alternative hippopotamus

In PUMAs: Acknowledge the sexism in the party, media Cap’n “Special” Ed writes:

When the primaries ground to a halt in June, Hillary’s supporters complained bitterly not just about sexism from the media, but also from Obama’s campaign. The Sweetiegate story provided a glimpse of it, but Obama did a lot more damage after Hillary suspended her campaign by suggesting that women needed to “get over it” and that he didn’t have time to pander to them. The dress suggestions for women in his media entourage probably didn’t help much, either.

In trying to correlate the title with the text one might, as Ed does, assume that the PUMAs are former supporters of HRC in the Democratic primary. I’d say the jury is still out on that. We suspect that some of them might be HRC supporters, and some of them may be Democratic party voters. It’s an educated guess though, that there are Republicans of various stripes mixed in with them as well. I know that PUMAs have spots, not stripes, but just as sure as they’re not real Democrats, they’re not real pumas.

This much I can say: if these folks are Democrats (then Michelle Malkin is a furry kitten) they are unlike any group of Democrats I’m familiar with. They’re not interested in any of the issues that I usually hear brought up by Democrats when they congregate. They don’t talk about the concentration of wealth, or jobs, or unions, or health care, or Iraq, or the Bush Justice Department, or impeachment. They only thing they talk about is how sexist the Obama people are, and how the DNC stole HRC’s Michigan and Florida votes.

Take this nugget from the rivermalkin comment section. It’s a classic conversion story, with a fascinating twist. The DNC worker, having learned the “truth” about Hoho and Nancypie vows to quit his job and get a job at Walmart. By the way, does the DNC even go door-to-door? Phone banking, sure, but I’m not aware of door knock campaigns supporting the DNC. Anyway, my point is that how many former DNC employees are going to work for Walmart as their back-up plan?

You mean this Walmart? The one that warns employees against voting for the Democratic party? The one that’s used strong-arm tactics to keep out unions? The one that violates minimum wage laws by requiring unpaid overtime?

Anyway, here’s the full meowist anecdote for your amusement:

(more…)

The right-wing freak show is busy hatching the trailer trash view of candidate Obama. Sadly No, is fortunately on the case, unearthing freeperati I had never heard of before. Marie Jon’ ? I mean, seriously ditto-head, what’s the deal with the apostrophe at the end of your name? Did you try out “@”, “#”, “(”, and then finally you got to the apostrophe and said, yeah, that’s kinda me all over. Possessiveness attached to no particular possession.

Which is at least consistent with her bio at the end of the column:

Marie is an practicing Christian, a nurse, a student of the Bible, and a patriot.

But, not much of a grammarian, apparently. Anyway, here’s the sentence that really got my attention: “Like most far left liberals, Obama is not very proud of his country.”

Thing is, Marie-Jon-freaking-apostrophe, I’m proud of my country. See, I live in the country that’s trying to elect either the first woman or the first African-American to the presidency. You’re trying to elect a cranky ole white guy. So, I’m pretty good with my country. Yours I’m not so sure about.

While I find right-wing sites like NRO, Captain’s Quarters, etc., poisonous in their own way, there’s another category of sites that are really too odious to discuss in polite company. So, while I’m fond of pointing out how disgusting Matt Drudge is, he’s not as sick as they go.

Still, the photo-op of Obama in terrorist knee-pants that’s making its way around the tubes today is like a Drudge 2-fer. He gets the damning visual out there- a man whose middle is the same as the last name of a former Iraqi dictator, and whose wife hates America, is fraternizing with known foriners. What comes next- compulsory French lessons? Simultaneously, the Clinton campaign be damned for the desperation of putting such a photo out there.

Meanwhile, the denizens of RedSate (RedSatan?) assure us that the lizard brain of the Republican freak show will slay the Obama campaign:

By the time it’s all over, the only defense Obama is going to have is to resort to the standard liberal playbook and scream racism when anyone dares point out his voting record. And the public we have not heard from year, the public that swings elections but generally does not engage in primaries, are going to come running to John McCain begging him to save the nation from the liberal anti-gun former cokehead whose feminist wife hates America.

America has rejected liberalism. Obama thinks he can repackage it in new rhetoric and move it to the left of Hillary. He cannot. I relish the fight against the man who has no problem with porn shops across the street from elementary schools and terrorist leaders in the White House. That’ll go over real well.

Again, as over-the-top as all this is, there’s stuff I saw that made my skin crawl. SadlyNo has done the heroic spadework.

Remarkably, Obama has weathered these attacks well, and even returned volley. That’s the point of Glenn Greenwald’s latest. Obama is not just framing the debate well for a Democratic candidate. He’s doing a great job, period.

Which brings me to what I wanted to say. After the discussion of Framing the Future from last Thursday, a few of us were sitting around in the back room of Timberlake’s when the following was put to me: (obviously, I’m paraphrasing) the idea of articulating deeply held beliefs using words that have proven to evocative is all very well and good, but it’s not going to stand up to the gale force devastation of the Republican reptilian brain. A brain evolved to use fear as effectively as his ancestors once used, well, fear. Once upon a time it may have been fear of wolves, or fear of a Roman centurion, but the idea remains the same. Do as I say or die a terrible death.

