Monday, February 06, 2017

Sunday Morning Party Line


This Sunday, the Vice President of these United States did what he does every fucking day, and what the immediate past Vice President of these United States never had to do even once:  walk chin-deep through the river of shit left in the wake of the most incompetent and politically incontinent buffoon in American history, soberly declaring that the buffoon is a genius and there is no shit at all.

You missed nothing except Pence shrugging off inconvenient facts and history on a couple of different teevee networks, and you already have a Crazy Uncle Liberty so you know what that's like.

And of course Both Siderism cannot die because, as the last safe-house America's most comprehensively discredited pundits have left, it is staffed and defended like Crystal Palace at Defcon One:


And so, inevitably, there was this kind of nonsense spackeled over every gaping crack in the institution of professional journalism (from "This Week"):
DOWD: I think -- I mean, Washington always has a high level of hypocrisy, right, but I think the level of hypocrisy that has come out of the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle is amazing.

So here's what we have, a Senate that basically Republicans didn't allow a vote on Merrick Garland, who was approved on his Court of Appeals by a majority --

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: -- say that’s reason enough not to fill the court.

DOWD: -- right and I don’t agree with that. So I think Republicans should have voted; it's their job to vote. It’s their job to hold hearings and their job to vote and let the votes fall where they may.

I think the Democrats, they ought to say, we're going to do an extreme vetting on this. But we’re going to put this up to a vote. It’s going to be a vote and that's what the Constitution says. That's what the rule is. You can't keep changing the rules based upon who holds political power.
"You can't keep changing the rules based upon who holds political power."

How adorable!  Especially coming from the human windsock who was the architect of President Cheney's 2004 re-election campaign.  Apparently ABC News' chief political analyst was dropped on his head very hard, repeatedly, and forgot the filthy, accountability-free game the Republican Party has been running since the 1990s (from the Washington Post, June 24, 2005):
...
Rove's remarks were reported in yesterday's New York Times and in wire service reports, and by yesterday morning they had quickly exploded into the latest political battle between the parties.

In his speech, Rove said no issue better illustrated the philosophical difference between liberals and conservatives than national security. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war," he said in a prepared text released by the White House. "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Rove went on to say that conservatives wanted to "unleash the might and power" of the military against the Taliban in Afghanistan, while liberals wanted to submit petitions. He cited a petition he said was backed by MoveOn.org that called for "moderation and restraint" in responding to the attacks.

"I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the twin towers crumble to the earth, a side of the Pentagon destroyed and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble," he said, according to the text. "Moderation and restraint is not what I felt -- and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will -- and to brandish steel. MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did."

Rove, who was criticized in 2002 for vowing that Republicans would reap political gains on national security, took special aim at Durbin. "Al Jazeera now broadcasts to the region the words of Senator Durbin, certainly putting America's men and women in uniform in greater danger," he said. "No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
But the most important event on the Sunday Shows came the night before. with Melissa McCarthy's star turn on Saturday Night Live*.  A performance which gave Sean Spicer the career equivalent of a Columbian Necktie:


Not enough of the carcass left for soup bones.

Welcome to Week Three of the Failed Trump Administration.


*Thanks XtopherSD

6 comments:

trgahan said...

My own walk through flyover country "Bothsiderism" continued this weekend as I yet again had it listen to educated, grown adults lament about how "we just can't talk to each other!"

A suggested cure was brought up in an article about introducing more philosophy in schools to create a generation able to talk big ideas with each other (how Brooksian, I know). Of Course, Being a mixed room of educated, middle/upper middle class white adults, FoxNews, AM Radio, Newt, etc. simply don't exist.

Anyway, the article ended with the line that we need to turn second graders into little Socrates. Many of the closeted conservatives jumped on this Yes! Educate the children! dodge. Once again, only a strident liberal who hates America would bring up the current Republican nomination for Secretary of Education, much less the century long war conservatives have waged on public education, and just how we could insert something like philosophy classes.

But, I at least was able to slip in "Yeah, cause that worked out so well for Socrates."

Our parish priest then read a letter from the dioceses basically reminding everyone that liberals have the moral high ground regarding refugees and immigrants. Predictably, it brought out the tone police saying agreeing just made you "anti-Trump" and we weren't understanding the concerns of people who "want something done! Don't you know they're slaughtering Christians over there!"

There is a beauty of Bothsides, because it kills discussion when liberals are SSSSOOOO gawd damn right on a subject.


Unknown said...

McCarthy was brilliant. Spicer isn't going to last a year. Like almost every person in the WH, he is the one at the poker table wondering who the "mark" is.

RUKidding said...

Melissa McCarthy was A-mazing, hilarious and frankly, spot on. I understand there was a twit-storm demanding: MOAR, pleeze. I agree.

Alec Baldwin's cold opening, along with the Grim Reaper Bannon, was also pretty good. Baldwin has claimed he'll keep doing it until Trump releases his taxes, which might mean: 4 more years.

Nice Polite Republicans radio is running different radio call-in radio programs attempting to get "everyone talking together" on all of these issues and bones of contention. Well, that's not so bad, except the big bad elephant in the room - which NO ONE dares discuss - is the rot brought about by 3+ decades of Fox/Fake Propaganda, Hate Radio, and bogus "Christiany" Broadcasting. I really feel that, unless or until, there is a serious discussion about the pernicous ROT brought about by rightwing media - and how it has brainwashed a significant portion of our populace (not just the basest of Trump's base) - we're never going to get very far.

Big Guy said...

I'm surprised you didn't quote Chuck Todd (Tweet and comment on Sunday's Today Show) saying that last week the West Wing appears to be getting its act together. I replied to his tweet with "It appears NBC is getting its marching orders together".

lostnacfgop said...

Actually, Pence's slog was not so much unprecedented as it was role reversal. The last Republiphant Veep was the creator of the muck and scat stream which Dubya was frog-marched through for the first 5-6 years of that forgettable period.

XtopherSD said...

The YouTube Link got broke. Here's the official SNL one...
https://youtu.be/UWuc18xISwI