Professional Left Podcast Episode 882: Twenty Plus Years of Asymmetry.

“History is a vast early warning system.” -- Norman Cousins

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Professional Left Podcast Episode 855: You Are Not Alone

"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way." -- Mark Twain

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I'm Still a Fighting Liberal

You know the world has gone goofy when  recently-former Republicans like campaign veteran Stuart Stevens are telling Dems to get up off their asses and fight:

I know for some of the Obama inner circle, there will never be another love like that great and pure love of that magic moment in 2008. Everybody else will be like the fourth spouse.

But for Christ sake, show a little character and fight for your guy. https://t.co/hMc2cMvM0x

— Stuart Stevens (@stuartpstevens) June 28, 2024

gobsmacked by the hysteria of the get out of the race crowd? Let me explain. 1. refusing to leap to an impossible non-solution does NOT mean you think the debate went well. It was really bad. 2. white males tend to publically freak out when things dont go just so. Women cope.…

— Jen "get knocked down, get back up " Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) June 29, 2024

While Barack Obama's Pod Save League of Adolescent Wunderkind and 3/4 of the Society of Savvy Pundits are going full Private Hudson:

It gives me pause to wonder whether or not these kids have ever been in an actual, bloody, donnybrook?  

Because you're in a genuine fucking street fight now, boy-o.

   

 And if you're not up for that, then maybe it's time to go coach lacrosse somewhere.  

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, this, from the late Steve Gilliard, 21 years ago:

I'm a fighting liberal

You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.

What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.

The Founding Fathers, as flawed as they were, slave-owners and pornographers, smugglers and terrorists, understood one thing, a man's path to God needed no help from the state. Is the religion of these conservatives so fragile that they need the state to prop it up, to tell us how to pray and think? Is that what they stand for? Is that their America?

Conservatism plays on fear and thrives on lies and dishonesty. I grew up with honest, decent conservatives and those people have been replaced by the party of greed. It is one thing to want less government interference and smaller, fiscally responsible government. It is another thing entirely to be a corporate whore, selling out to the highest bidder because the CEO fattens your campaign chest. They are building an America which cannot be sustained. One based on the benefit of the few at the cost of the many. The indifferent boss who hires too few people and works them to death or until they break down sick. Cheap labor capitalism has replaced common sense. "Globalism" which is really guise for exploitation, replaced fair trade, which is nothing like fair for the trapped semi-slaves of the maquiladoras. In the Texas border towns, hundreds of these women have been used as sex slaves and then apparently killed,the FBI powerless to do anything as the criminals sit in Mexico untouched by law.

For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn't. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn't enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.

Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world and those who did not agree would suffer.

Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.

It's time to regain the spirit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.

It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.

Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America's defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.

It is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

If I had $100,000,000 I’d drop this in an ad across every swing state. Immediately👇pic.twitter.com/SswUg7ltfZ

— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽💡🔭🦆 (@RachelBitecofer) June 28, 2024

No Half Measures

Ep 703 No Fair Remembering Stuff Podcast: Iraqi War and Remembrance

"It is unknowable how long [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." -- Donald Rumsfeld

Don't forget to visit our website -- http://www.proleftpod.com -- for all those sweet bells and whistles:  there are links to donate to our podcast work at that site, as well as links to our swingin' Zazzle merch store,  our respective blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Kittehs! and much more. Many thanks once again to @theologop for her invaluable support!

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The Best Qualification of a Prophet...

...is to have a good Memory. -- George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax

This evening I'm taking the cool, stone stairs down to the deep cellars for a vintage selection from the archives of the late Steve Gilliard who passed away 12 years ago next week.

I got into this racket after spending a comfortable time haunting the comment section of Steve's blog.  He finally kicked me out and told me to go forth and do my own thing.  And I did.

Here is some of what was posted on Steve's blog on the occasion of his passing:

A Voice

Remarks of how Steven touched the lives of bloggers have poured in. Many remark that his is the first blog they read every day. Even those who were vastly opposed to Steven's decidedly liberal political voice, respected his opinions and read him to get their history lesson as his facts could not be disputed. His quick wit and fearless candor landed him on many panels, radio talk shows and the like and he was either thoroughly appreciated or he infuriated many. Either way they came away with more information than they had when they came. Steven was skillful at pulling apart history and military strategy and clearing away the spin to reveal the real truth, which is something not many others are capable of doing.

Many bloggers have commented that they waited for his commentary when any major news event took place to get the "full" story. Well known for his attack on Michael Steele (MD Senator, whom he depicted in blackface) and his fierce opposition to George Bush and the war in Iraq long before it was popular to be anti-war, Steven was a door opener for African American bloggers. Many described him as a "hardnosed independent" (Daily Kos) with a powerful voice that supported the values and issues important to working people.

