Sunday Morning Comin' Down

In which Paul Krugman recapitulates several thousand posts I written over the past 13 years (sample from December, 2008 -- and yes, Newt Gingrich really did go on Meet the Press to denounce "Republican-style attack politics” because Gingrich is a soulless, grifting monster and that was the direction the wind happened to be blowing that week)  --

The most intriguing turn of events happened on “Meet the Press” where you could almost hear the off-camera gear-grinding of the network's clatteringly awkward attempt at a party-line shift.

Of course you had typical, MSM comfort food. Things like a video of Noot! Gingrich taking a bold position that “People are tired of Republican-style attack politics” which for some reason was not followed by 20 solid minutes of artery-bursting, pee-spigotting, coffee-gushing-from-nostrils-like-David-Bowman-being-blown-out-an-airlock laughter.

Which ceases only as the laughers pass out from chortle-induced hypoxia, and awake, moments later, gasping and asking “He wasn’t really serious, right?”

I mean, Noot “Call ‘em traitors” Gingrich denouncing “Republican-style attack politics” verges deeply into Professor-Moriarty-standing-up-in-Parliament-demanding-stronger-Victorian-era-anti-fictional-supervillainy-laws territory.

So there was that.

And there was Rich Lowry pulling a wholly voodoo-based reading of recent history out of his ass to advise that we’re maybe having a “paradigm-shift” election because whatever it is we’re pissed about is coming to a head before Inauguration Day. Or something.

But it is a strange an magical day when a Washington Post financial writer (Michelle Singletary) quotes Proverbs – “The borrower is slave to the lender” -- at the Mouse Circus, and got even more entertaining as I watched the strong parallel between the collapse of the credit markets and the collapse of Conservatism play itself out in sharper relief than warm snuggly Centrist Committee Teevee usually allows.

Sunday the specific object was Rich Lowry.

Lowry is another in that subspecies of talent-challenged Conservative hacks who have commandeered serious media time and attention for far, far, far too long: those proudly turgid supporters of Sarah Palin and tireless advocates of “It's not torture if we do it. To brown people. Who scare me.” school of foreign policy who have gone so politically cyanotic rebreathing their little Randite beer-farts of Freedom that their faces have permanently frozen into blue-tinged smirks. But like the Banker Bubble, the collapse of the Wingnut Bubble means the careers of people like Lowry are now backed by worthless paper. He is now stuck in the drying mudhole of evaporating Republican delusions, pooping out tired retreads like “Both. Sides. Equally. Bad.” and “Iran/Contra = Monica Lewinski” and “No attacks on American soil”.

He is, in other words, every bit the same mendacious and ideologically-atherosclerotic organ-grinder's monkey screeching for coins he has always been, but instead of being Villager-polite and clubby-insider-deferential...

-- in one Tweet.

What we learned from today's talk shows: bothsidesism is a fanatical cult, impervious to contrary evidence. Trump could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and the usual suspects would blame incivility while Meet the Press would feature someone who urged him to pull the trigger

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) October 28, 2018

I've been at this a long, long time now and I know one thing:  nothing will change as long as men like Chuck Todd are more afraid of the Right than the Left. 

 ...Birthday Fundraiser!