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Skip ahead to 3:25

LOL at caption at 4:28

Since I high-fived Brooks for his column today, I'm probably obligated to note this brutal takedown of same.

To be fair, I think both have merit: Leonard is right that consumers are responding to incentives in the aggregate, and that if you look at the last two administrations, it's not a tough call as to which was the fiscally irresponsible one. (Let's stipulate that the jury is out on Obama for now.) But I think he's too quick to dismiss the longer-term trends that Brooks notes, as well as the unprecedentedly brazen "where's mine?" ethos that informs pretty much every political actor with an economic interest today.

I'm really going to enjoy us beating Alan Grayson

Random Christie Springsteen article.

I know my boy T Paw is also a huge Springsteen fan.

jerseyhoya wrote:Random Christie Springsteen article.

I know my boy T Paw is also a huge Springsteen fan.

His campaign managers are kind of dumb if they don't think going to a couple of Springsteen concerts is good politics. And, see, now it's in the times, so it will make the news that he's there.

The term is symbolic representation, dumbasses. Read your Pitkin.

This appeared on Newsmax yesterday.

Makes me think Friedman has a point:

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

I keep waiting for someone in the Republican Party to do the right and brave thing: stand up, ideally on Fox News itself, and say, "THIS IS FUCKED." Maybe it's just not going to happen.

dajafi wrote:This appeared on Newsmax yesterday.

Makes me think Friedman has a point:

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

I keep waiting for someone in the Republican Party to do the right and brave thing: stand up, ideally on Fox News itself, and say, "THIS IS $#@!." Maybe it's just not going to happen.

You're absolutely right. This is a very dangerous political environment we're living in right now, more dangerous than most people realize. This moron Congressmen Trent Franks(AZ) publicly called Obama an "enemy of humanity" the other day. With this kind of invective being thrown around, I'm afraid of someone getting hurt or killed. The President should be allright but I can't say I would be shocked if something happens to a Representative or a Senator. All stirred up by guys like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

You and Tom are completely over-reacting.

Frankly, the tone seems a lot tamer than the angry vitriol sent Bush's way over the last few years. I guess the difference is that most left wing nuts are pacifists and/or don't own guns?

Nevermind that I have no idea what would be gained by John McCain or Tim Pawlenty arguing with the 5-10% of Teabaggers. Finally, trying to figure out how to keep a zealot/nut citizen in check is not the way we should manage our time. I mean it'd be one thing if the vitriol got so bad that JH decided he had to resort to violence, it's quite another if rbm-de is "driven" towards violence (he was already there).

I'm sure there were people on the Left during the Bush years that said the same things and that's inexcusable too. My point is that it only takes one nutcase with a gun to do something terrible, even if most of Obama's political opponents don't mean any harm. We're already seeing an increase in politically motivated violence(The Tiller murder, the police shooting in Pittsburgh, the lynching of the census worker in Kentucky). And when politicians who should really know better are throwing crap out there like Rep. Franks did the other day, it just adds fuel to the fire.

jeff2sf wrote:You and Tom are completely over-reacting.

Frankly, the tone seems a lot tamer than the angry vitriol sent Bush's way over the last few years. I guess the difference is that most left wing nuts are pacifists and/or don't own guns?

I disagree, but it's irrelevant anyway. The poisoned discourse is the problem, not the fact that Obama or Bush is the target.

I do think there is a difference--the anti-Bush crowd was never cheered on by broadcasters or elected officials. Find a Kucinich quote that is in any way comparable to what some Republicans in the House and Senate are saying about Obama, such as the one cited above.

As we learn from Burke, and in a different way Hobbes, and as history has repeatedly demonstrated, civil society is a fragile thing. In the right circumstances, it takes very little for it all to come crashing down.

Alan Grayson said on the House floor yesterday that the Republicans' health care plan for sick Americans is for them to "die quickly"

But by all means this is Glenn Beck's fault

jerseyhoya wrote:Alan Grayson said on the House floor yesterday that the Republicans' health care plan for sick Americans is for them to "die quickly"

But by all means this is Glenn Beck's fault

This after a summer of Sarah Palin and other Republicans sirring up a phony outrage about nonexistent "death panels"?

jerseyhoya wrote:Alan Grayson said on the House floor yesterday that the Republicans' health care plan for sick Americans is for them to "die quickly"

But by all means this is Glenn Beck's fault

Did Rep Grayson single an individual out?

The Newsmax article is particularly frightening because it advocates a coup against the lawfully elected government of the United States. I can't recall anyone on the left calling for a military coup against Bush.

Rep. Franks is also demanding that Obama release his birth certificate again. This is the kind of bs that's floating out there right now.

jeff2sf wrote:Frankly, the tone seems a lot tamer than the angry vitriol sent Bush's way over the last few years. I guess the difference is that most left wing nuts are pacifists and/or don't own guns?

jeff, I think your contrarian urge and occasional instinct for lazy sarcasm have gotten the better of your usual sharp eye here. (It's also likely that, as an eastern elite liberal type yourself, you heard more of the anti-Bush stuff, including first-hand, than you're now hearing in the other direction.)