His cry "We Fight Back . . ." will hopefully ring in the ear of every liberal blogger as they pick up the reins and try to cut through the news spin to the truth and speak out loud for justice, equality and those things that are important to the common man, like jobs, healthcare, and peace, albeit without Steven's pronounced voice leading the way.

The paradox of Steven's Blog persona and the man cooking with his niece defines who he was. A humble man… a brilliant mind… that touched the lives and, no doubt, changed the lives of many. Steven said it best himself, "I said what I meant and I meant what I said"...

After Steve died, there were several projects launched to capture his writing and memory in a more permanent form, but none of them ever came to much.  And so, with the exception of a veteran or two of those times who haul out some of his words every now and then, much of who he was and what he meant has faded away.

However, since we are (mostly) Liberals here, and since memory is our super power, I thought you'd enjoy delicious and aromatic bit of accidental prophecy from Steve on the subject of Mr. David Brooks.

As a rule, Steve was usually too busy writing about a dozen other things to worry about Mr. Brooks, and at the time many people believed that the beat-downs Paul Krugman regularly handed out to Mr. Brooks would be sufficient to shame The New York Times into prying that particular wingnut-quota-hire barnacle off the hull of the Grey Lady.

Sadly, this was not to be.

Since then, Steve has left this vale of tears, Krugman won a Nobel Prize, and as I write this, Mr. Brooks is on a book tour monetizing his midlife crisis as a book of Moral Instruction for Our Parlous Times.  Which brings me to this column by Steve Gilliard, which I have retrieved from his archives and am reposting in its entirety here.  The only changes I have made are cleaning up a couple of typos in the original and adding a little emphasis to guide your eye to the spot where Steve's insight into Mr. Brooks' soul shines through as prophecy.

Enjoy!

Monday, January 02, 2006

The He-Man Woman-Haters Club

Them bitches scare me 

The Year of Domesticity

By DAVID BROOKS

............
Hirshman's essay really clears the sinuses. It's a full-bore, unapologetic blast of 1975 time-warp feminism and it deserves one of the 2005 Sidney Awards, which I've created for the best magazine essays of the year, because it is impossible to read this manifesto without taking a few minutes to figure out why she is so wrong.

But of course, she is wrong.

First, she's wrong with her astonishing assertion that high-paying jobs lead to more human flourishing than parenthood. Look back over your life. Which memories do you cherish more, those with your family or those at the office? If Hirshman thinks high-paying careers lead to more human flourishing, I invite her to spend a day as an associate at a big law firm.

Second, she's wrong to assume that work is the realm of power and home is the realm of powerlessness. The domestic sphere may not offer the sort of brutalizing, dominating power Hirshman admires, but it is the realm of unmatched influence. If there is one thing we have learned over the past generation, it is that a child's I.Q., mental habits and destiny are largely shaped in the first few years of life, before school or the outside world has much influence.

Children, at least, understand parental power. In "Eminem Is Right," a Sidney Award-winning essay in Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt notes a striking change in pop music. "If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is the music of abandonment." An astonishing number of hits, from artists ranging from Pearl Jam to Everclear to Snoop Dogg, are about kids who feel neglected by their parents. This is a need Hirshman passes over.

What the fuck is Brooks problem with educated, achieving women? First it was quit working, now, it's they should be mommies.

How small is his penis. Because high-achieving women threaten the shit out of him. If I was his wife, I'd be wary, because guys like this usually wind up with a younger, compliant woman in their lives.

And I would point out to Brooks, with the exception of Eminem's fractured relationship with his mother, those songs refer to missing fathers. And Eminiem has been the primary care giver to his child for years.

But to Bobo, a wimmin who gets edumacated is a threat, with all them fancy words and stuff. They needs to be birthin' babies and fixin' vittles.

What a seriously fucked up attitude. This is like two steps above the abusive husbands of Maury, telling their women not to look up without their permission and justifying smacking them around.

All of which pairs perfectly with Mr. Brooks own moralizing finger-wagging column on "The Power Of Marriage" written back before the dawn of recorded history -- before Mr. Brooks jettisoned wife #1 fir his much younger research assistant -- when Mr. Brooks used his privileged New York Times real estate to write this:

Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide...

And this

But marriage is the opposite. Marriage joins two people in a sacred bond. It demands that they make an exclusive commitment to each other and thereby takes two discrete individuals and turns them into kin...

And this

Marriage is in crisis because marriage, which relies on a culture of fidelity, is now asked to survive in a culture of contingency. Today, individual choice is held up as the highest value: choice of lifestyles, choice of identities, choice of cellphone rate plans.

And this:

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but the culture of contingency means that the marriage bond, which is supposed to be a sacred vow till death do us part, is now more likely to be seen as an easily canceled contract. 

And, yes, this:

Men are more likely to want to trade up, when a younger trophy wife comes along. 

And this

Men and women are quicker to opt out of marriages, even marriages that are not fatally flawed, when their ''needs'' don't seem to be met at that moment. 

And this

You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity.

