Centerfield

What else is for them to do? Hatred of Bush is the only thing that is keeping them going, IMO. The reality is that they have to drop gay marriage or entirely unregulated abortion on demand from their platform, they don't want to do either, and they're going to keep losing votes until they do. One of the things that was hardest to belive about Thomas Frasnk' book was that he managed to identify that the Democrats have lost blue collar America over social issues, but having concluded as much, proceded to berate the blue collar workers for caring about the issues which they do, rather than berating to democrats for losing them over these issues.

Meanwhile, in the "history repeats itself as farce" department, Jane Fonda's anti-war vegetable-oil-fueled bus tour actually IS leaving the station.

But I disagree with the notion that the democrats are plunging into an imminent irrelevancy. I consider the democrats as a proxy for whichever part of America is not on board with the GOP. Either the democrats or some new party composed of moderate democrats and unsatisfied independents is going to emerge in solid opposition to the GOP. IMO the GOP is in the midst of its peak of power. The overreaching has already begun.

While there's no telling how long the peak will honeymoon, I feel pretty strongly that the pendulum's swing rightward is slowing prior to its swing back the other way. YMMV of course, it's really just a feeling.

I think you're on to something, Brian. I think that the GOP is either going to have a moderate swing, or (if the D's can ever get it together)2008 will be a year of reckoning. (Especially if a Frist/Santorum/Brownback type wins the nomination.)

Hillary is courting the center and unless Republicans move to counter, she's got a shot IMHO.

As far as the chant sessions go, it just keeps everyone fired up. But, you're right, if they can't turn these things into productive activities that are fit for the outside world, it's just a waste of time.

It's also odd in that if Bush were removed from office, he would be replaced by Chaney, who the left considers pure evil. But I guess they figure they could beat Chaney.

One of the reasons that the right has been winning is that it has been much more effective in channeling energy into productive politics rather than mere therapy.

...the now sacred Downing Street Memos...

...some sort of religious text...

Heh. Amen.

It's also odd in that if Bush were removed from office, he would be replaced by Chaney, who the left considers pure evil.

I think the goal is to get Nancy in the Speaker's Chair next Novemeber, and oust Bush and Cheney in one fell swoop. I don't see how Hastert or Stevens would be any more palatable to this crowd.

For years, it was said that liberals are too wishy washy and cold blooded...now, it seems like we're too passionate. *Sigh*

I doubt most of the people at the rally think they're really going to impeach W, any more than most of the people who buy lottery tickets think they're really going to win the lottery. It's just a daydream, or a pipe dream, if you want to be The Iceman Cometh about it.

There's passionate, and then there's obsessed past the point of reason. Remember the anti-Clinton right of the late '90's? I do. I remember watching some fairly bright wingers with legitimate questions go farther and farther off the deep end, denying that the Clinton admin could possibly have accomplished anything, and delving deeper and deeper into the Nutsville Caverns trying to dig up something, anything, that could justify the extent of their hatred. They never seemed to notice exactly when they stepped over the border into the wasteland--their procession into the unreal seemed a smooth and logical progression. To them, at least.

I remember the absolutely stupidest and craziest things and most unlikely being floated around in the name of "Get Willy," to the extent that real and substantive political issues became totally secondary to "gotcha" wingbattery. Anyone else remember the "murder" of Ron Brown?

I look around nowadays, and I get a not-so-curious sense of déjà vu.

I'm struck by these two observations

I consider the democrats as a proxy for whichever part of America is not on board with the GOP. Either the democrats or some new party composed of moderate democrats and unsatisfied independents is going to emerge in solid opposition to the GOP. IMO the GOP is in the midst of its peak of power. The overreaching has already begun.

Remember the anti-Clinton right of the late '90's? I do. I remember watching some fairly bright wingers with legitimate questions go farther and farther off the deep end...They never seemed to notice exactly when they stepped over the border into the wasteland...I remember the absolutely stupidest and craziest things and most unlikely being floated around in the name of "Get Willy," to the extent that real and substantive political issues became totally secondary to "gotcha" wingbattery... I look around nowadays, and I get a not-so-curious sense of déjà vu.

And yet in 2000 a Republican was elected (granted by a razor-thin to non-existant margin). To me that says the mushy middle assumes both parties drift to the wings and spend too much time shouting at each other. However, when election time comes it seems to matter only a little and they look at the candidates at hand. Hmmmm, sounds like a reasonable electorate.

