David Brooks: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Pretend The Civil War Never Happened

After a long and profitable career spent slandering and ignoring Liberals who were warning that the real Conservative agenda has always been a rollback of the Enlightenment itself, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times has finally come to that place where most ideologically-bankrupt Beltway Conservatives eventually arrive: bootlegging our entire critique of his depraved movement -- from soup to nuts -- and reprinted it as their own Breathless Epiphany without mentioning us dirty hippies at all.  

The Enlightenment Project

David Brooks

...

Hill didn’t say it, but I’d add that anti-Enlightenment thinking is also back in the form of Donald Trump, racial separatists and the world’s other populist ethnic nationalist movements.

Today’s anti-Enlightenment movements don’t think truth is to be found through skeptical inquiry and debate. They think wisdom and virtue are found in the instincts of the plain people, deep in the mystical core of the nation’s or race’s group consciousness.

Today’s anti-Enlightenment movements believe less in calm persuasion and evidence-based inquiry than in purity of will. They try to win debates through blunt force and silencing unacceptable speech.

...

When Trump calls the media the “enemy of the people” he is going after the system of conversation, debate and inquiry that is the foundation for the entire Enlightenment project...

Of course, "Repeating as Breathless Epiphany stuff that thoughtful Liberals have been saying for the last 30 years" used to be Mr. Andrew Sullivan's job back when he was a "blogger" (as you might have heard me mention once or twice) -- 

-- but now that Mr. Sullivan is busy not-blogging at New York Magazine about how we Liberal sons-of-bitches are responsible for spawning Conservatism's worst hate-mongers,  I guess Mr. David Brooks now has the duty.

(Heh.  He said "doodie")

If you would like to read whole books on the subject by respectable people who were saying all of this a long time ago, you could pick up a copy of "Bush's Fringe Government" by  Garry Wills (2006) or anything by Frank Schaeffer.

If you would like to read articles in respectable magazines that were saying all of this a long time ago, you could do worse than "America Rapture" from Vanity Fair in December, 2005:

...
Best-selling author and evangelical leader Tim LaHaye has contacts that extend to the White House. That could spell trouble, since his theology espouses a bloody apocalypse in Israel.

“LaHaye writes as if there’s a humanist brain trust sitting around reading [American philosopher and educational reformer] John Dewey, trying to figure out ways to destroy Christianity,” says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates and the co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.

“In LaHaye’s world, there are the godly people who are on their way to the Rapture,” says Berlet. “And the rest of the world is either complicit with the Antichrist or, worse, actively assisting him. If you really believe in End Times, you are constantly looking for agents of Satan.… [And if] political conflicts are rooted in the idea that your opponent is an agent of the Devil, there is no compromise possible. What decent person would compromise with evil? So that removes it from the democratic process.

“Conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation want to roll back the New Deal. LaHaye wants to roll back the Enlightenment.”
...

Or, if you prefer taking your drams of "We Fucking Told You So" on the less reputable side of town, you could always stop by the Liberal blogosphere, where the glasses are dirty, but the pours are generous

From me back in 2006) ...

Like Colonial Williamsburg or South Dakota, Americans had manufactured another wholly fake community for some socially intriguing reason that our descendants (or the descendants of the people we speak to when we call the 800-number on the back of our major appliances when they flake out) will theorize cleverly about. 

That rather than efficiently generically engineering the incapacitating disease of conservative fundamentalism out of our blood, we humanely gave them their own s-l-o-w children’s camp. It was a dim-but-cheery place with its own, comforting fake history of the planet, its own cartoon God, and even its own news network that told the stupid people that God loved them better than anyone else. That they didn’t need sense enough to pound sand or as much compassion as God gave a Pitcher plant, as long as they were “Saved”. 

And anyway, they weren’t really stupid. 

The “elites” were stupid.

And maybe these “Flowers For AlgernonLand” designers even had a few chuckles at the expense of their devolved fellow citizens; perhaps once in a while laughing themselves to tears as the dense denizens of the place scared themselves over and over again scampering down “The dimly lit Corruption galleries, by comparison, will feature videos of pain and suffering, noxious odors and the heat, literally, turned up.”

Dumbing down by several orders of magnitude a complex allegory about the inherency of pain and loss in a dualistic Universe within the field of Time…into God’s own a Pull-My-Finger joke. 

At least I hope that’s the tale they’ll tell themselves, because the truth is so much simpler and sadder. 

The truth is that for all of its think tanks, fake media and Small Gummint bluster, the Republican Party would evaporate tomorrow like dew in a firestorm if it were not kept lavishly stocked with bigots and idiots. Without its bumper crop of racists yielded from the Southern Strategy, its millions of fanatically anti-Enlightenment Christopaths and the millions of garden variety stupids, the GOP would be one dead fucking parrot…and the people running the Party like a Long Con damned well know it.

...

From me, again, back in 2006:

...the Battle of Tours took place on a particular date and no other, within a particular context. 

Hannibal was not defeated by Tomahawk missiles. 

The atomic weight of Selenium is 78.96. 

You cannot poke the Moon with a stick, no matter how high a roof you find to perch on and how much on ippy-tippy-toes you stand.

Even if you stand on your brother’s shoulders on that very same roof and he stands on ippy-tippy-toes.

Even if you throw the stick. Unless you throw it at upwards of 25,000 miles per hour. And have VERY good aim.

So literality has its uses, but it becomes a cultural disaster when you try to crush faith into that frame, and it is at this point at which these so-called Christians fail Christianity; at which Fundamentalist try to mortar-and-pestle the poetry and parable of religion onto their tiny skulls. This is the precise mile-marker at which millions upon millions of American’s have decided to abandon the Enlightenment and flee pell-mell back into darkness.

Hey look!  It's me back in 2007!

And since today's GOP will always put Party ahead of Nation, and will never risk it’s long-term project oblivion by eradicating the Wingnuts who win it’s elections, staff its phone banks, stuff its envelopes and define it’s dogmatic parameters, they will keep this country stuck in a religious-hypocrisy-stasis in the exactly the same way we were was stuck in a civil-rights-stasis when we castigated the USSR for human rights abuses abroad while tolerating segregation and lynching here at home.

I mean, who in their right mind is going to believe that we stand for Enlightenment and Democracy as long as preening demagogues and raging fascists like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity continue to be the faces and voices of one of our two main political Parties?...

So there's that.

But sadly, dear reader, I feel I must inflict one more reprint on you to make a larger and very creepy point. Specifically, that in order to keep their High and Holy Church of Both Siderism from collapsing completely, Beltway Conservatives are now resorting to pretending that the American Civil War never happened.

Allow me to repeat that.

Beltway Conservatives are now resorting to pretending that the American Civil War never happened.

ABC News' chief political analysis -- Mr. Matthew Dowd -- did so just last week: imploring The Bastard President to look to Mount Rushmore  to understand what makes leader's great.  As examples of great leaders who "unify the country and build up the bonds that linked all Americans to each other."

Here is part of what I wrote in reply:

...

Yeah, the monkey-wrench in this evergreen Beltway Both Siderist fairy unity tale is always Lincoln. The man who, along with George Washington, bookends the faces on Mount Rushmore.   Who launched his political career about two miles of my little house right here in the middle of Middle America, and whose tomb is my town's most famous and revered site.

