Thursday, November 9

Olio

• Jesus Christ, I hate phony events like the Rumsfeld resignation. Especially when local news is doing man-in-the-street interviews so we can get what are termed, for want of a better word, Hoosier's "thoughts". It's all eggnog. People are drinking the stuff because the calendar tells them to, but that doesn't mean they have palates, and they don't, and there's no reason I should care about their opinions. Their opposition to the war now is as facile as their support for it was forty-four months ago, and getting their opinion about the "significance" of this "news" is just a way of saying, "Boy, this sure is some big change, huh?" when it's nothing of the sort. It's like getting all excited because they designed a new label for Cheetos.

• Candy Crowley's real name is Magda. So she was named after the least-talented Gabor sister. The "Candy" business, I guess, came about when a producer saw her audition tape and realized she ought to be working under a porn name.

• From today's Times:

Robert Gates, a Player From a Past Bush Team

By SCOTT SHANE

Robert M. Gates is a throwback to an era in foreign policy marked by caution and pragmatism.

And swapping drugs for arms. But unless he's got a time machine I'm pretty sure we're still gonna be in Iraq tomorrow.

News Analysis: Rumsfeld Did Not Change With the Times

There are so many directions you could go with this I'm almost sorry I couldn't be bothered to read it. Example: maybe he was too busy watching tapes of the two-year blowjob he received from the press.

Cui bono, Republican division? It's too early to tell, but my gut instinct is it's Rudy, who gets the religious nuts off his back somewhat. But it could be exactly the opposite. The religious right saw '08 as their year, their last big chance to seize the Republican nomination before their power waned, but now they're completely demoralized. Will that make them come back even stronger, though? These are the people who vote in the primaries. So it either helps Giuliani or it hurts him. You don't get that kind of analysis just anywhere. Not for free.

• This is why someone should be telling professional chuckleheads like Joe Scarborough to nix the "Bush failed because he wasn't conservative enough" routine. The President is beyond redemption under any circumstances, and finding someone even crazier than he is not exactly the ticket back to the Big Time.

• And, I'm not buying the "evangelicals switched to the Democratic party" exit poll crapola. More liberal evangelicals voted. The whole thing is a reminder of how "religious" has supposedly meant "Republican" for the last twenty-five years, when it doesn't. Although that's one mischaracterization of Christianity the nuts never seem to complain about.

• Oh, and I hope you got the opportunity to see Jerry Falwell--whose presence is desperately needed on one of those Fat Celebrity shows--respond "Never heard of him," when asked about Ted Haggard.

• God knows I love Digby, and he/she writes some of the sharpest analysis around, but:
As Perlstein's piece shows, this new group of energized progressives are not children, 60's hippies or fools.

coming on top of three straight days of Vietnam rewrites gave me an acid flashback. Okay, maybe it's a throwaway, or maybe it's more of this "George McGovern ruined my party before I got to it" revisionism, but please. I'm just a Midwest suburban punk who was still too young to drive when the 60s ended, but I did actually lay eyes on some who were not ordering up lifestyle choices from Relix magazine or caught in a time warp, which puts me one up. The hippies I knew were apolitical, except maybe where it came to their local Selective Service board. Most were sort of instinctual left-libertarians. If, instead, you intend that as a rubric for the thousands of young people in the 60s who marched for civil rights, facing certain harassment and often much worse, or who took to the streets to stop an unjust war, instead of typing up their objections, and you're doing it to aggrandize a few keyboard commandos who happen to raise money for political candidates they like, well, shame on you. The people who screwed up the Democratic party were the pragmatists and the poll watchers who ran and hid from Reagan's Great Communicating. You can look it up.

• I think the interesting post-election question is how the lapdog media deals with it. Does McCain still go on The Timmy Show every other week? Have I already answered my own question?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You manage to blend cranky and coherent fairly well!

But I do hold some hope over the displacement of the Man-lion, or whatever the hell Paglia used to call him, and that is: this election brought out a new series of grumpy faces from the Chief Chimpster.

No sea change, but higher amusement value.

That coupled with losing (god, I hope so) at least one other branch of government.

D. Sidhe said...

I had the impression Digby was mocking the usual categorize-stereotype-minimize-and-ridicule reflex of the media and the right towards liberals. The "They're all peaceniks and smelly hippies" thing which has patently never been true.

Anonymous said...

I'm with D. on Digby's intent here. IIRC, his/her past writings about the era never stoop to categorize the participants like that. I suppose for younger folks it's hard to fight the stereotypes because they're exposed to few if any factual alternatives to the simple-minded Forrest Gump bullshit they've been immersed in since childhood. And whether it's the idea that Cheech and Chong were paradigmatic anti-war protestors or that Jimmy Carter instituted oil price controls, it's always dismaying to see just how mainstream certain falsehoods are now, usually by intent.

And, as your piece here suggests, it is positively creepy just how deja vu the Iraq fiasco has become, including this gem, "their opposition to the war now is as facile as their support for it." LIke a little trip back to 1973.

handdrummer said...

Biggest difference I see between now and the 60's is that after getting the crap kicked out of me at a rally in the 60's, I could ease my pain with some personally prescribed or grown pain medications.

The past 6 years, not so much.

punkinsmom said...

Cheetos changed its label??!?!