And, finally, this:

Marriage is not voting. It's going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage. Not making it means drifting further into the culture of contingency, which, when it comes to intimate and sacred relations, is an abomination.

To which I would only add, fuck the fucking Yankees!

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Sunday Morning Comin' Down: Calling All Fighting Liberals

"Grow gills." 

-- Jonah Goldberg's advice to the people of New Orleans,  August 29, 2005

Once upon a time, way back when your humble scrivener lived alone in Chicago in Castle Driftglass, I would rise early on Sunday to watch the Mouse Circus or Gasbag Cavalcade (or whatever the kids are calling the shitty Sunday Shows these days) and critique them, fast-n-dirty to the best of my ability.

At the time, I was working +100 hours a week at my main job and teaching class in the evenings twice a week.  I didn't have cable, but I did have a work-supplied Blackberry (text only) and pretty fast internet access, so I streamed what cable news I watched via sites like Rockin' Rooster.

Fun fact:  I also never ran fundraiser, partly because my income was adequate to my needs and partly because I had to sign an ethics and financial disclosure statement every six months and tell my employer where every nickle of outside income came from.  And I knew once anyone on the job found out I was a Liberal blogger my career would be over.  See, back then we terrorist-loving, American-hating Libtards would use naughty words from time to time as we named and shamed the Republican party in ways which are absolutely verboten in swoon-prone polite society.  

But I kept writing, every day, either very late or very early and often over lunch at a the hippie coffee shop down the street, because in addition to supporting Liberals causes, donating to Liberal campaigns and fellow bloggers and generally being politically aware and active, it's what I could do.  

You might remember that after the 2004 election, we on the Left were furious and shellshocked.

It was inconceivable to many of us that this country could possibly (re)elect a man who was clearly unfit for the job, had surrounded himself with fanatics and criminals and already lead the race for worst president in history by a full lap.

But Karl Rove, Matthew Dowd, Hate Radio and Fox News made sure the madness of the Right stayed at a full boil, and the gutless Center hopped in the windowless van with maniacs because, um,  reasons, and so off the cliff we went.

But the momentum of events already long in-progress could not be stopped, and before the fanfare from Dubya's Second Inaugural had died down,  the reek from everything that we we terrorist-loving, American-hating Libtards had used our naughty words to warn the country about -- the lethal depravity, incompetence and corruption of the Bush Administration -- began to flood into the public square, figuratively and literally. 

And as the sheer comprehensiveness of the failures of the Bush Administration on every front became clearer with every passing day, it became harder and harder for the Conservative media to shout it all away and for the Beltway media to pretend it wasn't happening.  The Conservative media did not change, of course, but it did double down on blaming the Liberal Media Conspiracy for, well, everything.  In fact, in my very first Sunday Morning Comin' Down from April of 2005 we find:

Sen. Santorum [appearing on This Week...], calls Tom DeLay. “passionate and effective” and apparently the MEDIA is the problem.

As for the establishment Beltway media, well before you could say, "Why does Bloody Bill Kristol still have a fucking job?" the world was suddenly loud with the splashing of their lifeboats hitting the water and paddling like hell away from the unfolding catastrophe they had so eagerly enabled.

And every one of these lifeboats bore the same, proud name:  The S.S. Both Sides Do It.

Overnight that became the shibboleth.  The magic media conjure words that would allow the worse enablers of the shitstorm that was starting to break to survive with their careers and parking spaces intact. Suddenly, no one was to blame for anything because everyone was to blame everything -- it was so thick in the air that by 2006 it as already a tired joke among certain shitty Liberal bloggers:

So Dick Cheney is found, naked, on the White House lawn tossing burning kittens at homeless veterans and hitting babies with a ball-peen hammer. 

What are the first three words out of David Brooks’ mouth?  

“But the Democrats!”

Anyway, this is a thing I used to do.  Week after week, year after year.  And although I still keep my hand in (like today) I have given up entirely on the idea that the institutional political media can reform itself.

It can't, because whatever behind-the-scenes corporate directives have turned the fourth estate into a mindless Both Siderist Pez dispenser, it is clear that the sanctity of our democracy is simply irrelevant to the people who control the news.  Which is why, 13 years after taking up my pen and pixels to "document the atrocities" as we rage and lament in the long, dark shadow of yet another Republican catastrophe in the White House, who has also surrounded himself with fanatics and criminals and imbeciles, once again doing irreparatble harm to our already maimed democracy and already a full parsec ahead of everyone else in the race for worst president in history...

...I was absolutely unsurprised to find that two reliable, teevee-friendly dregs of the Right -- Stephen Hayes and Erick Erickson -- had been invited by Chuck Todd to share their scintillating Conservative insights with the rest of America on Meet the Press.

And I'll give you three guesses as to where they lay the blame for everything:

ERICK ERICKSON:  You know, I disagree with my friend George Will on this, although I do agree with him, that Congress has let their muscles atrophy in legislating. Congress now apparently is a class of pundits, as opposed to a class of legislators. It's a real problem on both sides of the aisle...

