Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

“Hot governor-on-governor stimulus action” Edition.

On “Face the Nation”

Same show as everywhere else: people are mad that some bad person somewhere might get bailed out, and the aforeshadowed

hot governor-on-governor bidniz.

On “Meet the Press”

Florida’s, very tidy, very tanned, Republican governor, Charlie Crist: Gimme the money.

David Gregory: But Republican small gummint tax cu….

Crist: Gimme the money.

David Gregory: But….

Crist: Gimme the fucking money.


On “Fox News Sunday” Govs. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich., Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.

Chris Wallace: You, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, might not take the money. Why?

Mark Sanford: First, cuz it sounds like old time Stalinist grain quotas…

And with that pathetically predictable regurgitation of the "Obama = Commie" talking point by yet another Conservative toady, we’re off to the fucking races.

Jennifer Granholm: This is about real people trying to survive, not some fucked up philosophy.

Pawlenty: Well, it’s not the bill I’da written. We are a major, net subsidizer to the federal gummint unlike some people, so, uh, let me at that Big Gummint teat!

As a loyal Republican, what Timmy was desperately trying to avoid saying was “unlike the Red State Big Gummint Welfare moochers who bleed cash away from their prosperous, Blue State benefactors” Minnesota sends more to D.C. than it gets.

Mark Sanford: This is all the same kinda short term thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.

No, asswipe; 28 years of Reagnomics and seven year of catastrophe in Iraq danced us into this mess. But Republicans would rather see children starve and small businesses fail than ever let those heretical truths pass their lips.

Granholm: Actually, President Obama said he’s going to present a plan to cut the deficit in half.

Mark Sanford: Well, sure, every President says their gonna lower the deficit, but none of them actually do it, so this has been a regular refrain for the last 25 years.

Rendell: Actually, asswipe, there was a President ten years ago who did lower the deficit. But he was a Democrat, so I guess they doesn’t teach that version of history in the fucking Republican madrassa where you learned that Saint Ronald Reagan built the pyramids and split the atom.

driftglass: Republicans lie as easily and unselfconsciously as my cat cleans her naughty parts.

Sanford: Much of this money is already being wasted!

On the subject of trying to repair failing mortgages…

Sanford: The idea that a judge would stick his filthy, Commie nose into a private contract between private parties is worse that nine Hitlers!

Rendell: Actually, asswipe, judges do that now with second mortgages. And we have to do it, because as bad as it is, if we don’t fix this now then the whole system will crash.

But of course, bringing the whole system down and reducing America to a lawless wasteland of poor people ruled by the whims of unregulated megacorporations has always been the Republican end-game.

Pawlenty: Bewaaaare the heavy hand of Gummint!

On the subject of possibly saving the imploding banking industry by nationalizing some of it in some form …

Sanford: With all due respect to the federal government, the idea that the same people who ran the Katrina mess would come in an run a federal bank is worse that 17 Hitlers.

Rendell: Yeah, but those fuckers are gone.

Wow. Just...wow. Because for the infinitely-reprogrammable, all-hard-drive-and-no-RAM wingnuts, the last 20 years just never happened.

They never elected George H. W. Bush.

They never screamed that Bill Clinton's presidency was illegitimate from Day One. They never cut his legs out from under him five minutes after he sent troops to Kosovo (fFrom this aggregation site:)

"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."

-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush


"You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."

-Tony Snow, Fox News 3/24/99


"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

-Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

...

"I'm on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so you can trust me and believe me when I say we're running out of cruise missles. I can't tell you exactly how many we have left, for security reasons, but we're almost out of cruise missles."

-Senator Inhofe (R-OK )

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarifiedrules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

...

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)


"This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

-Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN)


"You can support the troops but not the president"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."

-Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)


For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly."

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode"

-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

-Michael Savage


"This has been an unmitigated disaster ... Ask the Chinese embassy. Ask all the people in Belgrade that we've killed. Ask the refugees that we've killed. Ask the people in nursing homes. Ask the people in hospitals."

-Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL)


"It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

-Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID)

No, the mouth-breathers who screamed this drivel (and so much more) the loudest year after year after year now conveniently remember none of it. For them, the past just never happened; Fox News and Hate Radio abolished it.

Clinton never balanced the budget, reformed welfare or created surpluses...all after he raised taxes.

The Right never cheered for his impeachment and lapped up every monstrous lie puked up by Hate Radio.

They never elected and then re-elected George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and then goose-stepped along behind them off of one cliff after another.

Instead we get wingnut leadership caste flakes like Sanford, roughing out a whole, new version of history on the Great GOP Kvetch-A-Sketch. A wholesale rewrite of yesterday wherein some misty, faraway "federal gummint" run by God-knows-who fucked up and let New Orleans drown.

And now that "same" gummint is going to take all your hard-earned munnies away from you and give it to...wait for it...wait for it...poor, brown people who cheated their way into homes they couldn't afford.

Shocking, no? That somehow, some way -- whatever the crisis and whatever its real causes -- even after being in charge of every branch of government at virtually every level, it will forever be an article of faith among the Pig People that all problems are the fault of poor, brown people, Liberals and an Evil Gummint over which the Republicans have never had an ounce of control.

Sanford: Bailing out the auto industry is a mistake because the auto industry has refused to change anything ever!

Granholm: We’ve made major reforms in the last several years. Huge givebacks. Massive restructuring. Loss of 400,000 jobs. There’s a big report that explains this all in detail. Have you even read it?

