Thursday, April 28, 2016

Ezra Klein just confirmed everything liberals suspected about the Mainstream Media



In a article in Vox entitled --
John Boehner just confirmed everything liberals suspected about the Republican Party
-- Ezra Klein has picked up on what Blue Gal (yay!) reported at Crooks & Liars earlier this morning: That John of Orange -- who has safely retired to his summer home at the bottom of a bottle of Bombay gin -- has finally put enough distance between himself and the party he led for the last +20 years to let Lyin' Ted Cruz and the rest of the GOP clown car have it with both barrels:
Boehner's description of Ted Cruz, who Boehner worked with in Congress? “Lucifer in the flesh,” Boehner said, according to the Daily. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”
So there's that.

But the money shot from the piece in Vox is not in the first paragraph.

"I love all these knuckleheads talking about the party of Reagan," Boehner continued. "He would be the most moderate Republican elected today."
Or even the thirteenth paragraph:
The op-ed hit like a bomb. Mann and Ornstein were institutionalists with wide respect in both parties — Ornstein, in fact, worked (and still works) for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. For them to call out one party as "the core of the problem" in American governance was to violate all the rules of polite Washington society. Their diagnosis was controversial at the time, to put it lightly.
Instead, the money shot is waaay down in paragraph #16:
In other words, for a critique like this to really have bite, it would need to come from a true, dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Someone whose loyalty to the party couldn't be questioned. Someone who clearly wanted Republicans to succeed and prosper.
In other words, dear Liberals, what we all know about the mainstream media has been validated yet again. Specifically, that it literally does not matter how many mountains of facts or miles of video tape a Liberal can bring to the table to make their case...because they will never be allowed anywhere near the fucking table in the first place.   So if you are a Liberal. you can smell the smoke,  spot the fire and hit the alarm as much as you want but it doesn't matter if the whole fucking block is going up in flames because no one is going to listen to you.  Instead, dear Liberal. your job is to wait patiently -- for decades, if necessary -- while your country falls apart around you for some retired Republican rummy with just the right Conservative credentials to validate what you have been saying all along.  Then and only then will he (not you.  never you.) be taken Seriously by America's Very Serious People. 

Then and only then, will the issues you have been raising for decades be taken up at the Big Kids Table.

But of course that really isn't true either, is it? Because as every apostate Conservative quickly learns, regardless of your credentials and pedigree, the minute you stray one millimeter from today's approved Hate Radio/Fox News party line, the Mighty RINO Hammer of "True Conservatism" will come down on you hear like the wrath of Limbaugh. And you will either be exiled or forced to eventually come crawling back on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness.

You will be amazed at how swiftly John Boehner will be transformed by the Right from respected party elder to old man Gower pan-handling drinks in It's a Wonderful Life:



Fortunaelty, if he plays his cars right, Boehner is also 100% qualified for a lucrative side business with America's Very Serious People writing columns about how awful it is that Both Sides are so very yadda yadda yadda.

Meanwhile, the fire blazes merrily on.  

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, duh...

Susan of Texas said...

Brooks is one step away from wrapping himself in a white coverlet and declaring that he's going to become a butterfly aaaany moment now.
Douthat is like a raccoon with his hand caught in a jar of his failures and lies, who could get away but refuses to let go.
My bĂȘte noir Megan McArdle is slowly sidling over to the Cato corner of the Red Light District, her elitist charms having begun to pall.
Ezra Klein's freckles are a little less shiny now that people are discussing how his money raft has floated him over to the establishment side of the stream.

Not that it will do progressives any good, but the weight of their pasts are making our Thought Leaders a little less nimble and a lot less useful.

DrBB said...

And perhaps it bears repeating, once again, that without the "No true Scotsman" fallacy, conservatism would instantly collapse into a singularity and vanish from the universe.

Habitat Vic said...

OK, Boehner speaks truth about Cruz. How about his predecessors in the House? Hastert, Delay? Not even Gingrich?

About 15 years ago, I socialized with a Repub congressional staffer (pretty high level, for a prominent politician). I used to hear stories about Newt Gingrich that, even though I already hated the Newtser, I figured must be exaggerated.

Newt banging Callista right before doing a press conference ripping Clinton - Lewinsky. In his office. With staff, makeup, others waiting outside listening to the moaning/thumping. Newt bragging/laughing about getting a blowjob from a campaign manger's wife while the guy was out working on Newt's re-election. He was reviled by his own Republican peers. And they voted against him 196-26 when he finally fell. He later married that mistress and together they sold a $49.95 video on how to live a moral Christian life. No, I am not making that up. Its true. He more or less acknowledged the "mistakes" as being caused by his patriotism/love for our country.

Point isn't that Newt was a POS. Or that Trump is an asshole, or that Cruz is a dangerous (maybe delusional, psychopath) Christo-Fascist. I remember asking this guy, how all this crap about Newt could stay secret (this is back in 2001). He laughed. Everyone in the Capitol knew. Everyone. The staffers gabbed about over drinks. The bartenders and waitresses knew. The porters that took Callista's and Newt's luggage to the same hotel room. Everyone.

But it wasn't reported. At most, it was hinted that Newt had quite the ego and felt slighted that Clinton wouldn't let him fly up front on Air Force One. I can't imagine the level of suppression (or conditioning?) that has to be at mid and high level media management to enforce the "both sides do it" or IOKIYAR.