ERICK ERICKSON: Yeah, I think it is going to get uglier. I think that James Hodgkinson is less an anomaly and an inflection point. We're headed towards more violence I think if people on both sides don't rein it in. It's not enough to say, "Well, you started it," "No, you started it," "This happened," or "This happened."...

STEPHEN HAYES:  Right, President Trump wants to do this. But look, so do the Democrats. I mean, what was so interesting about your conversation with Angus King and James Lankford, it was a thoughtful, substantive conversation.

CHUCK TODD:  But by the way, they are in the 40 yard lines of American politics.

STEPHEN HAYES:   They are. And the politics here, I think one of the reasons you don't have solutions to the broader immigration problem is because it works politically for both parties, the extremes of both parties. Look, Kamala Harris talking about abolishing ICE? Really? That's the solution here is we're going to abolish the bureaucracy that's responsible for enforcing these things?

HEATHER MCGHEE:  Because Republicans hate abolishing agencies? I mean, this is an agency, I will say--

STEPHEN HAYES:  That's not the point. The point is, she's offering an extreme solution that doesn't actually solve any problem, because somebody's going to have to perform that duty.

CHUCK TODD:  To build on Heather's point here, and I want to get Kasie in here, since you did the interview, is this in a way that conservatives will say, "Abolish the I.R.S.," which is sort of a ridiculous proposition, is this going to become that "Abolish the I.R.S." chant on the left?...

CHUCK TODD:  I hear you. All I know is whatever happened to the golden rule? If everybody just did golden rule, we might be in a tiny bit better place...

We have long since passed the point where the the mainstream media pays any attention to the causal, quotidian  racism, paranoia, non-stop lies and hysterical Liberal bashing from the Right.  It's like living next to the "el" track in Chicago, which I a did for a couple of years when I had a little apartment on Roscoe.  After awhile you stop noticing it.  It becomes background noise.  It becomes normal.

But this same media absolutely freaks the fuck out when when the Left punches back.  

Suddenly everybody's got to go to courtesy class, right now!

From the WaPo:

Let the Trump team eat in peace

...

They will get no argument from us regarding Mr. Trump’s border policy, and when it comes to coarsening the debate, he is the prime offender. The poisonous fruits could be seen, as it happens, Saturday morning in a vile tweet from Ms. Sanders’s father, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, that associated House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, with the vicious MS-13 gang.

We nonetheless would argue that Ms. Huckabee, and Ms. Nielsen and Mr. Miller, too, should be allowed to eat dinner in peace...

If Trump succeeds in getting us all to talk and behave like him, he will have won a larger cultural battle than you could ever imagine. In this regard, i fear he is well on his way.

— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) June 25, 2018

Why are so many of our political leaders jerks? @SykesCharlie looks for an answer.https://t.co/ge0MHBAz6I

— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) June 25, 2018

If we reach the point where we decide that marching, voting, suing, and speaking isn't enough -- that we have to get in a person's face or disturb the peace of their home -- then we're crossing a dangerous threshold: https://t.co/TyzpW2mrgC

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 25, 2018

Yeah, fuck that.

From the late Steve Gilliard:

It is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

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Memories of 2004, Part Three

Back in 2004, we on side of the angels were staggered to discover that 62M Americans would choose to put their higher cognitive functions in cold storage and instead take council of their fear and spite and invincible ignorance by handing the country back to a manifestly and criminally incompetent administration led by an idiot who had gotten creamed in every presidential debate.

(Fun fact!  Within five years, most of the meatheads and weasels who were crowing from the rooftops in 2004, touting George Bush as the greatest leader since Charlemagne and bragging about making the Libtards cry were busy doing exactly what we predicted they would do:  burning their Bush/Cheney lawn signs, calling themselves "Independents" and swearing on the lives of their children that they had never even heard of George W. Bush.)

So as you might imagine, the question of "What to do next?" came up a lot.

Here was one loud and clear reply to that question from the late Steve Gilliard.

From Steve's blog, 11/5/04:

What to do next?

After seeing Bush's nauseating press conference, I realized this isn't 2000. He's not getting a chance. Even the Daily News, which endorsed him, prays he won't lie any more. I bet Laura said the same thing before he went to rehab.

Look, let me say a couple of things:

1) Leadership is hard. It is a very hard thing and sometimes you have to make the hard decisions.

John Kerry did.

Ask yourself this: in the opposite position, do you think George Bush wouldn't have ripped this country up to keep his job, even if the numbers weren't with him?

George Bush doesn't make hard decisions. He makes easy, simple ones. And while it would have felt good to smack Bush around a bit, it would have only delayed the inevitable.

So let's get off his back. He did what he had to do, and that was the hard decision. Not the easy one.

