freecounterpoint: Debauchery

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Debauchery

12 comments:

Tecumseh said...: This is depressing. Palau.; 11/03/2010 11:10 PM
Mr roT said...: a trillion here, a trillion there, and the democracy is nowhere.; 11/03/2010 11:11 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: This election has left me depressed beyond belief. Not because the Dems didn't get a substantial block thrown up on their path to our perdition [they did], but because too many of the Repubs who are to "man" those blocks give no confidence they have the cojones for the job. Obamakles breaks through this.........; 11/03/2010 11:50 PM
Tecumseh said...: AA: Cojones are good to have, but brains are more of what's in short supply. Methinks.

Eg, do you think either O'Donnell or Angle lost because of a lack of cojones? I'd like to think that anyone even half as good as Rubio coulda defeated Reid.; 11/04/2010 1:24 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Angle and O'Donnell had the cojones, but you needed a Republican party to back them up that also had cojones. Why exactly did Murkowski get more support from top DC types than Angle or O'Donnell????

In Nevada you had a number of locally important Repub establishmentarians whose "brains" told them to support Reid over Angle. Now exactly why those brains spoke to them as they did, whether out of brilliant and subtle analysis which saw the greater good for the nation in the triumph of Obamakleans over Tea Partiers, or whether out of crass calculation that when they asked for "Ubi Mea" Ol Reid would have more to offer, or out of their brains being connected to those puny powerless cojones, I don't begin to claim to know. But support Reid over Angle they did.
In Delaware the immediate, and I mean immediate, reaction of the Rovistas --upon hearing Castle had lost to O'Donnell-- was to declare their hostility to her. If it is "brainy" to sabotage your elected candidate from the get go, I'd ask you to ponder, Tecumseh, to what aim is that "braininess" directed?

[And, no, Christie was not in the Rove/McConnell camp. Yes, he supported Castle over O'Donnell in the primaries. But once Castle lost the primary, Christie was all for the Republican. Namely, that Witch O'Donnell].

In Florida the establishmentarians were aghast over Crist losing to Rubio, and initially in large numbers declared their unhappiness over the result. I have to believe that Crist's confidence in going independent for the election had much to do with the not so subtle signals "Voorhees VII" was sending his way as to just how much one should respect a primary if the result is distasteful to the "establishment"]

And, just in case you wish to label Florida a "local anomaly", and not evidence of a general pattern of hostility to the Tea Party types overriding the desire to curtail Obamanism, there is the piece de resistance, that magnificent Murkowskian Half-Baked Alaska they conjured up. There it was more open, and more shameless, precisely because they put so much weight on stopping Sarah Palin ASAP. A Murkowski win, by hook or by crook, would go far to make Rove's nights Palin Frei. It seems they have succeeded.

[yes, it is by no means only Rove. But Rove, and the cadre I've called The House of Bush--more the elder than the younger-- very well symbolize this self-defeating branch of Republicanism.]

If these are the "brains", and it takes the women to show the cojones, then the Repubs are indeed doomed, and in the not so long run.
Force the Tea Party conservatism out, and it won't go away but will only end up making the Repubs nationally into what they already are in Massachusetts. Useless jokers.; 11/06/2010 4:23 PM
Tecumseh said...: Christie did the right thing: He went for the bird in the hand over the one in the bush (is there a pun buried in here somewhere), but when O'Donnell won, he got behind her.

As for brains, I was thinking of the kind of brains people like Christie or Rubio or Johnson have -- not rocket scientists, but good solid politicos. But that kind of braininess doesn't grow in trees; one needs some experience. I'm still of the principle that one should run for some kind of elected office (dog catcher, whatever), or serve in some capacity (eg, in the Cabinet), before seeking higher office, such as the Senate.; 11/06/2010 6:41 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: I agree, as a general principle, with the obvious caveat that this principle is more a rule of thumb than a rule of law. For example, Schmitt went basically from astronaut to senator, and he was a damn good one. Whereas his Dem successor, Bingaman, who had held a variety of smaller offices, was putrid in every direction except for the grasp of his ubi mea.

I apologize for thinking that you were using "brainy" in the same way John Kerry or Al Gore or Pepe would use it. Shoulda known better.; 11/06/2010 7:23 PM
Tecumseh said...: Right -- Kerry and Gore have given a bad name to the notion. Not sure what the right word to use -- certainly not in the "pointy-headed liberal" sense, or, shameless self-promoting pinko genius.

I'm thinking more of the Eisenhower tradition: serving as C&C Europe, and then President of some major University beats by a mile going up the rung in the political circus. Schmitt is also a good example -- while at it, even John Glenn, with whom I did not agree on many things, but who had quite a bit of gravitas and knowledge. (Sadly, he finished his career on a bad note, getting ensnared in the same sordid scandal Mac also got ensnared. But that's another story.)

At any rate, this could on and on. There is of course no definite rule of what qualifies one to be a serious candidate for high office. But one needs some consistency in deciding this, and apply some general rules impartially, even when they go against one's policy preferences. Surely this is debatable, and I can imagine extreme situations when I'd have to disregard this general rule. Still.; 11/06/2010 10:37 PM
Tecumseh said...: Peggy joins the fray.; 11/06/2010 11:40 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: And Noonan shows exactly what is the problem with the Establishmentarian reaction to the Tea Party. The Tea Party is full of intelligent and strongminded folk who actually give a serious damn about this country's future. And, while aware of what the Repub Poobahs owe the Tea Party, the Noonan's and Rove's and McLellan's and Lotts and McCains [or their campaign managers] just cannot suppress what seems instinctive to them. Kick the Kulaks down.
The problem is the advance of socialism and the insistent malicious focus of the Pepeans on the undoing of this nation. But the Repub aristos are busy getting the vapours over the stink of peasants. It is stupid. It is insane. It is a tragedy. It is utterly comical.; 11/07/2010 12:03 AM
Tecumseh said...: I don't quite buy this dichotomy -- GOP Establishment vs Stinking Peasants. I mean, OK, there is something to it, but the story is more complex. Eg, where was O'Donnell for the past 20 years, after (almost) graduating from Emily Dickinson? Doing shows with Maher and whupping it up, that's where. Now that things are going down the toilet, she wakes up, and starts spouting some lines she picked up. OK, very good, but why didn't she start earlier, think about things, do something first?

I'm much more impressed by the likes of Paul Ryan, who's actually younger than O'Donnell, but did his apprenticeship at the knees of establishmentarians such as Kasten, Brownback, Bennett and Kemp, and now can hold his own with the big boys, not just blabber like O'Donnell does.; 11/07/2010 11:02 AM
Arelcao Akleos said...: O'Donnell was doing shows with Bill Maher these last 20 years?

But this is just a strawman [straw-woman?] line, Tecumseh? Who said anything about Christine being the best of all possible candidates? The issue is that she legitimately won the Republican primary, and that the Party "elders" betrayed their own candidate [as they were to do elsewhere] simply because she was allied with the "Tea Party".
Again, go back to Rubio. They were pushing hard to betray him too, until it became even too ridiculous to escape their notice.
This ain't no dichotomy as in a logic puzzle of nothing but T's and F's. This is a split between two populations, and the dichotomy lies in the rejection of the null hypothesis.; 11/07/2010 12:03 PM

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