Lincoln -- America's first Republican president -- did, in fact, attempt to "unify the country and build up the bonds that linked all Americans to each other".  But the slave-holding South would have none of it: their fervent belief their "peculiar institution" was both sanctioned by Almighty God and critical to their economic future made unity or compromise so unthinkable that they seceded from the Union and turned their guns on the federal government rather than discuss the matter any further. Convinced that they were fighting with the Lord on their side against an implacable and existentially evil enemy, they launched a civil war that ended only after their cities were burned, their ships sunk, their armies destroyed and their Confederacy blown to bits at the cost of over 600,000 dead.

And even after America paid this terrible price to settle the question of slavery once and for all, the minute the Union army's boot was taken off of their collective throats, the states of the former Confederacy immediately went back to their old ways and Jim Crow was born.

So "unity" my shiny metal ass...

Which brings us back to Mr. David Brooks in The New York Times today:

When anti-Enlightenment movements arose in the past, Enlightenment heroes rose to combat them. Lincoln was no soulless technocrat. He fought fanaticism by doubling down on Enlightenment methods, with charity, reason and patience. He worked tirelessly for unity over division. He was a hopeful pessimist who knew the struggle would be long but he had faith in providence and ultimate justice.

And again, "unity" my shiny metal ass.

In the face of such blatant and radical revisionism marshaled in defense of a lifetime of fraud and incompetence, what can one say but, Holy Fuck, David!  Literally the only earned credential you have to your name is a bachelors degree in history from the University of Chicago, David, and you forgot the fucking Civil War.

How, David?

How the fuck do you forget the fucking Civil War?

But in the Case of Carlos...

I live just about equidistant between Chicago -- where I called home for 25 years -- and West Frankfort -- which I have never visited.

In other words, about halfway between Il Douche's Terrifying Cartoon Municipal Hellscape and deepest, whitest Trump Country.

And now federal immigration agents have done what no other force on Earth has been able to do: crack the heretofore impenetrable barrier of Hate Radio and white grievance behind which so much of Rustbelt America walls itself off from the real world, and inflict a little reality on the good folks of Pleasantville West Frankfort.

And they did not like it.  No sir.  Not one little bit.

From The New York Times:

He’s a Local Pillar in a Trump Town. Now He Could Be Deported. 

By MONICA DAVEYFEB. 27, 2017

WEST FRANKFORT, Ill. — Ask residents of this coal-mining crossroads about President Trump’s decision to crack down on undocumented immigrants and most offer no protest. Mr. Trump, who easily won this mostly white southern Illinois county, is doing what he promised, they say. As Terry Chambers, a barber on Main Street, put it, the president simply wants “to get rid of the bad eggs.”

But then they took Carlos.

Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco — just Carlos to the people of West Frankfort — has been the manager of La Fiesta, a Mexican restaurant in this city of 8,000, for a decade. Yes, he always greeted people warmly at the cheerfully decorated restaurant, known for its beef and chicken fajitas. And, yes, he knew their children by name. But people here tick off more things they know Carlos for.

How one night last fall, when the Fire Department was battling a two-alarm blaze, Mr. Hernandez suddenly appeared with meals for the firefighters. How he hosted a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day at the restaurant last summer as police officers were facing criticism around the country. How he took part in just about every community committee or charity effort — the Rotary Club, cancer fund-raisers, cleanup days, even scholarships for the Redbirds, the high school sports teams, which are the pride of this city.

“I think people need to do things the right way, follow the rules and obey the laws, and I firmly believe in that,” said Lori Barron, the owner of Lori’s Hair A’Fairs, a beauty salon. “But in the case of Carlos, I think he may have done more for the people here than this place has ever given him. I think it’s absolutely terrible that he could be taken away.”

...

Yes indeed.  Heck of a guy is Carlos.  Just the sort of person that breathes life into a little town whose glory days of coal and more coal have slowly shuddered to a halt. And letters of support came pouring in from all the best people.

Tom Jordan, the mayor of West Frankfort, wrote that Mr. Hernandez was a “great asset” to the city who “doesn’t ask for anything in return.” The fire chief described him as “a man of great character.”

The letters have piled up — from the county prosecutor, the former postmaster, the car dealer, the Rotary Club president.

But here's the thing.  This 98.55% White community is typical of the little towns that make up Franklin county.  Aging, insular, coal county folk.  Redneck, although they'd hate to use that word...

“With everything that’s gone on — we’ve had years of unemployment rates that are skyrocketing — I would like to see some of the people that I know go back to work before I worry about people from other countries coming here and making a better life for themselves,” said Audrey Loftus, 38, a bartender at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. 

But Mr. Hernandez, Ms. Loftus said, has left her “on the fence” about what should happen now. “I hate to use the word rednecks, but this is southern Illinois.” she said. “This is the definition of a good old boys’ club, and you don’t have a lot of people of different ethnicities that are in this area.“And then there’s Carlos,” she continued. “You will not find a single person that has anything bad to say about him.”

...who went for Trump by an almost 3-to-1 margin.

And now, too late, the people of West Frankfurt are learning the lesson that everyone at the local VFW hall would have been able to recite by heart 70 years ago.

That fascism does not make exceptions.  

Not even in the case of Carlos.  

Sunday Morning Party Line

"Any sentence that begins 'But Republicans have to understand...' is semantically null and fundamentally ridiculous." -- driftglass

Framing, as any competent writer will tell you, is important.  So let's begin the story of today with life-long-Republican-turned-Independent-after-it-was-way-too-late, Michael Smerconish.  In the parlance of the holy game of poker, please observe how Mr. Smerconish sees David Brooks' tepid, mealy-mouthed concession that, yes, Conservatism really has been fucked-in-the-head for ten years, and then raises Mr. Brooks an addition two decades.

Both videos from Crooks & Liars:

Smerconish Tackles Limbaugh: 30 Years Planted Seed For Trump

Rush Limbaugh Didn't Make Her Vote For Trump?

From The New York Times, December 12, 1994 (emphasis added):

Republicans Get a Pep Talk From Rush Limbaugh

BALTIMORE, Dec. 10— To all the advice for the new Republicans coming to Congress, add this from Rush Limbaugh: A hostile press corps lurks inside the Beltway.

"You will never ever be their friends," the talk-show host warned most of the 73 Republican freshmen at a dinner here tonight. "They don't want to be your friends. Some female reporter will come up to one of you and start batting her eyes and ask you to go to lunch. And you'll think, 'Wow! I'm only a freshman. Cokie Roberts wants to take me to lunch. I've really made it!' " The audience laughed.

"Seriously," he added. "Don't fall for this. This is not the time to get moderate. This is not the time to start trying to be liked."

The freshman class, which included not a single "femi-Nazi," one of Mr. Limbaugh's favorite epithets for supporters of women's rights, whooped and applauded, proving itself one big fan club of the man it believes was primarily responsible for the Republican avalanche in November.

Mr. Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the class as its members tonight finished a three-day orientation here sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, two conservative Washington research organizations.

Barbara Cubin, an incoming freshman from Wyoming, told Mr. Limbaugh that because 74 percent of the nation's newspapers had endorsed Democrats, "talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide." On behalf of the women in the class, she gave him a plaque that said, "Rush Was Right." He also received a pin like the ones the freshmen wore, saying, "Majority Maker."

