Friday, May 12, 2017

Today In Wholesale Thievery: Charlie Sykes


"I walks into a very classy restaurant, and I orders pheasant under glass. I had eaten most o' da glass and was just about gettin' down t' da pheasant when I noticed a sign that says Watch Your Hat and Coat. Well, I watched my hat and coat, and what happened? Somebody stole m' pheasant."

-- "The Sick Boy and the Sitter", The Dick Van Dyke Show
Here is something you should know about a man named Charlie Sykes, who is now a Respected MSNB Contributor and semi-regular New York Times columnist.

For many, many years Mr. Sykes made a very fine living as Wisconsin's own, locally-sourced, shit-house-to-table version of Rush Limbaugh.  In other words, Mr. Sykes made his daily bread, and his monthly mortgage, and his boat payments and paid for his kids' college by gleefully slandering people like you and me...

,..while we labored in the wilderness living off tip jars and part-time gigs, struggling against overwhelming odds to warn people that the world Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter and Charlie Sykes was shaping would be a complete, existential catastrophe for this country.

Not merely because their policies were horrendous -- because Team Evil doesn't really have anything that any same person could call a "policy" at all -- but because they were methodically and deliberately working around the clock to turn their already-deeply-ignorant and often racist Fox News/Hate Radio Conservative audiences into completely brainwashed, completely re-programmable meatbags whose opinions could be flipped on and off like a light-switch depending on the whims of people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter and Charlie Sykes.

You and I could see that future Orwellian dystopia coming from a distance of several decades and spent our precious time and meager, borrowed and patched-together resources to try to stand athwart the coming disaster and yell "Stop" at anyone who would listen.

We were, of course, hopelessly outspent by Team Evil on every front, and we were, of course, dismissed utterly and out-of-hand by Team Evil's compliant and well-heeled Both Siderist co-conspirators in the mainstream media.

We were also, of course, right,  Completely right about the Right all along.  Over and over again. And the worst hell on Earth for a Conservative is to be shown up and humiliated by us dirty Libtards, because, as Thomas More noted over four-and-a-half centuries ago, "The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked."

Every day of these people's lives, their own leaders, their own words and Reality itself humiliates them by slapping yesterday's lies out of their mouths right in front of God and everybody.  And because they have been rendered incapable of admitting error or self-reflection, every day for your basic American wingnut is like chugging salt water: the exercise only leave them ever more frantic for even Bigger and Better lies to slake their thirst and hide their shame.

This is why the Right's hatred of us grows exponentially more berserk, more unhinged.  This is also why they have reached a point where they will eagerly follow anyone who will look them in the eye and tell them the gigantic lies the want the hear.

And, for the record, it's also why Both Siderism is the worst crime against truth of all: because "Both Sides Do It" is always the the universal, inexhaustible "Get Out of Accountability Free" card every wingnut has been trained to play when he or she does not have the next Fox-approved lie or excuse readily at-hand.

And now that the hellscape we warned them about for decades has finally arrived?

Well,, that just so happens to circle us right back to Mr. Charlie Sykes who, like so many of his Conservative media confederates that were finally cast out of the Conservative freak-show they created, have found an equally rewarding second career just plain ripping off the very Liberals who Mr. Charlie Sykes spent his first career mocking and demonizing.

Think I'm kidding?

I am not kidding.

Mr. Sykes in today's New York Times:
...
Here is how it works: Rather than defend President Trump’s specific actions, his conservative champions change the subject to (1) the biased “fake news” media, (2) over-the-top liberals, (3) hypocrites on the left, (4) anyone else victimizing Mr. Trump or his supporters and (5) whataboutism, as in “What about Obama?” “What about Clinton?”

For the anti-anti-Trump pundit, whatever the allegation against Mr. Trump, whatever his blunders or foibles, the other side is always worse.

But the real heart of anti-anti-Trumpism is the delight in the frustration and anger of his opponents. Mr. Trump’s base is unlikely to hold him either to promises or tangible achievements, because conservative politics is now less about ideas or accomplishments than it is about making the right enemies cry out in anguish.

I had blogged my way through most o' the lies the Right had thrown at us since 1974 and was just about gettin' down t' da present when I noticed a sign that says Watch Your Tone, driftglass

Well, I watched my tone, and what happened? 

Charlie Sykes stole m' present.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