Shorter Sanford: As a Republican, I never bother with facts; they're annoying and make my ass look fat.



On ”The Chris Matthews Show”

Chris Matthews: Limbaugh always “sounds like he’s had a really big breakfast.”

John Heileman. Bobby Jindal is a really smart guy who is getting pushed deeper and deeper into the crazy camp. His state’s got a two billion dollar deficit, but he’s saying that he’s not taking any of the stimulus money. Let’s see how that works out for you when you run for re-election.

Heileman. The Republican base fucking hates Charlie Crist for all the reasons we think he’s sensible.

Welcome to Liberalville!


On “This Week”

George Stephanopoulos and Ahnuld Schwarzenegger

talk past each other.

Stephanopoulos: So in 2003 you won by mocking Gray Davis for doing exactly what you’re now doing. Don’t you owe him an apology?

Schwarzenegger: Abzoludely nod.

Stephanopoulos: But you ran like a fucking manic against taxes. You ran on tax cuts forever. No exceptions. No equivocation. And now you’re raising taxes to meet a crisis. Which was exactly what Davis did.

Schwarzenegger: But ziz is divverent.

Stephanopoulos: How?

Schwarzenegger: Because I hate zee taxes and zo fort.

Stephanopoulos: But so did Davis.

Schwarzenegger: Qvit azking me zees qvestions. Id maiges my bullsheed processors overheed.

For the rest of the interview, Ahnuld will repeat over and over again that “there iz no divverence betveen zee Republican party and zee Democratic party”.

Except of course when Ahnuld wanted to play Governor: then Democrats were girly-men who want to tax you into the Stone Age, and Republicans are real men who love The Vaterland America.

And zo fort.

Stephanopoulos: Your fellow Republican governor Mark Sanford would rather do without this stimulus money and let the backwards, inbred losers who elected him rot.

Schwarzenegger: Vell, iv Zanford don’t want id, zen give id do me.

Schwarzenegger: I don’t think zere is any divverence between zee Republican party and zee Democratic party. Because zay are alvays vighting and zo fort.

Like every other Republican, Ahnuld was perfectly happy with ranting, hysterical partisanship…as long as all the artillery was coming from his side of the field. As long as Republicans were winning elections with Limbaugh shrieking hate on the radio, Falwell shrieking hate from the pulpit and Gingrich hate shrieking inside the Congress – and as long as Democrats continued to be stupid enough to pretend that they could play nice with these thugs – people like Ahnud were perfectly contented with the status quo.

Were pigs-in-shit happy with the world as it was…right up until it all fell apart.

Right up until

Ahnuld and all of the other millions of happy, brainwashed Rightards were de-fucking-lighted with the hyperpartisanship as long as it was entirely one-sided. As long as the scope and scale of Republican failure, criminality and outright treason could be covered up by snarling at the media and calling critics un-American. As long as the Left had no means of fighting back.

But once millions of Liberals finally found a way around the Centrist DLC cowards who were selling the Party of Roosevelt off piecemeal to monsters? Found their voices, took on the Limbaughs, the Falwells and Gingriches directly, and started winning again?

Suddenly, the wingnuts are all up in arms about how uncivil “everyone” is.

Suddenly…

Schwarzenegger: You have to go beyond zee prinziples and ask vat is right for zee people.

Stephanopoulos: But you believe in massive public spending. Green energy. Global warming. You’re pro-choice. Pro gay-rights. So why are you still a Republican?

Schwarzenegger: It doesn’t really matter iv you’re a Republican or Democrat! People need zee infrastructure and zo fort. Vee are public servants. Vee need zee roads and zee schools. Vee need to rebuild America.

Yes we do. And accomplishing these important ends would be a lot easier were it not for the fact that Republicans don’t believe in any of that shit.

Schwarzenegger is a Republican because Enron, Bush and the rest of the oil industry wanted a Big Oil sock puppet governing California. So the engineered a fake energy crisis, gave Schwarzenegger a jillion dollars and rolled him into California like a tank battalion.



But now Enron is gone, Ken “Five Angels” Lay

is dead, Cheney will spend the rest of his wretched life steering clear of international cops and war crimes tribunals and Bush is finally and near-universally acknowledged to have been a miserable catastrophe.

And so -- Surprise! – six short years after running as a Bush Republican and five years after delivering a keynote speech at the Republican National Convention, Ahnud “Opportunism Incarnate” Schwarzenegger has suddenly decided to effectively start Zee Ahnuld Party.

To declare that there is no difference between the anti-science homophobes who brought you the Iraq debacle, the drowning of New Orleans, the shredding of the Constitution and the smash-the-Gummint-to-save-plutocrats school of public policy…

…and the people who opposed all of that.

In the end, Ahnuld remains a Republican, based on the only measure that has remained as constant as the North Star: the sheer scale of his genuine enthusiasm for shamelessly-and-in-real-time jettisoning any principle right in front of you the minute it stops buying him votes. The sheer volume of the “facts” he pulls completely out of his ass on camera when he needs “proof” to prop up his laughably hypocritical gibberish.

And, in the end, there will always be just enough fuckwits abroad in the land to elect clowns like him over and over and over again.

Later, Stephanopoulos discovers the key to shutting George Will up and cramming him back into the goofy-grumpy-grandpa role for which he was hired: stick an economist on his left side who has already beaten him to his knees twice, stick another economist on his right side, and then talk about the economy.

And the results

look like this (h/t FDL)