"Rush is as responsible for what happened here as much as anyone," said Vin Weber, a former Representative from Minnesota, now of Empower America. Citing a poll taken after the election by Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, Mr. Weber said that people who listened to 10 hours or more a week of talk radio voted Republican by a 3-to-1 margin. "Those are the people who elected the new Congress," he said.

...

He may have relentlessly promoted the "Contract With America" -- the Republican campaign agenda -- and trashed the Democrats all fall on his 659 radio stations and 225 television stations, but, he said, he was merely "validating" a feeling already abroad in the land.

...

In closing, he asked his audience to "leave some liberals alive" as artifacts so that "we can show our children what they were."

...

Quibble to your heart's content about the exact date the Party of Lincoln died and the Party of Jefferson Davis rose up in its place, but one thing can no longer be equivocated away: the Right has been out of its god damn mind and getting more depraved and reckless by the day for decades now.

Decades.

And since this horrifying trend was plainly observable for a long, long time to anyone who did not have an ideological or financial interest in pretending otherwise, it is time to state loudly and clearly that those who have spent a majority of their careers feeding the Beast instead of fighting the Beast have no business anywhere near the public square.  They have sided with fascists and racists and lunatics against facts and history and their own country.  They have flunked "Being an American 101."  They have (as Ted Sturgeon famously said of H.G. Wells' later work) sold their birthright for a pot of message.

And so we have one half of our frame; That Which Has Gone Before.

Here is the other half:  That Which Is Happening Now

From The Hill:

Tamron Hall leaving NBC as network makes room for Megyn Kelly

Tamron Hall is leaving NBC as the network makes way for Megyn Kelly at the 9 a.m. hour.

The company confirmed Hall's abrupt departure from both NBC, where she anchored the third hour of "Today" and MSNBC, where she served as a late-morning anchor.

NBC is believed to be making room for Kelly's new show during the four-hour "Today" time slot, and Hall and Al Roker's program will likely be cut.

The former Fox News star is expected to make her debut with NBC in the fall. She's under contract with Fox News until July, but signed off from the network in early January after announcing her decision to jump to NBC.

Kelly is reportedly making anywhere from $12 million to $15 million with NBC...

From Politico, January 5, 2017:

Greta Van Susteren to join MSNBC

Greta Van Susteren is joining MSNBC, taking over the channel's 6 p.m. time slot with a new show called "For the Record," the network announced Thursday.

Van Susteren’s show will feature both news and analysis, working as a bridge from MSNBC's dayside news shows into its more opinion and analysis-focused primetime. She starts on Jan. 9, and the show will be based out of Washington D.C.

“Greta is a true pro with a proven record of tough journalism,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement. “Her broad range of experience and sharp news judgment will be of great value to MSNBC as we build on our momentum going into a new year and a new administration.”...

From Mediaite yesterday:

REPORT: Gretchen Carlson Considering a Move to Join MSNBC

Because the media is a racket,  And as far as the corporations who own the media are concerned, there are no villains, only ratings.  And working for Team Evil is no different than working for the putative Good Guys; just interchangeable lines on a resume and fungible Q Scores:

The Q Score (more popularly known as Q-Rating) is a measurement of the familiarity and appeal of a brand, celebrity, company, or entertainment product (e.g., television show) used in the United States. The higher the Q Score, the more highly regarded the item or person is among the group familiar with them.

And if you believe otherwise?   Well..

...you are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. 

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today...

The networks shovel shit and call it "news" because it's cheaper and much less risky than reporting on the actual news.  For example, the news that there is a fascist halfwit in the White House because the party that elected him are a shitpile of thugs, con men, demagogues and simpletons is terrifying, and so the shit they shoveled this week?

Awfully thin.

On "This Week..." we learned that presidential spokes-potato, Huckabee The Lesser, is not actually authorized to speak for Il Douche on any subject whatsoever, except, obviously, to reiterate that Obamacare is the worst mistake since The Phantom Menace and that Il Douche is awesome!

HUCKABEE-SANDERS: Well, that's a question you'd have to ask the president.

HUCKABEE-SANDERS: Look, I'm not going to speak specifically for the president on that topic...

HUCKABEE-SANDERS: You know, I certainly can't speak to the military...

HUCKABEE-SANDERS: I haven't had the chance to speak with him directly about that, but I would imagine...

And since she also can't juggle or sing or do simple math by stomping her hoof on the ground, I see no reason why this waste of carbon was on the teevee machine at all.

Also, shockingly, Girl Scouts apparently egg houses with such frequency in "The South" that they have a quaint local saying about it.  You know, we in "The North" have a quaint local saying about the likes of Susan Huckabee Sanders, so maybe we're not so different after all:

On Meet the Press...

...Chuck Todd said, "drip, drip, drip".
...Town Hall attendees said, "Do your job. Do your job. Do your job. Do your job."
...Chuck Schumer said, "Dump Trump. Dump Trump."
...and Charles Baudelaire said, "Always be a poet, even in prose."  But not on Meet the Press.

Newly-elected DNC Chair Tom Perez said a lot, most of which I couldn't bring myself to care about too much.  Seems like a nice guy.  Said all the required peppy, slogany-things.  Go win me some elections, Tom, and we'll talk.

Certified Ozark corn-pone peddler, Tom Cotton, lied his fool head off about the future of health insurance and said everybody should just chill the fuck out about Vlad the Elector working Trump like a sock-puppet because something something "the process" and people'r gettin' out too far over their damn skis.  Under a very nice Castilian Round Oak Dining Table somewhere, Mr. David Brooks is hugging a bottle of very good tequila, weeping as a child would weep and saying to no one in particular, "Why Tom?  Why!  Did! You!  Do!  This!  To! Me!"  

But don't worry; his interns have seen this before many times and they know how to dry him out.

And speaking of former David Brooks' interns who are suddenly someplace they would rather not be, NBC keeps trying to make Ramesh Ponnuru happen.  Ramesh Ponnuru is not going to happen.  Also, I have no idea if Mr. Ponnuru is, in fact, a former David Brooks' intern, but it seems to fit, so like Chuck Todd, I'm going to leave it there!

Elsewhere, a giddy old lush --

Boehner: Republicans won't repeal and replace Obamacare

'They’re basically going to fix the flaws and put a more conservative box around it,' Boehner said

-- and the Viscount of Thee Noble Fief of Ohio --

Governor Kasich Wants To Prevent Millions From Losing Healthcare

-- both agree that any attempt to roll back Obamacare without replacing it with something even more awesome would be The Ring of political maneuvers.  Try it and seven days later you will be politically dead:

And if either Kasich or Boehner swung any political cod at all within the national Republican party, their quaint opinions might actually mean something.

But Il Douche rules the Party of Jefferson Davis now.

And any analysis that is predicated on the notion that 'But Republicans have to understand...' is semantically null and fundamentally ridiculous." 

A Study in Varlet

Who knew that the last 25 years of conflict about the nature and condition of American Conservatism could be summarized by two short, classic film clips?

And both by guys names Kevin!

Generally. over the last quarter of a century, Liberal commentary on state of American Conservatism has been this:

And the Conservative commentary on the condition its condition was in has been this:

Finally, Friday, there came a quiet concession of sorts from Mr. David Brooks.  Not regarding his own personal dishonesty or sanctimony, of course.  And not about the interlocking, toxic fairy tales and frauds that he has been peddling as public intellectualism for his entire adult life.

