. Shocked me. But 9/11 changed everything on both sides. "Terrorist" or "terrorism" in the nation is now on par with "Nazi." It's an instant evil label. For both sides.
I clicked on the links. I even voted in the Daily News poll on Betsey (which amazingly was 2/1 against her. Now can I go to the movies?
Yes. I hear good things about District 9.
Yeah, they endorsed Bill Thompson this week, right?
Oooh! Missed the poll. Going back.
Unfortunately or (fortunately) people are going to search out any views (objective and subjective)that support their own. This group includes nut-jobs and those who won't or can't take the time to read or listen to or read any opinion but their own. When you have law-makers yelling out in the senate chambers that the president is a liar, it makes it difficult for anyone in the GOP to chastise those who make insidious threats. It reminds me of a parent telling a child to do as I say not as I do.