saw this today= sharing: From a friend's page:
Astonishingly, some people still think we're 'making things up' in regards to the so-called president, that we're being 'crybabies' because H. Clinton isn't President, and that we have no idea what we're talking about—he hasn't done anything wrong and we haven't given him a chance.
Then I saw this on a friend's page:
I don’t know, I suppose it’s hard to see any Trump ties to Russia, except for....
• the FLYNN thing
• the MANAFORT thing
• the TILLERSON thing
• the SESSIONS thing
• the KUSHNER thing
• the CARTER PAGE thing
• the ROGER STONE thing
• the Felix Sater thing
• the Boris Ephsteyn thing
• the Rosneft thing
• the Gazprom thing
• the Sergey Gorkov banker thing
• the Azerbajain thing
• the 'I LOVE PUTIN' thing
• the Sergey Kislyak thing
• the Russian Affiliated Interests thing
• the Russian Business Interests thing
• the Emoluments Clause thing
• the Alex Schnaider thing
• the HACK OF THE DNC thing
• the Guccifer 2.0 thing
• the Mike Pence 'I don’t know anything' thing
• the Russians mysteriously dying thing
• the PRESIDENT’S PUBLIC REQUEST TO RUSSIA TO HACK HILLARY’S EMAIL thing
• the president’s house sale for $100 million at the bottom of the housing bust to the Russian fertilizer king thing
• the Russian fertilizer king’s plane showing up in Concord, NC AND Las Vegas, NV AND Miami, FL during his campaign events thing
• the Nunes sudden flight to the White House in the night thing
• the Nunes personal investments in the Russian winery thing
• the Cyprus bank thing
• the PRESIDENT REFUSING TO RELEASE HIS TAX RETURNS AFTER HE SAID HE WOULD IF ELECTED
• the Republican Party’s REJECTION OF AN AMENDMENT to require him to show his taxes thing
• the ELECTION HACKING thing
• the GOP platform change to the Ukraine thing
• the Steele Dossier thing
• the Leninist Bannon thing
• the Sally Yates can’t testify thing
• the intelligence community’s investigative reports thing
• the PRESIDENT’S REASSURANCE THAT THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION IS ALL 'FAKE NEWS' thing
• the Spicer’s RUSSIAN DRESSING 'nothing’s wrong' thing
• the Chaffetz not willing to start an investigation thing
• the Chaffetz suddenly deciding to go back to private life in the middle of an investigation thing
• the The Lead DOJ Investigator Mary McCord SUDDENLY in the middle of the investigation decides to resign thing
• the appointment of Pam Bondi who was bribed by the president in the Trump University scandal appointed to head the investigation thing
• the The White House going into full-on cover-up mode, refusing to turn over the documents related to the hiring and subsequent firing of Flynn thing
• the Chaffetz and White House blaming the poor vetting of Flynn on Obama thing (LOL!)
• the Poland and British intelligence gave information regarding the hacking back in 2015 to Paul Ryan and he didn't do anything thing
• the Agent M16 following the money thing
• the president’s team KNEW about Flynn's involvement but hired him anyway thing
• the Corey Lewendowski thing
• the Preet Bharara firing thing but before he left he transferred evidence against trump to a state level Schneiderman thing
• the Betsy Devos' brother thing
• the Sebastian Gorka thing
• the Greg Gianforte from Montana thing
• the VP Pence actually was warned about Flynn before he was hired thing
• the Pence and Manafort connection thing
• the 7 Allies coming forward with audio where the president was picked up in incidental wire tapping thing
• the Carter Page defying the Senate's order to hand over his Russian contact list
• VETOing Sally Yates' testimony
- Firing James Comey.
Yeah, except for all those things

RUKidding said...

Yeah well ya see, Driftglass, the difference between you and Sykes is that you didn't pay your dues by sucking up mightily to the conservative Hate Radio/Fox Noise/"Christiany" Broadcasting ethos and memes. Sykes not only got to live offa the fat of the wingnut welfare circuit by being a crude nasty azzhat, but he got to use his time and experience to demonstrate his political chops and willingness to bend his knees to the PTB.

Said chops now serving him well as he had his alleged Come to Jeebus moment and suddenly!!! - nay verily, somehow the scales just fell from his eyes and he saw reality for the very first time and realized just how bad it was in the conservaland that HE helped to build. But anyway, he got his chops there, and now that at least some of our corporate Overlords appear to have no love lost on Trump, they're willing to hire the likes of Sykes. Because, why not? After all, Sykes was a good little poodle and cash cow for some period of time. And who knows? Sykes could just as easily place the scales firmly back on his eyes and start spouting the usual conservative Hate Radio/Fixed Noise/"Christiany" Broadcasting claptrap... if it serves Sykes to do so. We shall see.

You, otoh, have always said the same thing, and the Overlords don't like to be told that they have no clothes on, and in fact are a bunch of rapacious, pillaging, criminal, parasitical, lying, lousy swine.

Doesn't pay much to be honest these days, does it, alas?

bowtiejack said...

". . . as Thomas More noted over four-and-a-half centuries ago, "The devil...the prowde spirite...cannot endure to be mocked.""

Nailed it! Absolutely goddamn nailed it!

Which is why I expect Trump to eventually disappear in a large cloud of spontaneous self combustion.

HarpoSnarx said...

When articulate people put words to the miasma of evil that is encircling us, it helps. It's named. I am so utterly disgusted and furious with the neo-Quislings that turned this country over to the monsters, I literally spit. But I try to conceal it in mixed company. I KNOW it DELIGHTS these PIGS. I just had to say the post and the comments helped. It's only f_____g May!

Dog Faced Herman said...

Debrianna Mansini, I'm stealing your post. Hope you don't mind.

Anonymous said...

I agree with most everything that you say, now and in the past. However, I wondered as I was reading this most recent post, how fruitful it is to regularly state how right you/we are?

Unknown said...

Please do- i stole it from a facebook post- not really - it was meant to copy and paste- so copy and paste away!!!

Unknown said...

i think the list is only gonna get longer by the hour with Dirty45 - he has no end to the stupidity.........