But now that the terrible hour about which Liberals have been sounding the alarm has come round at last -- now that the wingnut Rough Beast has slouched all the way to the White House to the sound of Mr. Brooks' Republican Party cheering wildly -- for a moment Mr. Brooks had no words left to hide behind.

From The News Hour:

MARK SHIELDS: ... We saw that at the CPAC convention, Judy. That was a total surrender of the Reagan era. Ronald Reagan is gone.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Wow.

MARK SHIELDS: He is nothing but a distant memory.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gone?

MARK SHIELDS: Well, seeing that party today, I mean, he stood up and he said, you finally have a president, you finally have a president. I am the future.

And what did he get? Hosannas and huzzahs and genuflection. It was a total takeover of the conservative movement. Like, that’s what the conservative movement has become, is basically an annex of the Trump campaign.

DAVID BROOKS: I wish I could disagree.

...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think the two are now one, that it’s the Trump and the conservative …

DAVID BROOKS: I don’t know if it will be forever, but, for this moment, yes, for sure.

Steve Bannon went to the CPAC this week and he said that there was a very important historical turning point, getting rid of the TPP. And the Republican Party has stood for that for as long as I have been alive.

And then Trump today, he — you know, buy American, buy American, anti-free trade, and got big cheers. They’re waving Russian flags, probably partly as a joke. But, still, the party has become an ethnic nationalist party.

And I don’t think it’s just because they, oh, that we agree with Trump on some things and not on others. I do think, over the last 10 years, a lot of Republicans have decided it’s not working, what the party believed in, free trade, global capitalism, open borders.

They looked at basically the failed wars and they said, oh, this, us being the policeman of the world, that is not working.

And so something really serious has shifted in the minds of Republicans and certainly others...

Of course Mr. Brooks' time-line is ridiculous and self-serving -- for example, anyone who saw the GOP gleefully toss the keys to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh back in 1994 knew this would all end in tears.  But no one who saw Il Douche basking in the adulation of the aspiring squires and baronets of the Conservative movement at CPAC can continue to pretend that the Party of Lincoln still exists.

So it turns out. the Kevin McCarthys have most definitely been right all along.  And the Kevin Bacons have been unequivocally wrong all along. Which brings us to this depressing question.

Going forward, which of the Kevins will be getting reserved seating on America's premier Sunday morning public interest talk shows?

Because we are fighting monsters now.

And in this war, there is no middle ground.

Professional Left Podcast #377

"Never, never, never give up."  

--  Winston Churchill, writer

Links:

• Louie Gohmert verus Gabby Giffords
• @flat Rodney Davis (our cardboard congressman)
• Driftglass on Nicholas Kristof
• Wonkette on Melania reading The Lord’s Prayer
• The Lord’s Prayer and how to say it (via Matthew 6)

The Professional Left is sponsored by...

...and, of course, listeners like you!

Breaking The Beltway Iron Rule of David Brooks

Few in the media dare to do it because of the career carnage that would ensue.  

I, on the other hand, have strategically spent the last 12 years making myself completely unemployable to every respectable news and opinion outfit in America.

So ha ha!  And onward!

For a very long time, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times has had a very simple job: extruding hundreds of thousands of "words" to prop up his ongoing fairy tale about a wholly Imaginary Republican Party full of wholly imaginary people who just so happened to believe exactly the same claptrap that Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times believes.

And then, just as happened to the fairy tale about the Exceedingly Awesome Military and Economic Genius of George W. Bush which had maintained Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times in great material comfort back when he was Mr. David Brooks of The Weekly Standard, the actual actions of the actual Republican Party screwed up his scam and forced him to scramble around to find new things to lie about.

Which bring us to today, in which Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times seems to be trying to recast himself as a the Lord Carnarvon of the PBS Green Room.  Trying heroically to excavate a few unpleasant "facts" about the Party of Trump from beneath the mountain of bullshit under which they are buried...

...while very carefully avoiding any mention of the fact that he himself was the creator of that mountain of bullshit.

And I'm sure he'll get away with it for the same reason Mr. David Brooks always gets away with it: because his colleagues are all also so deeply complicit it America's unfolding political disaster -- so sunk to their chinny-chin-chins in the same mountain of bullshit from which Mr. Brooks is quietly trying to extricate himself -- that they don't dare say a fucking word.

Which is why I am here.

So for today's small but instructive lesson in how The Beltway Iron Rule of David Brooks operates, let us open our browsers to Mr. Brooks' column today, "The National Death Wish". which I shall sprinkle liberally with Liberal emphases to draw your restless eye:

A few weeks ago, Tom Cotton and David Perdue, Republican senators from Arkansas and Georgia, introduced an immigration bill that would cut the number of legal immigrants to this country each year in half, from about a million to about 500,000.

In a press conference, Cotton offered a rationale for his bill. “There’s no denying this generation-long surge in low-skilled immigration has hurt blue-collar wages,” he said. If we can reduce the number of low-skill immigrants coming into the country, that will reduce the pool of labor, put upward pressure on wages and bring more Americans back into the labor force.

It seems like a plausible argument. That is, until you actually get out in the real world.

Cotton and Perdue’s position, which is now the mainstream Republican position, is based on the unconscious supposition that American society is like a lake, with a relatively fixed boundary. If you cut the supply of fish coming from outside, there will be more food for the ones born here...

Therein follows with worse mangling of the plot of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" that I have ever read.  But the upshot is clear:  Senators Cotton and Perdue have their heads up their asses and are behaving like morons and in the end we'll all pay for their cupidity:

...If the Cotton-Perdue bill became law, the working-age population would shrink, the nation would age and America would decline. 

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why so many Republicans prefer a dying white America to a place like, say, Houston.

Then comes the gratuitous, obligatory, drive-by shot at Liberals because...Liberals.

Cotton and Perdue are the second coming of those static mind-set/slow-growth/zero-sum liberals one used to meet in the 1970s. They’ll dry up the river. I wish they had a little more faith in freedom, dynamism and human ingenuity.

Not to be a pedant, but since Mr, Brooks was born in 1961, that would mean that he was between the ages of 9 and 18 during "the 1970s", and I cannot imagine that he ran into that many "static mind-set/slow-growth/zero-sum liberals" while being relieved of his lunch money and dodging swirlies in the halls of dear old Radnor High School.

So what the fuck, David?

Ditto "the 1980s" much which Mr. Brooks appears to have spent trying to get laid by calling himself a "Social Democrat" and who was mostly known for getting kicked around by Milton Friedman on videotape.

But leaving that bit of crass resume-burnishing aside, let us focus on the villains of Mr. Brooks' parable today. Senators Cotton and Perdue.  Bad hombres indeed.

And if you are wondering why oh why these names sound so familiar, well now is the moment when we break the Beltway Iron Rule of David Brooks and plunge boldly into The Very Recent Past.  To just a little over two years ago, when Mr.. David Brooks sounded the Republican All Clear.   Olly olly oxen free, everybody.  The dysfunctional nutjob Age of Palin passed!

And who was going to be the heroes of this new and noble Age of True Conservatism?

Those very same bad hombres.

