Sunday Morning Comin’ Down - Part 2.

Our very own Babylonian Captivity.

A brief aside that doesn’t bear directly on Gen. McCaffrey’s comments (above and below), but was certainly catalyzed by them:

At the end of the day, this, it seems, is all the Republican Endgame Strategy boils down to on any issue: That things are pretty bad with ______ right now and someone, somewhere really oughta sit down and figure some way the hell out of this mess.

And then the conversation glide merrily along as if anything had actually been solved, or even discussed, with any hint of a pushback on the pundit to get very clear and specific about what exactly that plan might look like rebutted with a shrug followed by a bold, “Well, I’m not the President. That’s his call…”

Look, this is as simple as can be, so listen up:

Conservatives, you run the government, root and branch. Have for five years, and slung a lot of shit before that about what a Free Market Nirvana the world would be once you ran every single fucking thing.

Well now you do, so – pundit or politician – if you fought on the Conservative side and won, you now actually have to answer these questions. You now actually have to govern, which means you no longer get to wave airily at the horizon, muse abstractedly that someoned really should DO something, and blame queers, Liberals and feminists for your fuckups.

They don’t run the government. You do.

They didn’t leave the Gulf Coast to rot. You did.

They didn’t lie us unto a disastrous war. You did.

They didn’t run the deficit into the stratosphere. You did.

They aren’t letting Afghanistan slip away. You are.

So what is the fucking plan, Republicans?

“Stay the course”? More of the same?

Or do you actually have an articulable plan for national governance? Maybe you do. Maybe you just need to speak up and say it louder.

Maybe the bestial chorus created by the keening of Gay Marriage, the braying of Flag Burning, the shrieking of Immigration and the bellowing of Ann Coulter trying to chew her way ever deeper into the sub-cellar of the "Fuck Everyone But Me" cesspit you call an “ideology” is just drowning out the details of your sober, sensible, sane and humane plan for getting us out of the abyss into which you have driven us.

Hey, maybe someone should, y’know, do something about that?

Someone should turn down all of that deafening White Fundy Noise.

Someone should pump up the volume on all of that Compassionate Conservativism that I’m sure is lurking just out of earshot.

Some group should step forward, take up Rahm Emmanuel’s challenge, and cast out the haters and dividers who are obviously spoiling the GOP’s Sekrit Plan for a kinder, gentler nation.

But who? Who?

I mean, if only the GOP had some…platform from which to tout their noble ideals.

Some sort of…bully pulpit from which to loudly denounce the Coulters and Limbaughs and Falwells who are making them look bad.

If only they had their own media through which their message of benevolence and tolerance and plans for collegiality and the greater good could get out unfiltered!

If only they controlled enough of the government so that their political muscle could be effectively flexed in the cause nearest to their hearts: unity, tolerance and the commonweal!

Damn you, imaginary roadblocks to the GOPs “real agenda”! Damn you to Hell!


Back to Meet the Press…

Gen McCaffrey: In Iraq, al Qaeda is not the problem. The problem is the Iraqi government and the home-grown insurgency.

Gen McCaffrey: If we had 10 years to achieve our objectives we could fix ‘er up and hand ‘er over. 99.9% certain. But we don’t have 10 years.

Yeah, and if I had an infinite supply of time and energy I could simultaneously make the world over into a paradise, develop a hangover-free Super Scotch, an orgasm that would last a month, and biker shorts that wouldn’t make my ass look fat.

Gen McCaffrey’s: But we have to draw down; a lot and soon. The Army is 80,000 people short. The Marines are 20,000 people short. We have to make up our mind what we want to do.

Between now and Christmas, if the government hasn’t locked this thing down…

“The window is closing…”

You know, somebody in our government needs to give Pella a call. Yesterday.

Get somebody in to repair this fucking Magic, Zeno’s Paradox Iraqi Quintuple-Pain “Window” (misspelling deliberate), where we are perpetually almost there, but still have to cover half the distance, then half of that, then half of that...and never quite arrive.

Because this millionth iteration of the “Crouching Window”/”Hidden Corner” ultimatum -- “pretty soon now, if shit doesn’t get radically better, we’re screwed and have to leave” -- is inevitably followed by the obvious question of “When?!”

Followed by the, “We don’t need no stinkin’ deadlines!” retort.

Followed by another six months or a year of blood and treasure being pissed away into the desert.

Followed by another Friedman-esque creature flopping up from the bogs of punditry asking the same fucking questions and shaking the same impotent digit at the same issues. Drawing in the sand with their tiny, porcelain toes yet another line and warning, direly, yet again, that, “Pretty soon now…”

Warning criminals and madmen who do clearly not give one picoliter of diseased nematode poo about their opinions on war, peace, debt, Katrina, Social Security, global warming, election reform, education, health care, taxes, or any other god damned thing.