Think about this: in 2005, IIRC, moveon.org had some kind of contest wherein members could send in demos of a TV commercial to air against Bush. One schmuck somewhere included an implied Bush-as-Nazi comparison in his ad... and the entire press corps, as well as the Republican Party and most Democrats, freaked the fuck out. Fast-forward four and a half years, and nobody in the mainstream bats an eye at the Obama-as-Hitler comparisons. And nobody has a problem with the idea of killing Hitler.

Two or three years later, there was some douchey independent film that I believe was a fictionalized assassination-of-Bush story. Again, the Democrats couldn't distance themselves from it fast enough. But now you've got clergy praying for Obama's assassination, protesters with signs reading "We've Come Unarmed--This Time" and an entire media operation dedicated to keeping people terrified and infuriated. Already there's reason to think that this has contributed to actions like the nut in Pittsburgh shooting kids, or the very old guy killing the guard at the Holocaust Museum. Do you really think it's that far-fetched it might happen in some larger way?

jeff2sf wrote:Nevermind that I have no idea what would be gained by John McCain or Tim Pawlenty arguing with the 5-10% of Teabaggers. Finally, trying to figure out how to keep a zealot/nut citizen in check is not the way we should manage our time. I mean it'd be one thing if the vitriol got so bad that JH decided he had to resort to violence, it's quite another if rbm-de is "driven" towards violence (he was already there).

I disagree (except about the jh part; the only remotely imaginable way he'd be a problem if some super-liberal from another Big East school got into high office). Signals sent by the leadership class do matter. Compare McCain at his rallies last year, directly taking on some of the crazier shit from the audience, to Palin stoking the flames. That "the base" reveres Palin, a true and proud know-nothing who couldn't even be bothered to serve out her term, and disdains McCain, a patriot who gave more for this country than I can comprehend, is maybe the most upsetting thing about all this.

jerseyhoya wrote:Alan Grayson said on the House floor yesterday that the Republicans' health care plan for sick Americans is for them to "die quickly"

But by all means this is Glenn Beck's fault

You're really comparing one smart-assed and unserious* quip on the House floor to a full-time operation that might be having the effect, intended or not, to delegitimize an elected president?


*to be fair, much like the Republicans' health care "proposals." When they show the least seriousness about governing again, I'll have more of a problem with Grayson or whoever making obnoxious remarks. Right now, it's "I know you are but what am I?" in both directions, except that the Ds actually have some people trying to make policy.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:You and Tom are completely over-reacting.

Frankly, the tone seems a lot tamer than the angry vitriol sent Bush's way over the last few years. I guess the difference is that most left wing nuts are pacifists and/or don't own guns?

I disagree, but it's irrelevant anyway. The poisoned discourse is the problem, not the fact that Obama or Bush is the target.

I do think there is a difference--the anti-Bush crowd was never cheered on by broadcasters or elected officials. Find a Kucinich quote that is in any way comparable to what some Republicans in the House and Senate are saying about Obama, such as the one cited above.

Did I just imagine Rachel Maddow/Keith Olbermann/Jon Stewart and others routinely criticizing/berating Bush? Oh, they were only saying what was true? I guess that's the difference.

More importantly though, I just don't think you can trace a crazy person who assassinates a politician to what is on the radio every day. A crazy person will find a reason to justify what they're doing, and we certainly didn't blame Jodie Foster for the Reagen thing did we?

jeff2sf wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:You and Tom are completely over-reacting.

Frankly, the tone seems a lot tamer than the angry vitriol sent Bush's way over the last few years. I guess the difference is that most left wing nuts are pacifists and/or don't own guns?

I disagree, but it's irrelevant anyway. The poisoned discourse is the problem, not the fact that Obama or Bush is the target.

I do think there is a difference--the anti-Bush crowd was never cheered on by broadcasters or elected officials. Find a Kucinich quote that is in any way comparable to what some Republicans in the House and Senate are saying about Obama, such as the one cited above.

Did I just imagine Rachel Maddow/Keith Olbermann/Jon Stewart and others routinely criticizing/berating Bush? Oh, they were only saying what was true? I guess that's the difference.

More importantly though, I just don't think you can trace a crazy person who assassinates a politician to what is on the radio every day. A crazy person will find a reason to justify what they're doing, and we certainly didn't blame Jodie Foster for the Reagen thing did we?

Olbermann, Maddow and Stewart have never called for the removal of the President by military force like elements on the right wing are doing now. Or demanded that Bush prove citizenship when it was obvious he was born here.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Alan Grayson said on the House floor yesterday that the Republicans' health care plan for sick Americans is for them to "die quickly"

But by all means this is Glenn Beck's fault

You're really comparing one smart-assed and unserious* quip on the House floor to a full-time operation that might be having the effect, intended or not, to delegitimize an elected president?


*to be fair, much like the Republicans' health care "proposals." When they show the least seriousness about governing again, I'll have more of a problem with Grayson or whoever making obnoxious remarks. Right now, it's "I know you are but what am I?" in both directions, except that the Ds actually have some people trying to make policy.

So when the Republicans say crazy shit it's bad because they're crazy, but when the Democrats say over the top things it's OK because you like them.

The fact that the left treated a sitting president like shit for six years and then starts pissing their pants when the right starts treating a sitting president like shit is something I just can't wrap my head around.

This doesn't seem to be an argument where we're going to get anywhere. We just disagree.