The big Republican accomplishment is that they have detoxified their brand. Four years ago they seemed scary and extreme to a lot of people. They no longer seem that way. The wins in purple states like North Carolina, Iowa and Colorado are clear indications that the party can at least gain a hearing among swing voters. And if the G.O.P. presents a reasonable candidate (and this year’s crop was very good), then Republicans can win anywhere. I think we’ve left the Sarah Palin phase and entered the Tom Cotton phase. 

--  David Brooks, November 5, 2014.

The Governing Party

Every party in opposition goes a little crazy. For Republicans in the early Obama era, insanity took the form of the Sarah Palin spasm. Veteran politicos took the former Alaska governor seriously as a national figure. Republican primary voters nominated the likes of Todd Akin, Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle. Glenn Beck seemed important enough to hold a big rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Fortunately, serious parties eventually pull back from the fever swamps. That’s what’s happening to the Republican Party. It has re-established itself as the nation’s dominant governing party.

...

Republicans didn’t establish this dominant position because they are unrepresentative outsiders. They did it because they have deep roots in four of the dominant institutions of American society: the business community, the military, the church and civic organizations.

Look at the Republicans who were elected to office on Tuesday...

David Perdue, who was elected senator in Georgia, was senior vice president for Asian operations for the Sara Lee Corporation. He moved to Haggar Clothing before becoming C.E.O., successively, of Reebok, Pillowtex and Dollar General.

...

Tom Cotton, elected senator in Arkansas, graduated from Harvard before working at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, serving in the Army and going off to McKinsey.

Republicans won this election in part because they re-established their party’s traditional personality. The beau ideal of American Republicanism is the prudent business leader who is active in the community, active at church and fervently devoted to national defense.

...

The new Republican establishment is different from the old one. It is more conservative. It’s shaped more by the ideas of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and the American Enterprise Institute than it is by the mores of the country club. But, at least judging by the postelection comments coming from all corners, it does believe in politics, in legislating, in compromise.

...

-- David Brooks, November 5, 2014.

Conclusion:  Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times knows fuck-all about the American political system as it actually operates in the real world.

On another, related note, it is always heartening to see actual national paying media outfits (from The Nation yesterday):

It’s Time for David Brooks to Reckon With David Brooks
The New York Times columnist once worshipped at the altar of American “greatness,” too.

 In a March 1997 piece for The Weekly Standard, his then-employer, he summarized his credo. Entitled “A Return to National Greatness,” the essay opened with a glowing tribute to the Library of Congress and, in particular,
...

 This February, 20 years later, in a column with an identical title, but this time appearing in the pages of his present employer, The New York Times, Brooks revisited this theme.

-- slowly catching up with a dirty hippie writing on an ancient laptop from his little home in the middle of Middle America (from me three weeks ago):

David Brooks, The Swimmer

...

Well, The Swimmer has finally done it.  Finally made it all the way home.

Here is David Brooks 20 years ago, from March of 1997.Back when he was one of Bill Kristol's Neocon henchmen at The Weekly Standard:

A RETURN TO NATIONAL GREATNESS

A Manifesto for a Lost Creed

MAR 03, 1997 | By DAVID BROOKS

And here is Mr, David Brooks in The New York Times today, February 3, 2017, lying in a heap in front of his abandoned home, 20 years older and none the wiser.

A Return to National Greatness

David Brooks FEB. 3, 2017

Yep.  Same column.

Same.

God.

Damn,

Column...

Although it remains a mystery to me why none of them -- not one -- will just hire me to write this stuff in the first place.

NH Governor Signs "Here's a Big Pile of Guns, Everybody Grab as Many as You Can" Law

Which should thrill the fuck out of these people.

The odious Chris Sununu -- the misbegotten grandson of the odious John Sununu* -- would like everyone in New Hampshire to be armed to the teeth, and no one to know who is packing what.  

From HuffPo:

You No Longer Need A License To Carry A Concealed Weapon In New Hampshire

The state’s licensing requirement had been in place for nearly a century.

New Hampshire residents no longer need any kind of license to carry a concealed handgun after the state repealed a nearly century-old law that allowed police to deny concealed carry licenses to people they believed could pose a risk to others.

New Hampshire already permitted open carry, but local law enforcement long had discretion to deny individuals a license to carry a concealed weapon. The system, in place for 94 years, let police prevent people who they knew had a violent history from getting license.

On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) signed a law that simply allows residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license. Similar legislation had been twice vetoed by former Gov. Maggie Hassan (D)...

As the GOP rolls back rights for LGBT Americans, puts looters, polluters and anti-science goblins in charge of our air and water, rounds up our neighbors, openly conspires with our enemies and hides from their constituents...

...I'll be on my middle-class porch in the middle of Middle America, waiting for The New York Times Action Van to show up and ask me about my feelings.

In the meantime, to prep for what I'm sure is the Times' Roving Flyover Zeitgeist Action Team's imminent arrival, I shall bone up on what The Grey Lady is saying to America today.

Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy 

Nicholas Kristof  FEB. 23, 2017

Oh Jesus.  Really, Kristof?  Really?

Well, maybe it's a parody.  And I could really use a laugh right now.

...the comments...registering legitimate anxieties about President Trump — but also the troubling condescension that worried me in the first place. I fear that the (richly deserved) animus toward Trump is spilling over onto all his supporters.

I understand the vehemence. Trump is a demagogue who vilifies and scapegoats refugees, Muslims, undocumented immigrants, racial minorities, who strikes me as a danger to our national security. By all means stand up to him, and point out his lies and incompetence. But let’s be careful about blanket judgments.

Nope.

Not a parody.

So here's how this will go.

First. Kristof will know some guys.  Some guy from his home-town, or where he went to college, or where his car broke down that one time...

My hometown, Yamhill, Ore., a farming community, is Trump country... 

Check.

And these guys he knows?  They're not bigots at all!

 In Yamhill, plenty of well-meaning people were frustrated enough that they took a gamble on a silver-tongued provocateur. It wasn’t because they were “bigoted unthinking lizard brains,” but because they didn’t know where to turn and Trump spoke to their fears.

Check.

And now comes the money shot, because the whole reason for this column's existence is to spin a comforting fairy tale for Nick Kristof's hometown pals and his insulated Beltway readers.  That the real problem here is not the meatheads who elected The Bastard President, but my Liberal disdain for the meatheads who elected The Bastard President.

Or, rather, the three reasons why yadda yadda yadda because depending on word count requirements, there are always two or three reasons why this is all my fault:

There are three reasons I think it’s shortsighted to direct liberal fury at the entire mass of Trump voters, a complicated (and, yes, diverse) group of 63 million people.

Check.

First, stereotyping a huge slice of America as misogynist bigots is unfair and impairs understanding.

I'm sorry,  I couldn't hear can't hear you over the constant roar of tens of millions of Republicans screaming that I am an America-hating traitor out of tens of millions of radios for the last quarter of a century.

Maybe you missed it.  Maybe radio reception isn't so good in New York City.

But please, do go on.

Second, demonizing Trump voters feeds the dysfunction of our political system. One can be passionate about one’s cause, and fight for it, without contributing to political paralysis that risks making our country ungovernable. 

Tolerance is a liberal value; name-calling isn’t...

Our country is ungovernable, Nick, because your fucking homies, keep electing assholes who make it ungovernable.  Is there something in the water in Yamhill, Oregon that makes people just surreally stupid?  If so, maybe your homies could take it up with the Environmental Protection Agen...