Is the invocation of fear to win elections a blatant and dishonest attempt to manipulate the voters? Well, yeah. Are Democrats apprehensive about using these kind of tactics? I’d say so. And, here we have a case where Obama campaigns without using the kinds of tactics that progressives are apprehensive of. He is doing essentially what Bernie Horn does in Framing the Future. And, it appears to be working.

Jake Tapper did the right thing. He called up the Obama campaign, got in touch with the captain mentioned in the debate last night, and got the facts right.

I figured that this would shut up the right-wing attack blogs. (Here I can’t help but observe that “blogs” rhymes with “dogs.” In deference to KCinDC’s comments, I’ll note that the phrase “mongrel hordes” is somewhat apt.)

Then, I saw this on the WSWS (with apologies to Sadly No!):

Obama, last night:

They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Obama’s source, an Army captain, to ABC’s Jake Tapper today:

“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.

Wasn’t the point of Obama’s anecdote that our troops in Afghanistan were so poorly equipped, they were forced to capture weapons because they didn’t have enough?

If you had read the WSWS excerpt you might have thought: well, it’s not really clear that Tapper resolved the issue about Iraq diverting support from Afghanistan. But the Tapper post makes it entirely clear that Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan. Including the paragraph right before the WSWS excerpt:

“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”

So, why did the WSWS attempt to weasel out of their metaphorical dog house using a quote taken out of context? It’s because that’s what these people do. They don’t care about the truth or getting the facts right. This is about winning at all costs. This, for these folks, is about the ends justifying the means.

Admittedly, the animated gif I’m using here doesn’t make much sense. I was looking for an animation of someone rolling their eyes in amazement after somebody said something stupid, but couldn’t find that one. I guess you could justify it like this: a wingnut knows as much about waterboarding, as a wolf does about playing the accordion.

This is in reference to this comment left on the Politico site by True GOP, Reno NV: (emphasis mine)

How quick the Dumocraps would water board if someone they loved lived where the bomb might go off. If it was not done and the bomb did go off, the one responsible would be disgraced and worst responsible for many deaths. We are at war, the Dumocraps don’t understand that. We need more Jack Bauers, not fewer. Get off your high horse. We need to do what ever is necessary to protect ourselves and win. Unfortunatly, to the Dumocraps losing is acceptable. To Republicans losing is never an option.

Somehow True GOP has convinced himself that Al Queda is unlikely to strike in Washington, DC, which is where the Democrats work and live. Instead, Reno, Nevada is a much more likely target in that it has greater symbolic importance to the United States. Or, it could be that True GOP believes that because the Democrats are against waterboarding as a means of interrogation, they must have inside information that the terrorists have crossed Washington, DC off of their list. Too obvious, maybe?

Conservative attorney James Bopp on his opposition to Hillary Clinton, and why he’d vote for Giuliani despite Giuliani’s position(s) on abortion : (Election Central)

“I’m not prepared to surrender in the war on terror and have terror attacks on major cities in the U.S.,” Bopp said. “Surrendering in the war on terror means the destruction of American civilation. Between the two of them I’m going to support the nominee of the Republican party.” He added, however, that he was still working hard for Romney “to prevent us from having that difficult choice.”

Bob Altemeyer describing a prototype right-wing authoritarian: (”The Authoritarians”)

Hugh was taught that the world is a dangerous place, full of people who will hurt him or lead him astray. Powerful evil forces could lie in ambush anywhere. But he would be safe if he stuck with his own kind. He identifies strongly with his family, his religion, and America, which his parents often say is the greatest nation in the world. His parents may at the same time find a lot wrong with the way America is changing day by day, but they believe everyone should obey the government and honor its leaders in almost all circumstances.

I keep thinking about that poll question that comes up along the lines of “cares about people like me.” What if “me” is a lunatic? Wouldn’t that be a case where it makes sense to avoid “people like me”?

Take for example, the Family Security Matters people. If you’re like me, you picture the Brady Bunch dressed up like commandos. Already, the kind of folks I’d stay away from.

As it turns out they’ve given their top 10 most dangerous groups award for 2007. Al Queda is not on the list. Think Progress is, however. Here’s their explanation of what makes Think Progress so dangerous:

When you and I think about progress, we think about securing our borders, fighting terrorism, and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. The progressive organization Think Progress, however, has something different in mind – the unrelenting bashing of everything Right is the way to progress in America. Think Progress is comprised of your standard progressive hypocrites who follow the mantra “state falsities enough until people think they’re facts.”