If only the politicians were as reasonable as the electorate!

Uh...make that "negative 500,000 votes", c3. And there weren't any GOP gains in Rep or Senator races in 2000 either; there were losses. In fact, well...as Tully said, it's deja vu time. Let's just say that's it all a matter of what you say "elected" is. ;-)

But look on the bright side; no one on Air America is urging people to shoot cardboard cutouts of W and Laura, as Liddy did with the Clintons.

None of the Dem Senators are issuing veiled death threats, as in "W better not come to my state without a bodyguard."

None of the Dem commentators is urging "impeach or assasinate" the way Ann Coulter did with Bill Clinton.

Nobody is writing daft fantasy plays like The Impeachment of W (though that is a thought...) like R. Emmett Tyrell did with Clinton. (oh, and he wanted to impeach Hillary and Gore too, just for good measure, though how you can impeach a First Lady is beyond me.)

One thing I'll say for y'all; your opposition party is much nicer than my opposition party. ;-)

Blue Jean, you left out the "yet" in most of those "none of our guys is..." statements. And I'm pretty sure we can find democratic commentators calling for impeachment, shouldn't be too hard.

If I was going to do a bit on "you might be a wingnut...." I'd sure include the argument that "your guys are more guilty of partisan politics than our guys" as a top-of-the-list bad sign. Here's the problem, as Yeats put it:

...we make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.

Um, Jean, I've noticed that Rangel, Conyers, and Nadler among others have all bandied the "I-word" around quite a bit over the last couple of years. Not that I take them seriously, but they have. And a Yahoo search on "impeach Bush" returns just under half a million hits. I'm willing to offer odds that they're not majority GOP websites.

But look on the bright side; no one on Air America is urging people to shoot cardboard cutouts of W and Laura, as Liddy did with the Clintons.

On April 25, 2005 Air America aired a radio skit on the Randi Rhodes show that involved an armed and disgruntled senior citizen promoting the AAARP--American Association of Armed Retired People.

"A spoiled child is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of 4 gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little bastard. [audio of gun being cocked]."

The Secret Service was not amused. Randi Rhodes later apologized for being "over the top."

I'll guarantee you that I can come up with something just as offensive or over the top that has been said about Bush by someone on the left as you can for anything said about Clinton by someone on the right. You could probably do it without using anyone but Ann Coulter, I could probably do it without using anyone but Michael Moore.

The point being that playing comparitive political demonology is an endless (and futile) game, as both sides are loaded with their rabid antis. Yup, yup, your demons are more evil, your saints more angelic. So are mine. And they can all dance on the head of a pin, if it's a big enough pin. There's absolutely no shortage of gaming materials! The perception of which pack of frothing wingnuts is more rabid or reprehensible is in the eye of the beholder.

The perception of which pack of frothing wingnuts is more rabid or reprehensible is in the eye of the beholder.

Exactly, which is why arguments about which side is more frothing invariably tell us far more about the person making such arguments than they do about the nature of the actual sides.

And BJean, I'm not saying this to insult you, at all, as your sympathies are well known. The point is that you should be aware that for the most part, when you make such arguments you don't ever say anything that convinces most centrists that the GOP is more evil. What you do is make us doubt that when push comes to shove you're a centrist and not a partisan. You are pigeion-holing yourself.

Jean;
Did you attend one of those rallies last weekend?

PS: Though I'm a registered Republican I don't consider the Democrats the "opposition" Party. I guess that's why they call me a "centrist". If I have to consistently badmouth someone I'd rather it be the Oakland Raiders or the Dallas Cowboys.

Someone has emailed me another Air America "kill Bush" piece, also involving Randi Rhodes.

Rock bottom came when she compared Bush and his family to the Corleones in the "Godfather" saga. "Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw," she said, imitating the sound of gunfire.

Once again, I'll bet the Secret Service was not amused. Rhodes doesn't talk about shooting cardboard cutouts, though. She's more direct.

Air America has other problems right now.

Great site. I'm looking forward to exploring it later today!

I'm at http://www.howyoucantoo.com

(Although my host's server crashed again, so it may be a while before I'm back up and running. If it doesn't work right away, try again in 24 hours!)

Spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam.....

Actually, I don't even have to go that far to find someone who threatened Clinton; a KU student here in Lawrence was surfing the web at the KU computer lab, when she wrote Clinton "should be first up against the wall and shot."