Democrats have a nasty habit of turning on their candidates. They ripped into Gore mercilessly. mocked him, even after he lost. Especially after he lost. We WILL NOT repeat that. We need leaders, strong leaders who have a vision for America. And we have them. Not just one, or two, but a room full. We have people who can fight, run and win and who can support down ticket candidates. I can understand what happened after 2000, but now. We were too close, hit too many right notes to turn on each other.

Let the GOP do that.

Because all the fundies who think Bush represents their "family values" are going to get a shock. The GOP has been shining them along for a long time. Why would they stop now?

There seems to be an addiction to the search for the new. Let's avoid that this time. Let's rally around Kerry and Edwards and encourage them to speak for us. Make so that people know them long before 2008. We don't need ideal, we need people who can be trusted and who are familiar. Who can challenge Bush on his schemes.

Why? Because we need presidential quality people to lead the party, not just functionaries. We need to take a page from the Europeans and have candidates around for more than one cycle.

Look, Nixon ran twice, Reagan ran three times (1968,1976,1980). Same with Bush. Michael Dukakis disappeared. Al Gore vilified. Where are the senior leaders who can rally the party and raise money? Let the media talk up Hillary Clinton. They need something to do. But we're gonna do things differently this time. Look, if Kerry got blown out, then yeah, but he didn't. And we will need him when the war turns rotten. Let him be a true liberal statesman and not just a candidate.

2) Bush gets no breaks. He fucks up, we hammer him. We raise all kinds of issues, from his vacation time to his plan to gut social security. They chased Clinton for six years. He never got a chance to breathe. All bad deeds should be punished. Bush wants to act like he has a mandate. Let's not pretend he has one. We oppose him from today. We demand answers for Abu Gharib and the missing explosives. Fuck Andy Sullivan. He doesn't start over and we cut him no slack. None. He speaks, we protest. They say get over it, we say fuck you. You didn't get over Clinton. Nope. Not this time. Because our goal is to drive as many of you from office as possible. We don't want to work with you on gutting social security or some dumbass medical savings plan. We plan on stopping you.

3) We protest this war, and if he dares, a draft. We do what we can to stop this madness. No more arguing over ANSWER or whatever. If they want to march and focus on the issue at hand, which isn't Palestine or Mumia Abu Jamal, but Iraq, fine.

4) Nader was wrong. The two parties are very different. If you don't want to see that, fine. But you're wrong. A lot of people complain about how the Dems are corporate owned. Well, we raised millions this time and we're gonna have to do more, a lot more. And that means everything from school boards to writing letters and giving money. Kerry had to stop fighting, the Dems in Congress better not, if they want to keep their jobs. Accommodation doesn't work in the face of evil. Never has, never will. These people want to kill the New Deal and if we don't fight them every step of the way, they will. And God knows how long that will take to fix. We know Bush is wrong. We have to act like it.

5) Stay involved. Give a damn and do not give into your darkest fears. Stay and fight, and every bit helps. Avoiding Wal-Mart is a start. Tell them why Target gets your dollars instead. Don't just fixate on politics. It's about schools, the media, how you spend your money. If you want to make change, you have to change.

We are a band of brothers and sisters. We can do great things together. But we have to dare to do them. If you want a new America, a better America, you have to build it here, today, now. You cannot wait for someone to do it for you.

Part One here.

Part Two here.

Memories of 2004, Part One

Those of us who backed Kerry to the hilt in 2004 and woke up the day after the election to find that, out of fear and spite and indestructible ignorance, the country had re-elected a manifestly and criminally incompetent administration led by an idiot who had gotten creamed in every presidential debate are probably in better shape that anyone to explain to the young un's what just happened to their country.  My opinions were fully-formed and firing on all cylinders long before Kerry vs. Bush, but in 2004 I had not yet begun my glamorous and lucrative career as a Liberal!Blogger! so I spent a considerable fraction of my staggering around, raging at heaven WTF?? time after Kerry got beat hanging out in places like the late Steve Gilliard's News Blog.

As a study in how much and how little has changed in the intervening 12 years, as well as some sound advice on the nature of politics. Steve's dispatches from after that election are worth the read.  

From Steve's blog, 11/2/04:

What comes next

I know I have been getting yelled at by some people who were pissed I wasn't drooling over Diebold or crying because Kerry lost. Well, the reason is simple: I've been in politics. I've been in a winning room and a losing room, and I like the winning room a lot more. I've worked for both parties, in North Jersey, which is some of the nastiest politics in America. I've seen what an evil, indifferent mayor can do and what it's like to be pissed for eight years.

But I'm not sad, and I'll tell you why.

A lot of you may have been too young to remember 2000, much less 1992. I did some campaign work in Jersey back then, more in 1996. It seems like a million years ago and not because it was. It's because then, no matter how angry you were, or frustrated, no one heard you, and no one cared. And you couldn't join the party and you couldn't fight back. Either way, you were outside. That was politics.