Oh wait.

Never mind.

Your homies voted to liquidate the EPA.

Because Freedom!  And because I was mean to them.

The third reason is tactical: It’s hard to win over voters whom you’re insulting...

Again, can't quite hear you over the etcetera, etcetera and also --

-- the etcetera.

But sure, please ramble on

Yes, the Trump camp includes some racists and other bigots. But it’s a big camp, and let’s not be so quick to affix labels on every member of a vast group.

Yes.  Only some of them are bigots.  And only some of them are homophobes.  And only some of them are xenophobes. And only some of them are misogynists.  And only some of them are fascists.

The rest are obviously either just as dumb as a bag of hammers, or are, for some reason, really, really, really comfortable with bigots and homophobes and xenophobes and misogynists and fascists.

Go ahead and denounce Trump’s lies and bigotry. Stand firm against his disastrous policies. But please don’t practice his trick of “otherizing” people into stick-figure caricatures, slurring vast groups as hopeless bigots.

Translation:  Please don't hold voters in a democracy responsible for the votes they cast.

If you need me, I'll be out on the porch, Nick.

Waiting for the van.

*Thanks for the catch, mystery editor

Stupid Shit Andrew Sullivan Says Continues

Mr. Andrew Sullivan -- who is definitely not blogging -- wants to make it very clear right from the start that he is not blaming Liberals for the existence of Trump's very own malformed H.R. Haldeman homunculus, Stephen Miller:

No, I’m not blaming liberals for Miller’s grim fanaticism.

And then he goes on to explain how, you know, when you really think about it, you know what? Liberals really are to blame for the existence of ambulatory Conservative malignancies like Stephen Miller.

I feel like I know him because I used to be a little like him. He’s a classic type: a rather dour right-of-center kid whose conservatism was radicalized by lefties in the educational system.

...

Before too long, they start adopting brattish and obnoxious positions — just to tick off their SJW peers and teachers. After a while, you’re not so much arguing for conservatism as against leftism, and eventually the issues fade and only the hate remains.

...

And then, as he rambles on a little further into this definitely-not-a-blog-post about how Liberals are to-blame/not-to blame for Stephen Miller, Mr. Sullivan gets around to blaming us for Laura Ingraham.

And Ann Coulter.

And Milo Yiannopoulos.

Think Ingraham and Coulter and Yiannopoulos. They are reactionaries in the classic sense: Their performance-art politics are almost entirely a reaction to the suffocating leftism that they had to endure as they rose through the American education system. 

...

I think of Ann Coulter, whom I met recently, backstage at Bill Maher’s show. What struck me was her sincerity, searing intelligence, and grasp of the facts. In another universe, she could have become a reasoned defender of a sane conservatism. Instead she ended up writing In Trump We Trust. In exactly the same way, Miller really is a product of Santa Monica and Duke — their living, breathing, raving antibody.

And then of course, there is the -- ahem -- money thing, 

Of course I knew better — and could have made a decent argument for deterrence instead of behaving like a brattish dick. But I didn’t. I wanted to annoy and disrupt the smugness around me. If you never mature, this pose can soon become your actual personality — especially when you realize that it can also be extremely lucrative in the conservative-media industrial complex.

Andrew Sullivan; still putting the "ass" in passive aggressive.

Longtime readers might remember that I have written once or twice about how the extremely morally flexible Mr. Sullivan bailed out of the lucrative "Apologist for the depravity of Conservatism" business when the market for it started to crash under Dubya, and, along with his pals David Brooks and David Frum and Ross Douthat (and all the rest of the usual suspects) got into the lucrative "Blaming Both Side for the depravity of Conservatism" business before the paint on the walls of the High and Holy Cult of Both Siderism was dry.  

And just like Brooks and Frum and Douthat and all the rest of the usual suspects, Mr. Sullivan did it all without ever once taking any responsibility for the monsters his movement has spawned, or daring to mention that we dirty Liberals had been right about the Right all along.

Also according to Mr. Sullivan's latest non-blog post, Steve Bannon is a very bad hombre, and The Young Pope is a good show.  

Which only begins to scratch the surface "Things no sane person needs New York Magazine to pay Andrew Sullivan to tell them."

President Evilene

Don't nobody bring him no bad news.

The taxpayer-funded nannies the White House now employee to keep President Angry Man-Baby from nuking Greece because he had that bad gyros that one time have figured out that the only reliable way to Il Douche's heart is through his planet-sized narcissism.

From Politico:

How Trump’s campaign staffers tried to keep him off Twitter

The trick? Making sure his media diet included a healthy dose of praise.

...

The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk.

"If candidate Trump was upset about unfair coverage, it was productive to show him that he was getting fair coverage from outlets that were persuadable," said former communications director Sam Nunberg. "The same media that our base digests and prefers is going to be the base for his support. I would assume the president would like see positive and preferential treatment from those outlets and that would help the operation overall."

...

On the one hand. at this point "We Fucking Told You So" hardly seems adequate.

On the other hand,  I'll bet all your wingnut friends and relatives believe Il Douche is doing a bang-up job.

And there is the problem.  There is the Terrible Truth that only despised Liberals dare to utter.

It's not Trump.

It's all of them.  And it always has been.

Gutless Gohmert

It should surprise no one that the Stupidest Man in Congress would try to hide from his constituents by cowering behind a woman.

But even I was surprised that the woman Louis Gohmert (R-Deliverance) would try use as human shield would be Gabby Giffords.  From The Hill:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Thursday invoked the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) at a constituent event as a reason not to hold a public town hall.

"At this time there are groups from the more violent strains of the leftist ideology, some even being paid, who are preying on public town halls to wreak havoc and threaten public safety," Gohmert said in a statement.

"Threats are nothing new to me and I have gotten my share as a felony judge. However, the House Sergeant at Arms advised us after former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot at a public appearance, that civilian attendees at Congressional public events stand the most chance of being harmed or killed—just as happened there."

You may remember, that less than a month ago, Louis Gohmert was so overcome with concern with guns and public safety that he a co-sponsored a bill to make it easier for mentally ill people to buy an arsenal.

Because like any other vermin infestation, when you let Republicans run wild. this is just what they're gonna do.

CPAC: Funeral For a Fiend

For the last few days, some of the Very Best Beltway Media People have been sitting on the porch, passing the jug around and remembering the days back when CPAC was a nice little gathering of intellectual giants who sipped port and debated Burke in front of a small, well-behaved audience of star-struck kids who just lurved Murrica so god damn much it'd just make you cry.

And them Trump and Milo came along and fucked it all up which is why Conservatism can't have nice things.

From Ezra Klein, former Liberal turned Important Media Executive:

I've been to CPAC many times. I admire conservatism as an intellectual tradition. The descent into Trumpism and Miloism is bad for us all.

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) February 20, 2017

From Kathleen Parker, nationally-syndicated conservative Pollyanna who has recently taken to feigning shocked when conservatives behave like conservatives:

At CPAC, conservatism betrayed

By Kathleen Parker Opinion writer February 21 at 8:05 PM
Remember when conservatism meant deep thinkers and big ideas? Get over it.

Today, conservatism means get your Miley (Cyrus) on and show us your tongue, shout Trump to the rafters, pay up for the privilege of “free speech,” and young — very young — “love.”

