Voice of Empire, Ctd.

This week at The Mouse Circus, David Gregory continued to perform his indispensable function as the mouthpiece of the Oligarch Empire to which he has sworn complete, obescient and lucrative fealty. A function best described by Colonel Kurtz in “Apocalypse Now” as that of…

"...an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill"

When Obama spokesman David Plouffe suggested that our current national nervous breakdown is a “healthy debate”, Gregory wanted to know “What is healthy about [it]?" Greggers was pissed that "nobody is yet making the hard choices" about screwing over poor and working class people in sufficient numbers to protect hiss tock portfolio.

Greggers: My broker An unnamed financial person of my acquaintance called me. You could smell the fear-shit in his pants. This is a Code Red Day, people. Code Red!

John Thune then brought his awesome bilateral symmetry to the “debate”, because he is "in play".

At that moment, somewhere in a very nice gated community in America, David Brooks involuntarily jizzed himself with excitement.

(Said Bobo of Thune back in this embarrassing mancrush of a column from 2009:

He is a gracious and ecumenical legislator, not a combative one. When you ask him to mention authors he likes, he mentions C.S. Lewis and Jeff Shaara, not political polemicists.
…

He doesn’t have radical plans to cut the federal leviathan. He just wants to restrain the growth of government to bring deficits down. He doesn’t have ambitions to restructure the tax code. He just wants to lift burdens on small business.
…

But in the meantime, people like Thune offer Republicans a way to connect fiscal discipline with traditional small-town values, a way to tap into rising populism in a manner that is optimistic, uplifting and nice.

And yet, less than one month ago, Mr. Brooks also made this assessment of the mental and moral health of his Republican Party:

…
The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.

This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.
...

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

Got that? David Brooks’ definition of unacceptably nuts is a Republican who refuses to “to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard” and by this refusal shows their unwillingness to “accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities”.

I wonder what would happen if Bobo's “gracious and ecumenical“ John Thune failed Bobo's own "Crazy or Hot?" test on exactly these issues?

Ruh roh...

David Gregory: John Thune, as a Senator who is still “for sale” "in play", what will it take to get you to “yes”.

Thune: First, no taxes…There will be some who want to see taxes as part of their approach. I certainly don’t, and I don’t think most Republicans do. just ruled out a tax increase.

Somewhere in a very nice gated community in America, David Brooks just tore his tiny Johnson out by the roots.

“Why, John Thune? Why have you done this to meeee?!”

Later, to a question about whether his billionaire paymasters should maybe pay one dime more in taxes, Greggers shot back: “But shouldn't Medicare also be shoved into the wood-chipper to make sure Democrats are also blah blah blah.”

It wasn’t Gregger’s mindless, reflexive mouthing of the “Both Sides” mantra that had me yelling “Fuck you, you vonce!” at the teevee. I'm used to that by now. It was his triumphalist smirk that put me over the top.

Gregory: Hey, Thune. My portfolio is about to take it in the neck. My broker An unnamed financial person of my acquaintance wants to know how many poor people can you head-fake the Democrats into sacrificing?

Yeah, it was that bad.

Greggers called in Clare McCaskill -- this week’s Obligatory “Meet the Press” Blue Dog Democrat flunky -- to make the “Left” argument as follows:

We have a lot of volume from the two extremes.

We need that Fucking Awesome Middle to rise up!

It is not about the Tea Party, or about the Far Left.

Senator McCaskill was unsurprisingly non-specific about who makes-up this imaginary "Far Left" contingent, and why their non-existent list of fictional demands was just as bad as the teabagger's very real threat to destroy the global economy. Obviously Senator McCaskill, needs to be primaried into extinction, but of course that will never happen.

Tom Brokaw -- this week’s Obligatory “Meet the Press” Beltway Establishmentarian Sage -- was also on hand to obediently and predictably toe the corporate line:

• Both sides do it.
• Both sides did it.
• And now we have to shovel a lot of weak and sick and powerless people into early graves to make the world safe for the oligarchs who pay my salary

Raul Labrador -- this week’s Obligatory “Meet the Press” Teabagger – was there hand trowel on his prepared list of falsehoods virtually unchallenged:

David Gregory: The American people are idiots.

Brokaw: Yes they are!

Labrador: The Ryan Budget is still awesome! It proposed to close loopholes.

What were a few things that Greggers could have asked The Labradoodle but never did?

"Didn't the "Ryan Suicide Pact" actually take the money from those closed loopholes and plow them back into tax cuts for billionaires?

"Isn’t it true that the "Ryan Suicide Pact" never gets anywhere close to solving the deficit?”