Cruz seems to be as hated by other Republicans as Newt was. Question him about penis size, his wife appearance. OK. Our media is on it. Yet, no one in the media dares ask him about his beliefs in the End Times. Hell, his Evangelical Dad touts nuclear armageddon in the Middle East as a good thing (his Dallas ministry is called "Purifying Fire"). The Media took Obama to task for things his pastor. Cruz's pastor, his Dad? Off limits.

gmoke said...

The Big Kids Table will talk about it for five minutes and then promptly forget it all, reverting to "Both Sides Do It" as soon as they can. Habits are hard to break.

dinthebeast said...

"like the wrath of Limbaugh" As Molly Ivins described it:
"I've been attacked on the air by Rush. It's kind of like being gummed by a newt; it doesn't really hurt, but it leaves slime on your ankle..."

-Doug in Oakland

Neo Tuxedo said...

"I think -- if I can recall what our unswerving and permanent policy was at the time -- I think I said to keep smiling."
-- a pig in a buccaneer outfit, whose facial configuration strongly resembled that of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, in a 1960s Pogo strip

Meanwhile, the fire blazes merrily on.

"And the barber kept on shaving."
-- burden of James Thomas Fields' "The Owl-Critic"

RUKidding said...

Boner knows where a lot more bodies are buried, but he mainly goes after Cruz, who stood up to Boner as Speaker. So Boner has a grievance with Cruz and calls him out and calls him names. Yeah, it makes for a interesting newsie tidbit, but then it'll get buried, and that'll be that.

Boner talks some other smack about the R Team probably bc he's pissed at how poorly he was treated in the end. He sounds butthurt to me and is seeking a little revenge best served cold.

Although I cannot claim to know anyone who's anyone, like Habitat Vic, I've heard rumors over the years about how the Rs manage to keep lips zipped while they go for the D jugular... and get away with it. After all, we've witnessed a parade of jackasses who've done the same or much worse than Clinton, yet the R voters still huff and puff about the Clinton blowjob with a consenting adult to this day.

The R list seems unending up to and including horrible sh*tstain Hastert finally forced by that judge to "confess" his sins. But Hastert got away with it for decades and is a multi-millionaire and only got hoist on own petard of Patriot Act stuff that set up spying on citizens for certain types of banking transactions. And the Rs are STILL singing Hastert's praises! Loudly and often!

So, eh? I have to shrug at Agent Orange's revelations, no matter how delicious they may seem. At the end of the day, they don't amount to a hill of beans, and the same old same old will continue unabated with the both siderist bullshit and spin. And anyway, Boner was talking about how Trump gives him a boner, so he's probably just angling to get the VP slot. Not much credibility with Boner, frankly. Probably most Rs just view him as washed up and past his sell by date, which is what enables him to speak truthiness.

Don't count on anything more.

Robt said...

The ever lasting significance of a Molly Ivins quote,
of Rush has not been dimmed but the everlasting funding of the Rush Hyena chowing on dead carcusus continues to smell and rot.

The man from Orange is either bowing to Trump or is using reverse media psyche on their primary trained lab spicer voters, to embrace the Cruz/Fiorina because the Agent Orange is a RINO and betrayed conservatism ( with P. Ryan) to pass a budget then, abandoning ship.
Somehow Ryan's vote for that budget was Tea Potter Patriotism. Boehner's vote was betrayal and liberalism.

As commented above of past GOP Speakers.
Newt disgraced and shoved out. GOP presidential contender and FOX regular.
hastert, High school coach child molester) to wealthy ex speaker. Or as the piece we comment on over media points. The media with haastert is always "they longest serving Speaker".
\Yet, with impaired cognisance How does Trump lead the GOP into Ronnie Sainthood, AGAIN?

For the just " in- Kasich of Cruz".

The GOP primary voters have been harnessed to Trump's plow to irrigate his plantation with their money.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska screamed out to the media that, "he would leave the republican party if the Donald takes over the party as its (leader)". In other words, the clown car hood ornament.

When Trump wins the nomination, I predict this Sen Sasse will remain in the party as a tail light on the clown car.
They will grovel,bent over and naked hands spreading their butt cheeks. for the Donald.

Think about it, They would never support the Romney, until they did.

Neo Tuxedo said...

The mention of Dennis Hastert reminds me: Larry Flynt had to have known. When his revelations about Bob Livingston led to the latter stepping aside from the prospect of replacing Snoot* Gingrich, he must have known of the sins of the man who was stepping up to the job. Why didn't he pull the trigger? Was he afraid of finding out what worse person they'd put up next? Would we be better off if he'd let the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out then, rather than giving them time to ripen and stink up the joint?

(* Pouring out a 40 for a player who ain't with us no more: the Beard Copilot** himself, Terry Coppage.
** I ran the German-language fan-mail he got through Babelfish*** and it translated "Liebe Bartcop" as "Dear beard copilot"; I've called him "the Beard Copilot" ever since.
*** God, remember Babelfish? Oh well, if I'm going to date myself, at least I know I'm a cheap date.)

proverbialleadballoon said...

Yup. All this would be a lot funnier if this was a Vonnegut book and not actually happening. It's like, pretty much the future of the world is at stake. Is that hyperbole? Vonnegut coulda come up with Trump and Hillary, maybe he's in fate's employ.