Or so it would seem, judging by this year’s lead-up to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference that begins here Wednesday. If young conservatives came looking for mentors and for values confirmation, they may have wasted their ticket...

You get the idea.

But here'e the thing.

You know what actually fucked up the annual gathering of the wingnut tribes at the Conservative Political Action Committee?

Conservatism.

And you know when Conservatism was officially FUBAR?

Decades ago.

Of course you're not going to hear that from media professionals whose stock-in-trade is hawking the comforting fairy tale of Conservatism's glorious Pre-Trump/Milo days to the rest of their Beltway friends, which is why I feel I must take it upon myself to once again take you back...back...back in time.

Back to when Donald Trump was just another rich, loud, racist real estate asshole gaming America's bankruptcy courts and screwing the people who worked for him out of an honest day's pay.

Back to when Milo was just a cluster of cells being cultured in a Petri dish by a handful of lunatics in Paraguay:

Back to when I wrote this in 2008...

Big Fucknozzle Trade Show


hits D.C. this week.

For all nine-minutes of bullshit, faux-introspection chin-music that came from the Right about change, future and vision after they got hog-slaughtered in the last two elections, if you want to know what is really at the corrupt, oozy heart of the American Conservative movement (and its filthy little avatar, the Republican Party) look no further than their ideological trade show: the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC.

How do I know?

'Cause Dick Cheney tells me so (from the CPAC website):

“CPAC has consistently over the years championed those ideas that have made America great: limited government, free enterprise, low taxes and a strong national defense."

– Vice President Dick Cheney

“CPAC has never been more important!"

– Amb. John Bolton

“… A showcase of the heart and soul of American conservatism”

– Los Angeles Times

“CPAC is the preeminent yearly gathering of conservative activists."

– The Washington Post

And since bullshit walks and money pays the piper and calls the tune, who finances this freak show? Who lays out genuine coin of the realm for this three day Course in Wingnut Miracles, and what do those sponsors believe is the real problem with America?

The American Conservative Union: who believe that OSHA, commies and liberals are destroying America.

Accuracy in Media: who believe that liberal control of the media is destroying America.

Advocacy Ink : who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Alliance Defense Fund: who believe that non-Christians, queers, unregulated vaginae and porn are destroying America.

American Civil Rights Union: who believe that militant atheists are destroying America.

American Federation of Senior Citizens: who believe that liberals are destroying America.

American Future Fund: who believe that non-Limbaugh-approved thoughts are destroying America.

American Service Council, Inc.: who believe that "socialized oil" is destroying America.

American for Tax Reform: who believe that taxes are destroying America.

Americans for Limited Government: who believe that Evil Gummint things are destroying America.

Americas Majority: who believe that non-Judeo Christian morals are destroying America.

AT&T: who believes that iPhones are destroying America.

Black Republican PAC: who believe that the 99.7% of African Americas who are not self-loathing enough to join the GOP are destroying America.

BMW Direct, Inc.: who believe that not hiring BMW Direct is destroying America.

Campaign for Liberty: who believe that any and all regulations of corporate interests are destroying America.

Capital Research Center: who believes that ACORN and labor unions are destroying America.

Catholic Family Caucus: who believe that people who point out their site is full of broken links are destroying America.

Center for Individual Freedom: who believe that people who point out that a site festooned with screaming eagles, flags and links to wingnut causes and spokesmodels is hardly "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Citizens in Charge Foundation: who believe that non-plebiscite-based Gummint thingies are destroying America.

Citizens United: who believe that things that don’t smell like Reagan's underpants are destroying America.

Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute: who believe that smelly liberal feminists are destroying America.

College Republican National Committee: who believe that "unions and leftist interest groups" are destroying America.

Competitive Enterprise Institute: Site offline, which can't be good for competitiveness.

Concerned Women for America: who believe that non-"Biblical values" are destroying America.

Congress of Racial Equality: not sure who they believe is destroying America, but its leader has great love for that pallet-truck-o-wingnut-crazy, Alan Keyes.

Congressional Effect Management: who believe that "the negative effects of Congressional deliberation on investor wealth" are destroying America.

Council for America: No site available, so America must remain dangerously uncounselled.

Culture 11: who seem to believe that doctrinaire wingnuts and plutocrat asswipes like virtually everyone else at CPAC are destroying America.

David All Group, LLC : who believe that the wingnut widget gap is destroying America.

David Horowitz Freedom Center: who believe that "All conservative action groups agree that" "the tenured radicals who have taken over America’s universities" are destroying America.

Eagle Forum: who believe that liberals, Messicans, a lack of ballistic missiles, non-Christians, queers and unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

Eberle Associates, Inc.: who believe bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

FairTax: who believe that the 16th amendment and its commie fellow travelers are destroying America.

Family Research Council: who believe that non-Christians, queers, unregulated vaginae and "ultraliberal judges" are destroying America.

Freedom Alliance : who believe that non-bomb-first/ask-questions-later policies are destroying America.

FreedomFest: who believe that not jamming the words "freedom" or "liberty" into every fucking sentence fragmentis destroying America.

Freedom's Defense Fund: who believe that "the radical left and their elitist allies in the mainstream media" are destroying America.

FreedomWorks: who believe that taxing rich people and evil gummint are destroying America.

Google: who believe that Yahoo and YouPorn are destroying America.

Hasan Family Foundation: who seem pretty cool.

Hispanic Leadership Fund: hard to tell but I'm guessing that if vouchers, free trade and tax cuts will save America, then unions and liberals will doom us all.

House Conservatives Fund : who believe that taxes, gays and non-Reagan-approved "conservatives" are destroying America.

HowObamaGotElected.com: who believe that the Evil Liberal Media who destroyed Sarah Palin and brainwashed America into voting for Obama are destroying America.

HSP Direct LLC: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Human Events: who believe that ideas that haven't passed through the colons of ""Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin, L. Brent Bozell, Terence Jeffrey, Bruce Bartlett, Thomas Sowell, David Limbaugh, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, etc." are destroying America.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute: who very probably would believe that people who point out that a site that's a tossed salad of commentary and books about "traditional values", liberal "tyranny", Conservative though, and the wit and wisdom of Robert Bork is hardly "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Intermarkets, Inc.: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Islamic Free Market Institute Foundation: who believe that taxes and regulations are destroying America.

Jim Worthing Productions: who believe that bad musical production values are destroying America.

John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs : who believe that all the usual suspects are destroying America.

Judicial Watch: would probably believe that people who point out that a site with a "Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians" for 2008 list that includes

1. Barack Obama for his "alliance with the sleazy ACORN operation's 'voter registration;" and 'get out the vote' efforts" and his "corrupt dealings with convicted felon Tony Rezko and unrepentant terrorist William Ayers"
2. Hillary Clinton for, among other things, "paid sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom, cattle futures fraud, and stealing White House furniture"
3. Some unwhitewashably-convicted Republican criminals like Ted Stevens thrown in for "balance"

but cannot seem to find the time or column inches to include war criminal, traitors and terrorists like George Bush and Dick Cheney really shouldn't be calling themselves "non-partisan" are destroying America.

Legacy List Marketing: who believe that out-of-date GOP mailing lists are destroying America.

Let Freedom Ring: Watch their ad
and then take a wild fucking guess at what they think is destroying America.