Russert: On Afghanistan: Now back to their strongest position since 2001. Did we take our eye off Afghanistan to hurry up into Iraq?

Yes. No. Sorta.

Then comes Markos! And Byron York, Jonathan Alter and Amy Walter

Here’s the NBC clip -- Starts around time-code 18:00.

Byron York: Liberal Blogs help Republicans! Bloggers are White!

Well that last bit must come as a crippling shock to poor Markos...and Steve Gilliard.

Marshall Whitman (cited via quote) from the DLC [Depleted Losers Cackling? Don’t Like Criticism? Didn’t Learn Crap?]: Bloggers are a hyperpartisan echo chamber. They have no victories to show for all their bluster. I mean, where’s President Dean? Huh? Huh?

Me: So…how did your help work out for President Gore? President Kerry? The Democratic House? The Democratic Senate? Huh? Huh?

Markos: Who spoke at YearlyKos? Mark Warner. Harry Ried. Not exactly a cabal of the fringe left.

Markos: We have a lot of different candidates – Left, Centrist, whatever – because we’re looking for results. Hillary is appreciated as a Senator. She isn’t hated, but she is seen as the representative of the Establishment that got us into this mess.

And Al Gore?

We love Gore.

Jonathan Alter: Whither Hillary? She is not the presumptive favorite anymore, and her war chest doesn’t mean much when free media and lightening fundraising over the internets can come together so fast and furious.

Amy Walter: Money and organization are becoming more important. And when bloggers get excited and can focus in on 1-2 hot candidates

Punkin’ Haid: Byron York…you’re a Conservative Writer but an interesting and objective writer about the American political scene.

And that's when we have to hold our respective horses.

Because when Punkin’ Haid anoints anyone as “objective”, grab your wallet.

But when he goes out of his way to mention that his anointed is a “Conservative” [And not just any Consie Rat: York’s the scoundrel that decided to forcefully de-cloak “Armando” and then skulk behind the usual clutter of GOP rationalizations for why Conservatives do Bad Things.] and “objective”, hide your wallet in a body cavity (yours, if circumstances permit), swallow your gold teeth and sprint for the fire exit.

Joementum got raked over the coals and the Third Darrin tongue-clucked over the fact that Liberals, mysteriously, seem more enthusiastic about whupping Kapo Joe in a Primary than a Republican in the general.

Markos: That’s because Lieberman deliberately undercuts his own Party and our principles every time he opens his mouth. His pie hole is Dubya’s fucking Tongue Garage. Others with whom we may disagree over specific issues don’t turn around and cut the legs out from under their own Party. Joe sabotages Party unity and discipline all the time, and then gets cranky that someone dares to challenge him for his seat.

And Nedrenaline’s commercial got a free spin on the old Russert Betamax as a “news item” worthy of discussion, which is free-media-sweet in its own right and has gotta irk Joe, so I’d look for Mr. Lieberman to be booking himself on a Humping-Chris-Wallace-To-Make-My-Man-Jealous episode of Jerry Springer Fox News sometime in the near future.

Followed by Very Special “Lover’s Reconcile” edition of Meet the Press, wherein Tim and Joe fight, spark, swoon and fade sweatily into an “Exxon/Mobile” commercial of tankers plunging through various Straits and rampant drilling platforms manfully ravage the rock-hard bottom of the North Atlantic deeper and harder that any other drilling platform has ever done.

Then, still entwined, they’ll fall bonelessly onto the plush, wall-to-wall carpet that decorates the Meet the Press GOP Stabbin’ Cabin, light up a a coupla smokes, crank up Dubya’s “Mizzle Accomplished” speech on the Victrola, and remember better times; before Queen Bitch Reality broke up their good thang.

A brief interlude of Sunday Poll-dancing. Here are the numbers. Bush going down, down and then off-ramping to OMG.

Dubya’s in the bowl and circling so what should he do?

Alter: Dubya is going to the Base. Again and again, he runs back to the wingnut Party Core. If he wanted to be more Rooseveltian, he would be wise to go the people outside of the hardcore loonies. He should be more “supple”. More flexible. More…otter-like and less cockroachish is I guess what Alter is saying.

When asked about what action the Progressive Hordes should take, the Shorter Markos was, keep on keepin’ on.

Get out there and work. Stay active. Support candidates and campaigns. Keep tracking and “rapid responding” to Republican lies.

That we’re much tinier than an Amplitude-Modulation-bestriding King Rat like Limbaugh, but that we’re growing and getting smarter and more sophistamicated.

Which I have to think is a good thing.