I know people are discouraged. But I have never felt better about a campaign, not 1992, not the local Jersey campaigns, not the NY mayoral campaigns. Why? Because the fact that you can bitch at me and you care what I have to say is a sea change. It is the start of something new and different and important.

This is the first campaign were, we, as citizens, could actually be heard. The GOP sent their e-mails and Kerry sent his. But the difference was, we didn't wait for Kerry or the party to direct us. Kos set up his site on his own. So did Atrios, and while I had a generous grant from George Soros, :), I was able to discuss things and be read more than in a hundred newspapers. This election wasn't about Howard Dean or John Edwards or John Kerry. It was about us. We raised money. We supported candidates, we scared Tom DeLay shitless. This was the first time since I've covered politics I felt it was more than just the pros playing along.

People invested their heart and soul into this campaign and I know losing hurts like hell. I'm a little distant because I learned from the pros. And believe me, they don't quit after one election.

Yes, the GOP controls Congress. But I think while they beat back this challenge, they won't be beating back them much longer.

Don't get me wrong. A year or four of George Bush is a mistake we will all regret. But the thing is that we know that at least 55M people stand with us. We are not alone.

Now for all the doomsayers who think John Kerry killed the progressive movement.

No. This isn't a one man movement.

Kerry couldn't fight Ohio and that is a man who isn't inclined to quit. We lost, not because of him or us not working hard enough, but because a lot of people who voted think gay marriage is a threat to their lives. Which is insane. They don't even get it. Not that the Dems ever framed the issue right. But no one took that seriously, and we're gonna pay for that. They're wrong as hell, but we never told them why, lest we be tainted as well. If we start to blame anyone, let's start there and we're all guilty.

What we didn't get is that gay marriage isn't just a legal concept, but to many people, the final straw in a world gone mad. They can't control anything, not their job, their rent or their kids. but men marrying men? That's a bit of madness they can stop.

Of course, a ballot amendment won't do that. It doesn't stop anything except paper. It doesn't stop people living together. The problem will come when straight couples are affected by the same laws many of them voted for.

Karl Rove conned these people. He promised them something that will never happen. They think the war is a speed bump to a Christian America. But if we can stop the homos from marrying, we can save America.

And of course, the cruel joke is that two years out, the most disillusioned people in America will be the Christian Right. Bush doesn't need them any more, he'll be looking to his legacy. And being the Jesus freak president will not play. He knows that.

Like with abortion. He will play with Roe v Wade, but he has no real motive to end it outright. Because when he does, that will mean the end of the Republican party as we know it. Only the Christian right will be left. There isn't enough of them to force his hand. So he can even find judges who will fritter around the edges. But to overturn Roe v Wade is to lose any hope of the woman's vote in the future. Why do you think they mever pushed this stuff when they could in the last four years? Because they didn't have to.

We need a new language to deal with these issues. We need to frame them differently. Because we are doing people a grave disservice. They think it's external factors ruining their lives. TV, movies, drug dealers, gays. Well, no. It's those 50 hour weeks you pull.

You don't need to go beyond Oprah and Dr. Phil to see this in action. Six year olds left to fend for themselves. Teenagers coming home to empty houses. Parents working longer and longer hours. Of course families are fucked up with that kind of economic pressure on them. So when they get an easy answer, go to church, oppose abortion and it will all work out. And of course it won't. Because it's not a problem of faith but economics. And until we reframe the issue in those terms, we're gonna lose a lot of votes. We have this unspoken economic crisis exploding, like an illness, and all we do is look at the symptoms.

Sure, people dislike gay marriage. But if you think that's the real issue, you're gonna have a few more bad election nights. It's about control and fear. Until we say "look, this is not about gays, but your loss of control. You work all the time, never see your kids and you think gay marriage is your problem? Working all the time, not raising your kids, that's the issue. Your marriage blew up, you don't get child support on time, and you think the most important thing in your life is if two strangers get married? Your schools don't even work and you hope your kids will find a way to pay for college. Yet, with all this going on, gay marriage is your priority?"

We simply have to reframe the debate.

Once we do, the GOP will lose and lose big. But until we do, we'll get a stalemate, with one side or the other eking out wins. We'll go after the president, of either party and fight a political Western Front. Which mean no health care insurance, no real progress on a whole bunch of issues. No matter who is in office.

It makes me sad to hear people talking about boycotting red states. Why? Because what about the blue counties and all those people who fought for Kerry knowing they would lose. The people who did Kerry in Atlanta, and Dallas and Houston and Little Rock? Are we going to walk away from them because of what their neighbors did? There were a lot of people in blue states who voted for Bush on the same grounds. All those folks in Charlotte and Miami and a lot of other places who went for their conscience regardless of the outcome. They knew they were going to lose and they did it anyway. Are those the people who deserve a boycott? They didn't have the numbers, but they had the heart.

You know, I've slammed Nader for a long time, but today, I just feel sad for him.