Libertarian Party: who believe that not letting wingnuts smoke pot is destroying America.

Liberty University School of Law: Hmmm. Jerry Falwell's Holy Fundy Law School? Let's take a moment and try to guess where it will come down on every single fucking thing.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: who very likely believe that people who point out that "Conservative think tank" is semantically equal to "Lemming 10K Cliff's Edge Fun Run to find a Cure for Death by Deceleration Trauma" are destroying America.

Media Research Center: who believe that the Sekrit Liberal Media Cabal are destroying America.

National Rifle Association: who believe that any opposition to a person's right to keep and bear ballistic missiles just like the Founders intended is destroying America.

National Right to Work: who believe that any attempt to organize working people out of debt peonage is destroying America.

National Taxpayers Union: who believe that any attempt to tax the beneficiaries of work class debt peonage is destroying America.

New York State Conservative Party: who believe that poor people, liberals and so forth are destroying America.

Pajamas Media/TV: who believe that those who mock the omniscient genius of Joe-the-Plumber/War Correspondent/Economic Analyst are destroying America.

PM Direct Marketing: who believe that anyone threatening to raise the price of wingnut junk mail is destroying America.

Politics Magazine: who believe that people who don’t get that politics is just a fucking business -- like farming, or plastics -- are destroying America.

Radio America: I don't know exactly who Radio America thinks is destroying America, but I'm guessing that any outfit which gives six hours of air time smack in the middle of every weekday to a stone sociopath like G. Gordon Liddy would have a list of America destroyers that wouldn't be too hard to figure out.

RegularFolksUnited.com: who believe that "elitists (yes, they are on both sides of the aisle) pretending they were doing things to help 'regular folks'" (while drooling over all thing Reagan and pumping out post after post about the Evil Left) are destroying America.

Save Our Secret Ballot: who believe that organized labor is destroying America.

Shirley & Banister Public Affairs: who believe that bad wingnut PR is destroying America.

Strategic Campaign Group: who believe that poor "Republican Campaign Consulting Management" are destroying America.

Susan B. Anthony List/Team Sarah: who believe that unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

Terra Eclipse: who believe that misaligned synergisms in the paradigm-shifting topography. Of new media. Platforms. Or something. Are destroying America.

The Heartland Institute: who believe that anti-tobacco and global warming kooks are destroying America.

The Heritage Foundation: who believe that The Left and all the lefty things we do are destroying America.

The Leadership Institute: who believe that a shortage of conservative leaders who understand the misaligned synergisms in the paradigm-shifting topography. Of new media. Platforms. Or something. Are destroying America.

The Poker Players Alliance: believes that regulations on internet gambling are destroying America.

The Republican Majority is a password-protected site. Hehehe. Big tent my ass.

The Washington Examiner: believes that those wacky liberals are destroying America.

The Washington Times: believes that the infidels who do not yet recognize the Most Reverend Sun Myung Moon's godhead are destroying America.

Townhall.com: believes that those who will not take advantage of their fabulous of one FREE copy of Ann Coulter's latest steaming slop bucket of bile and viper-head soup for every 12-month subscription to Townhall Magazine are destroying America.

Tradition, Family, Property: believes that the failing and "discredited" Theory of Evolution, Teh Gay and those damned unregulated vaginae are destroying America.

TV Watch: who believe that swill on the tube are destroying America.

Vernon K. Krieble Foundation: who believe that people who refuse to let the Free Market run buck wild are destroying America.

Victory Solutions LLC (whose website is currently and unironically down) believes that barriers to technologically-empowered the Right are destroying America.

Young America's Foundation: who believe that frivolous youth who are not "preserving and protecting Ronald Reagan’s Western White House—Rancho del Cielo—and using this historic presidential property and our newly renovated Reagan Ranch Center in downtown Santa Barbara, California, to pass on to future generations the ideas and lasting accomplishments of this great American President" are destroying America.

Young Americans for Freedom: who believe that Evil Gummint things are destroying America.

Youth For Western Civilization: who believe that Godless liberal multiculturalists who want defile to flower of our Southron Womanhood are destroying America.

And so, like any other catastrophically failed business being run by inflexible, third-generation, inherited-wealth-rich/brain-poor imbeciles, the GOP is absolutely incapable of coping with the fact that it’s core product is now less popular than road-kill-on-a-stick in the marketplace of ideas.

Because baby, to everyone Left of Genghis Khan, the headlong-into-the-abyss direction Party of God has been monstrous obvious for years now (from the late Steve Gilliard in 2005):

A note to our conservative friends:

WE TOLD YOU SO

Ever wonder why New Yorkers detest George Bush?

Because we experienced his incompetence up close and person. We knew this guy was full of shit, absolutely full of fucking shit, after they started to play games with the funding and gave Wyoming terrorism money. We knew he was an assclown then.

We thought DC 9/11 was a comedy, because the Bush we saw hid in AF One like the scared bitch that he is.

But did you listen?

Fuck no. Until last week, Ann Coulter was calling New Yorkers cowards for not endorsing Bush's folly in Iraq.

We have been screaming for two years that Bush and his team sucked. That they had no clue. They sent soldiers to be wounded in Iraq without armored anything. And you idiots cheered him on from the safety of your keyboards. We told you he was fucking up Iraq. But no, we supported Saddam, we were racist, we blamed America.

You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.

Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR.

CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.

Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you're shocked?
...

Instead of growing, learning or adapting, the same moral flatliners at the helm of the GOP have been staring at this arc of catastrophe year after year and using their media and money to hammer home the same mantra over and over again:

This. Can. Not. Be. True.

Like Big Finance and Big Auto, the Party of God has fallen.

And fallen.

And fallen.

Have fallen from Pepsi to Diet Shasta to Sam’s Choice Mountain Lightning.

To a boutique/nostalgia political-market loser that no one but double-wide dwelling Confederate States of America Re-enactors will swill.

So, like every other flailing, trust fund wannabe-J.P. Morgan with too much dough and not enough sense, the GOP is now doubling-down on its worst ideas 

‘cause that’s the way Daddy built the franchise!

Ignoring the fact that They Are The Fucking Problem, the brain-wizards on the Right – cursed with far too much power and not a lick of common sense – continue to fall like Lucifer, screaming louder and louder on the way down that it was all the fault of the fucking unions. Or taxes.

Or foreigners.

Or liberals.

Or wild vaginae.

Or gays.

Or atheists.

Or Darwin.

Among all the earnest mole rats that pay to put on this farce -- among all their pathetic sites encrusted with screaming eagles, garish flags, glowing crosses and Reagan-on-black-velvet paeans to the delusions of their youth -- you'll not find a single idea that hasn’t been as dead as disco for 20 years.

Not a single bogey man that wasn’t already long in the tooth back when drunken fiasco Joe McCarthy was using them to terrorize a different generation of Americans into giving up their freedoms.

And so, like every other gold-plated imbecile CEO, since the problem can’t possibly be as simple as your product sucks ass and kills people, it must be...marketing.

Which means we have reached that Exciting Moment in their death-spiral where the Party of God cries out for Madison Avenue to save them from oblivion and from being forced to face their own dead hearts and crippled souls, and they start drawing high-priced, jiggly-vocabularied consultants and marketing parasites

like a dead coyotes draws flies.

UPDATE: Welcome C&L visitors.