They believe in “vast Right wing conspiracies”. According to Think Progress, the Right is engaged in a massive “disinformation campaign” on the “manmade” global warming issue, and is upset that the Right has criticized Al Gore’s Nobel Prize win. Ironically, it’s Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” that has been accused by the scientific community of being misleading, incorrect and pushing disinformation. But, like many issues the Left holds near and dear, if you point out the falsities in Gore’s phony research, you hate the environment.

It’s not that Think Progress, or the left in general enjoys bashing groups like Family Security Matters. The left thinks you’re bat doo-doo crazy, and shakes their heads in bewilderment at everything you say. And that those of you how aren’t on the payroll of the RNC are blind followers of the cult of Bush.

Anyway, I’m slightly miffed that no one finds Drinking Liberally threatening enough to get one of these awards.

The Authoritarians (pdf) is a book made available by Bob Altemeyer, associate professor of Psychology at the University of Manitoba. It explains a lot about how the Bushies and Cheneyites are behaving towards Iran.

Take the outcome of one experiment. In the following, RWA (Right-Wing Authoritarians) refers to the degree that one tends to submit to authority figures.

High RWAs tend to feel more endangered in a potentially threatening situation
than most people do, and often respond aggressively. In 1987 my colleague Gerry
Sande and I had five-man teams of male introductory psychology students role-play
NATO in an “international simulation” involving (they thought) another team of
students playing as the Warsaw Pact. Some of the NATO teams were composed
entirely of low RWA students, and other NATO teams were stocked entirely with
highs. (We experimenters secretly played the Warsaw Pact.) The simulation began
with a couple of ambiguous moves by the Warsaw Pact, such as holding military
exercises earlier than anticipated, and withdrawing divisions to rear areas (possibly for
rest, or –as Dr. Strangelove might argue–possibly for redeployment for an attack).
The NATO teams could respond with nonthreatening or threatening moves of varying
magnitudes. But if they made threats, the Warsaw pact responded with twice as much
threat in return, and the NATO team would reap what it had sown as an escalation of
aggressive moves would likely result.

The low RWA teams did not interpret the ambiguous moves at the beginning
of the game as serious threats and thus seldom made threatening moves. The high
RWAs on the other hand usually reacted to the opening Warsaw Pact moves
aggressively, and sowed a whirlwind. Over the course of the simulation, the high
RWA teams made ten times as much threat as the low teams did, and usually brought
the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Sound familiar?

Rick Perlstein points out that the failure to over-ride the S-CHIP veto is both a vote against our children and our military:

The consequences of the conservative strategy of obstructing every piece of popular legislation that would improve the lot of ordinary Americans spread like kudzu. The Military Times points to one that escaped most of our notice. Did you know that the House attached to its reauthorization and expansion of SCHIP an amendment to “expand family leave rights for people caring for wounded service members”? That it “was endorsed by a bipartisan presidential commission”?

Here’s how it works:

Under the approved legislation, which lawmakers are calling the Support for Injured Servicemembers Act, spouses, parents, children or next of kin of service members who suffered serious injury or illness while on active duty could get up to six months of unpaid leave, in addition to vacation, personal or sick leave, to help with the care of the injured service member. Employers could require certification of how the time off was used.

Current law provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave and does not extend the time off to parents, siblings or other relatives who could end up being the closest living kin of a severely wounded service member.

While I type this the gang at NRO are high-fiving themselves. K-Lo has just put up this quote from Roger Hickey. It’s safe to assume that it’s been using derisively (the K-Lobster labels it “Also for the Starkly Outrageous File”):

One hundred and fifty-six House Members declared themselves enemies of children and families with this vote. Ignoring the will of the people, a conservative minority in the House sustained the president’s veto and denied nearly 5 million children access to health insurance. Upholding the president’s veto is only the latest obstruction to progress by Washington conservatives.

An overwhelming majority of Americans support populist reforms, but conservatives have repeatedly used filibusters and vetoes to block this progress and then they hypocritically blame others for a lack of congressional action. The record is clear. Congressional conservatives and the president are the culprits who have stood in the way of a new progressive direction for our nation. Our children will pay a steep price for their cruel politics.

In the future I wonder if we’ll refer to public fits of dementia as being in the “grips of a full-throated Malkin“:

On behalf of all liberal bloggers of purported good faith, the Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein has chivalrously stepped up to the plate to challenge me to a debate about S-CHIP.

I’m. Trrrrembling.

With. Laughter.

Or this:

Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein and his Pavlovian (Yet Respectable) boosters are treating my 2004 post as proof-positive of my utterly flabbergasting HYPOCRISY!

Look! The wingnut complained about the health insurance market! Ergo, she is a HYYYYPPPPOCRITE. And stupid! And a Nazi bitch!

Continue flinging your peas. I do have a spit shield now.

Shark jump, much?

Oops, almost missed this:

Now, run along and thump your chest over your “victory” at BloggingHeadsTV or something.

I have to get back to work. You know, “stalking.” “Assault.” “Savagings.” “Howling. “Braying.” “Hateful orgies.”

That stuff.

I would have just said: “hyperventilation and hate-mongering,” but have it your way.