Exiles on Main Street

As Messers Ornstein and Mann explain in this helpful primer on "How to Commit Journalistic Career Suicide", we have reached the point in American political journalism where affirmatively stating an openly observable, verifiable and laughably-ubiquitous fact about American politics has become grounds for instant social and professional exile.

Which probably explains why those few, raggedy hippies who have been saying exactly this

... The little-“p” politics of this is fascinating. Over the long run that the GOP is demographically/electorally doomed to become the minority Thurston Howell Party again. Either when the Fundy Shining Path Rebels that make up their margin of victory make one too many batshit demands, are told “No” once too often.

(If you want to get a clear picture of how this will look, rent “Fatal Attraction” or “Play Misty For Me”. I’m not going to be ignored, George!)

So either they take their bat and ball and stomp disgustedly back to Mordor, or a handful of moderate Republicans get so freaked out by the Randall Terry Wing of the Party that they bolt or stay home.

practically every day 

...
That’s it, GOP Moderates. Get in there closer. Closer... Snuggle up real tongue-in-his-bung tight to the House Majority Plague Vector. Get right up in his ass.

Was is Goethe, or Pink Floyd, who said:

And when you loose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown.
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone.
And it's too late to loose the weight you used to need to throw around.
So have a good drown as you go down, alone,dragged down by the stone.

Gotta love it when the other guy just insists on rabbit-punching himself into a coma.

of the 8 or 9 or 10 years

[Tom] DeLay has [House Republican's] nuts in his medicine bag and they don’t fucking dare say a word against him. DeLay makes a viper like Gingrich look like a charming Southern Gentleman, that’s how de-ranged he is. Don’t fuck with The Hammer, dude. My cousin said she had a friend who saw him beat a homeless guy to death with a congressional staffer. Then he ate him, whole, like an Anaconda eating a rabbit. He’s Kaiser Fucking Sose, man. Prince of Darkness. On the plus side, two-out-of-every-five ambulatory humans in Sugardland, TX would still support him even now that he has been outted as the Satan’s Wingman. Gotta love Texas: It’s like a whole other Special Olympics Purgatory.

since we started blogging

...

“Why can’t we just split the difference,” BoBo almost pleads. Theocracy-lite. We’re all partially right and partially wrong, right? You take a little from column “A” and a little from column “B” and it’ll all be beautiful! Wow. When did the hated, Liberal shibbolith of "moral relativism" become the new Spring fashion on the Right?

Fuck that, Brooksie. First and right off the top, the Left is frank and wholesome and a lot of other terrific things to you wheezing toad, and how dare you infer otherwise. Fuck you and your greasing the slow, easy road down to the Pit and trying to sell it as a good deal.

We have played that 50/50 nonesense of “let us sit and reason together” for 20 years now, but each time you move the marker on the Right a little further into the suburbs of Crazyville. This is the terminal logic that brought us One Party rule by a junta stocked to the gunnels with plutocrats, liars, dunces, thieves and held in thrall by the most rabidly, America-hating, Armageddon-loving Theocrats this nation has ever produced.

And you council going full-tilt Pollyanna and it’ll all just work out some how.

This is the chirping sound of the ever-more frightened Moderate Republican offering “compromise” with one hand, while his pals flank around the Constitution though the trees, threaten judges who don’t kiss God’s ass, and well, you know ever-growing bill of particulars as well as I do. Your Party Is The Problem BoBo! Go mop up the radioactive mess your Shining Path Fundies have made of it and then come back and we'll sit an talk of tales of Brave Ulysses.

Until then, No, Mr. Brooks. No thank you: I think not. We don’t want any today, but leave us your resume and we’ll let you know if we have any openings for “Accommodation” in the future.

were kinda doooooomed from the start.

Eight years ago nobody in our elite media or politics wanted to hear this shit.

Eight years later, the gatekeeper and beneficiaries of elite media and political privilege have not changed and they really, really don't want to hear this shit.

Hey. you know who isn't kinda dooooooomed?

Jon Avlon.

...Daily Beast boss Tina Brown said in a statement first reported by Politico’s Dylan Byers:

“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company. Under the direction of our newly named political director John Avlon we have added new momentum and authority to our Washington bureau with columnists such as Jon Favreau, Joshua Dubois and Stuart Stevens joining our outstanding DC team of Eleanor Clift, Daniel Klaidman, Michael Tomasky, Eli Lake, David Frum and Michelle Cottle – giving us one of the best politics teams in the business which was instrumental in this week’s Webby win for Best News site.”

Here are some fast facts from Mr. Avlon's Wikipedia page:

He was Director of Speechwriting and Deputy Policy Director for Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign. 

He was also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
...
He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics, which critically appraises both traditional American centrism and the more recent radical centrism.
...
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker wrote that "Americans who are fed up with the Ann Coulter/Michael Moore school of debate, and are looking for someone to articulate a common sense middle path, may have found their voice in John Avlon."
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In 2010, Avlon became a founding leader of No Labels...

The remainder is left as a problem for the student,