A while later, she noticed a couple of men in dark suits had come in, and they were counting all the computers. When they came to hers, they said "Will you come with us, please?"

She found out that the Secret Service had seen her comment on the Web; and, as you said, they were not amused. No, she wasn't arrested or anything, but she felt shaken, not stirred.

So everybody watch what you say here, just in case you weren't paranoid enough already. ;-)

Bk, you didn't insult me, and I hope I didn't insult you. When it's baseball season, and I'm cheering for the Royals and you're cheering for the Sox, I consider you my opposition, but that doesn't make us enemies. Baseball fans may call each other names that would make Granny rise out of the grave to wash our mouths out with her bony fingers, but at the end of the day, we still walk out of the stadium and have a beer. (Actually, I drink Pepsi, but that's another story.) *

But, by the same token, most of the regulars here would consider me left of center, even--gasp!--a liberal. I make no bones about that.

You could probably do it without using anyone but Ann Coulter, I could probably do it without using anyone but Michael Moore.

':-) That's an interesting exercise, Tully; we'll have to try it sometime.

I tend to think that Moore is higher in factual content per capita than Coulter, but on the other hand, Coulter looks better on magazine covers. (though Moore would probably kvetch a lot less about his picture.)

Yes, the "i-word" is tossed around pretty freely these days, but there's not going to be any stuffing of that genie back in the bottle. Once you start impeaching Presidents for lying about sex, should you start impeaching them for lying about how many times they've been arrested? Or lying when asked whether they've been arrested for drunk driving? Or whether they lied about WMDs? Or...well, that's a topic for another thread.

*Pepsi endorsement check may be sent to the email below. ;-)

I tend to think that Moore is higher in factual content per capita than Coulter, but on the other hand, Coulter looks better on magazine covers. (though Moore would probably kvetch a lot less about his picture.)

The Secret Service has NO sense of humor. It's surgically extracted during training.

Without commentary on the truth or falsity or semantic/emotive content of the various memes of the current comparitive political demonology, I would point out that lying under oath is a far different thing than lying in general. And if lying about sex (when not under oath) were a crime, who would be the guards? Where would we get the prosecutors? Who would run the country while we were all in jail? It's the "under oath" thingie that's not too bright.

I think I already said that "pin the tail on the demon" is boring. I thought so in 1998, and I haven't changed my mind. As we saw in the Clinton years, it leads to the stupidest things.

Moore's factual content is minimal, and his "mis-representation" levels rather high. Coulter's I've never bothered to examine, because I can't stand vehement wing-ranting in general and from what I've seen that's most of her "work." But I think putting them in a room together and locking the door for a while could be amusing. If you weren't the one who had to clean up the room afterward.

(On a side note, whatever non-criminal personal hobby de-stresses the Chief Executive and keeps them on an even keel is fine by me. I may not want to know about it, though. And their strictly family "issues" of the First Family should definitely be their own.)

Tully;
Went to your link to NY Daily News column and found this

Randi Rhodes, followed Franken in the host slot....She compared U.S. prisons in Iraq to the "Nazi gulag" and ...

Self pleasuring pep rallies seem to work swimmingly for the Christian right conservatives.

They work well for all extremists, Carla. Can't raise that old herd mentality without the herd!

Sorry, Chris, but isn't factual reporting of a actual incident immune from point scaling? Rhodes, OTOH, is stacking up the score.

Tully;
But ya gotta love that phrase "Nazi Gulag". Now if you could put three hot buttons words together coherently that would even be better like say...Fundamentalist Nazi Gulag.

Yeah, I gotta admit that "Nazi Gulag" is a real bell-ringer. How about "Fascist Nazi gulag?" That works all of the Big Three political tags (fascism, national socialism, and communism) into one wrap.

Trying to get the religious tags in without cognitive dissonance is a bit tougher--but the folks most likely to do so aren't normally troubled by cognitive dissonance...

But I think putting them in a room together and locking the door for a while could be amusing. If you weren't the one who had to clean up the room afterward.

Wait--I can see it all now! A cage MATCH! The Big Blue Behemoth versus the Screeching Scarlet Siren! No holds barred! Two walk in; one walks out! Pay-per-view only!

With what we make in profits, we can pay somebody to clean up and still have enough left to retire to Aspen. Ahh...speaking of pipe dreams...;-)