It's like we had a big-assed party, and instead of having a beer and relaxing, he sat in his room, making snide comments with his little friends and calling the RA or something.

Nader could have joined what is growing here. He could have embraced what Dean and millions of others started. He could have been part of it. But instead, he was part of the past. The old top down lefty model which no one cares about any more. The one where we all follow the great leader. He never really got how many people respected him. He took it for granted. And then he squandered it. It is to his everlasting shame that he decided destroying the Dems was more important than embracing people acting as citizens. We did what he wanted, and then he decided it wasn't good enough

For a long time progressive was a code word for self-indulgent lefties, most likely heard on Pacifica and in various magazines. Now, it's your neighbors and friends. It's the people around you online and off.

Look, Bush won, it sucks and the question we face now is what is next. And I know what my answer is. The question is what is yours.

Even before the end of the campaign I was thinking about how I would adjust to the mayoral election. What could we bring from the national campaign to this local campaign and toss 12 years of Republicans out on their ass. Is it meetups, online contributions? What? Where do we go from here to bring all this energy to our homes. I want to see local candidates represent my views and get support. I want change. I couldn't change George Bush, but I can change Mike Bloomberg and kill that fucking stadium of his.

The question is how. Where do we go from here with that? What do I need to do? How do I help people?

That's what's on my mind today. How do we make this local and make it work.

This Ain't The First Time This Old Cowboy's Been Throwed

This ain't the first I've seen this dog and pony show.

A patently unqualified Republican candidate.

A fiery outsider who had opposed the Iraq war taking on a center/left insider who had voted for the Iraq war contending for the nomination of the Democratic party.

And third party candidate polling barely to the right of the decimal point playing a siren's song for disaffected Liberal unicorn hunters who cannot bear the thought of voting for anyone who is less that 100% pure.

Thing is, if you've been around for awhile, you'll have noticed that this ain't our first rodeo.

Mark Twain once marveled at all of the things he could remember that just weren't so,  Because while memory is our great advantage -- our salvation -- memory is also sometimes a seducer and a braggart and a thief.

And so, rather than leaving it to fickle memory, as Al Smith used to say, let's take a look at the record. Specifically, the record of the late "Fighting Liberal" blogger, Steve Gilliard, who, back in December of 2003, was saying very nice things  about the insurgent campaign of Howard Dean.

But the story's larger point is that the Dean campaign is mobilizing something very different than a traditional campaign. After reading that article, people are going to want to sign up to change their lives, action through politics. I don't get that personal connection to Dean or his campaign. I am decidedly not a Deanie, no matter how many kind words I say about him. If I was Karl Rove, I would not be happy after reading this. No one working for Bush is going claim he changed their lives. No one is moving to join his campaign. Whatever they're about, they aren't about that.

I'd call it transformative leadership. The kind of thing which makes people change their entire way of thinking. Orde Wingate was one. Wingate, founder of the Chindits in Burma, took ordinary soldiers and turned them into commandos. Not just the sneak and peek blowing up kind, but the mental change it takes to move from regular infantry to people who can act and move on their own initative without adequate supplies and orders.

Dean is using what has been called "leaderless resistance". His campaign comes up with themes, but the people out in the field work on their own. It doesn't cost the campaign money and the transformative leadership coming from Dean, with a healthy dose of empowerment. There is a campaign staff and then there are thousands of auxillaries working on their own. With the growth of 527's, doing this on a larger scale, the Bush campaign faces any number of threats from any number of directions. The people who are working for Dean are not just working for him, but something larger. Whether it's a new girlfriend or a new life, a lot of people flocking to the campaign are looking for change in their lives.

As a battle-scarred political veteran, Steve was appalled at the clunky, stumbling campaigns being run by John Kerry and the rest of the establishment guys, and impressed with the smart, battle-ready operation Howard Dean had put together:

How to be a loser 

If it's December and you need to get a bunch of reporters to tell you how to run your campaign, it's over. John Kerry pissed away his chance to be President when he trusted Bushco not to lie to him. Now, I'll cut him some slack for that vote, because Cheney and his boys were playing this game like Nixon, lie to everyone and hope for the best. Even though at the time, their excuses were pitiful. Saddam and his drones, his secret nukes, all Boys' Life fantasies best suited for Marvel Comics than diplomacy.

While it may seem like fun for Eric and Al and the boys to play campaign guru, a role Warren Beatty perfected when they were in high school, it's nothing that a professional should be engaged in. If you need amateur help now, just hang it up. Dean isn't sitting around with Mike Tomasky and Victor Navasky looking for help. He's running a campaign. Same with Clark. Kerry screwed up because, once again, he was playing the odds instead of doing the right thing. He wanted to triangulate his way into the presidency instead of fighting for it. Now, he's got a bunch of writers telling him what to say.