"Isn’t it true that the "Ryan Suicide Pact would itself require the dept ceiling be rasied over and over again?”

But these questions are inconvenient and so, instead…

Hey, here's an article from Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal that explains that while Republicans may have spiked the deficits every time they got anywhere near the levers of power, both sides are to blame!

Let's talk about that!

Hey, here's another article from Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal from sodden, mossy bint Peggy Noonan calling Obama a "loser".

Let's talk about that!

Brokaw: The Baggers did it old school. Got organized. Got elected. That's how you do things!

No mention of the Koch brothers money that paid for it.

No mention of Dick Armey.

No mention of the Entire Murdoch Empire working overtime to making an electoral silk purse out of the sow’s ear of the GOP base out of thin air and pushing the Hell out of it around the clock.

No mention of the complicity of clowns like David Gregory every inch of the way.

Because these are inconvenient facts that fly square in the face of the "Both Sides Do It" goon squad doctrine.

And as such, they will remain in enforced exile until the monopoly of the "Both Sides Do It" goon squad is forcibly broken.

Over on “The Chris Matthews’ Show”, I learned that “this is still a "Center-Right" country”, while on “This Week…”, the soulless, Himmler-faced Grover Norquist was invited to appear on to provide the rat's perspective on the bubonic plague.

On “This Week…”, Paul Krugman continued to do heavy lifting on behalf of the Silenced Majority by calling Grover Norquist a liar to his face - twice - and pointing out that the debt ceiling is no less than a hostage crisis precipitated by radical.

Krugman: The 2010 elections were run on two issues: Jobs and the Democrats are gonna cut your Medicare. Since then, the president as worked hard on jobs and tried to give the GOP political cover on Medicare…The GOP, meanwhile, is extorting policy changes they could never have gotten past the legislative process and never gotten past the voters.

All of it true, but most of it too late. Direct quotes for the pedants:

“From the perspective of a rational person, we shouldn’t even be talking about spending cuts at all now,” Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour. “We have nine percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment… If you have a situation in which you are permanently going to raise the unemployment rate — which is what this is going to do — that’s actually going to reduce future revenues.”

“These spending cuts are even going to hurt the long-run fiscal position, let alone cause lots of misery. Then on top of that, we’ve got these budget cuts, which are entirely — basically the Republicans [saying], ‘We’ll blow up the world economy unless you give us exactly what we want’ and the president said, ‘Okay.’ That’s what happened.”

“We used to talk about the Japanese and their lost decade. We’re going to look to them as a role model. They did better than we’re doing,” he added. “There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We’re having a debate in Washington which is all about, ‘Gee, we’re going to make this economy worse, but are we going to make it worse on 90 percent the Republicans’ terms or 100 percent the Republicans’ terms?’ The answer is 100 percent.”

My only advice to Republican Obertaxenfuhrer Norquist is the same advice Katherine Hepburn gave to Anthony Hopkins in "The Lion in Winter":

"Don't look sullen, dear. It makes your eyes go small and piggy...and your chin look weak."

Grover Norquist: Regulations are the real problem. Next week the EPA might try to shove a liberal light bulb up your ass!

Krugman: Guy's a liar. Also a moron. Also, a liar.

This week's black-and-white differences between Amanpour's show and Gregger's Carnival of Beltway Bukkake are clearly visible and, I think, easy to understand.

Gregger's audience -- which is basically the same as media-bestriding colossi like David Brooks and Tom Friedman -- consists of a few thousand insider players in D.C., a few hundred plutocrats who own property and keep homes in New York, and the millions who are obtuse enough to believe their drivel.

Amanpour is trying for a more international audience, and the America where David Gregory is considered the gold standard of journalist and Grover Norquist has not been flogged into the street by mobs of sensible humans is a foreign land indeed.

After that I watch Mitch McConnell lie in a single, continuous stream all over Gloria Borger's face on "State of the Union" (CNN).

It was this exchange…

Borger: But can you absolutely positively, 100% guarantee...

Yertle the Minority Leader: I am lying to you now.

Borger: Can you at least tell us what's going on in the Wingnut Clubhouse?

Yertel: Fuck you.

Borger: But can you absolutely positively, 100% guarantee...

…repeated over and over again.

Borger took it like a pro.

Then I watched John McCain lying on the floor of Senate for awhile.

Watching that morally-necrotic old man spryly reversing himself, spinning to contradicting himself, and leaping like Najinski to lie about things that he himself had said years, weeks or even hours before should be an inspiration to octogenarians and sociopaths everywhere.

And when you consider that, of all the Senators from Arizona, McCain is actually the lesser crazy, the voters of Arizona must be so very proud right now.

For Brutus is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men.