Electablility isn't a personality contest. People hate politicians anyway. It's about organization and message and work. If Howard Dean is prickly, it won't matter much, nor will his church attendance. Bill Clinton went to church every Sunday and still squeezed in an adulterous affair. It's about leadership and competance and compassion, qualities Bush feined and does not have when it counts. He's never gotten past cheerleading as a substitute for real emotion.

There is so much bleating and handwringing about Howard Dean being the nominee that I can't decide to laugh or vomit. Yet, Dean is the only one running a smart campaign...

These things were vitally important the Steve, because he knew damn well what was at stake, and how much technology and people power had changed the game:

...

But everyone has a real, simple point: Bush MUST be defeated. He's just too incompetent to keep that job another four years.

I don't think Dean would flub a question about someone raping his wife or lie about her alcoholism.

But I think people are missing the point. This isn't 1988 or 1992. The big media and the big parties are not left alone on the field of battle these days. The web, 527's, meetups, all will change the dynamics of the campaign, in the way they have changed the war in Iraq. The GOP doesn't even realize this, because Bush doesn't really understand computers or care about the media. They want to refight the last war, but better, and that never works. Dean is not. For good or ill, he's fighting a new war with new methods and the ability to take the war to the enemy.

Too many Dems are worried about Rove and what he'll do. Who cares what they do? You don't win by playing defense. You make them play defense. You design a campaign which will drive them nuts and make them react to you. Not try to play their game better. There is a new dynamic which the campaign will have to deal with, one of which is the database of the internet. Random statements will no longer fly. Everyone has access to deep databases of information on any variety of topics. It's not just for the Lexis-Nexis crowd any more. So if you say Dean was a draft dodger, you can actually check what the rules were for the draft were in 1970. No more relying on reporters alone. Also, articles can be fact checked and responded to by anyone. Which is why the Dean Defense Force is such a clever idea. It makes reporters wary of extrapolating the way they did with Gore.

But in the end, Dean lost and the Democrats nominated Kerry.  And how did "Fighting Liberal" Steve Gilliard react?   Flounce off the stage, raging about the horrors of staining his ideological purity in the pig sty of politics and compromise?

Not exactly.

Why John Kerry should be President

Slate is running a piece where their writers explain who they're voting for, including Mickey Kaus and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom are voting for Kerry.

Their economics writer attacks Edwards as a xenophobe, Jack Shaffer always votes libertarian, proving some people never leave college, and one guy is voting for Bush because he thinks Arabs actually like Bush.

Whatever.

You know, I've never explained why I'm voting for Kerry. It's clear that I don't think much of Bush, but I've never really laid out my particular case for Kerry.

It doesn't matter if Bush is worse than Harrison or Buchanan or Coolidge, because we live in the here and now. However, his very presence in the White House was gained by little more than political trickery. And it has felt like trickery from the first, riot filled day of his presidency. George Bush has ruled, not led, as if democracy was his servant, not his master. Bush has failed the American people in so many ways, so many fundamental ways that it is truly frightening.

He has taken the worst of the GOP and made it national policy. His ideas of leadership come more from royalty than democracy. Wearing a uniform, invoking God, what did he strive to be, a 21st Century Prince Hal? Bush takes Nixon's imperial presidency and turns it into something even Nixon would have recoiled from.

Dick Cheney sit at his right hand, a corrupt minister for war, taking his cut while killing the king's men for his goals. And the king sits there, smiling and nodding like an idiot. But Bush is not an idiot. Never has been. Weak, craven, cowardly, sure. But never an idiot.

Bush is intelligent, above average actually. But his intellect is not his problem. It is his innate laziness and contempt for logic and contemplation which shines through. Toss on an alcohol addiction and a dysfunctional family where lying was standard operating procedure, and you have one sick puppy. Even if he never took a drink, his temperament and deep anger would shine through.

John Kerry, as he so clearly proved in the first debate, is the kind of man we should have as president. George Bush is not and never has been a serious man. His anger at his father and his mother's explosive temper, along with a lack of any sort of self-criticism or examination preclude that. Kerry is not the guy to pat you on the back and leer at a pretty girl, that was our last Democratic president. Kerry is the serious guy who you can count on when things get tight. He's going to stand by you without checking. With Bill Clinton, he always had an eye out for himself, even when he was swearing undying loyalty to you. Kerry's word may not come easy, but when he gives it, he means it.

Bush is a coward, who hides behind others when things fail.

Clinton was at his best when things went well. He could make things go well by force of will. Kerry is best when things go bad. When all hell is breaking loose, he's the calm guy in the middle, making sense of things and solving them. When real trouble comes, John Kerry and John Edwards are people you want by your side. They don't run from long odds.

George Bush has tried to project his weaknesses on Kerry like a man who has always lived in fear. He has always been afraid. He can push it back for a while, but that fear is always with him. It is with him now. It is his constant friend. We saw that in his first debate, which embarrassed me as an American. That he was our president. He couldn't answer a simple question on his feet and was angered that anyone dare ask him one. It was as if we were his subjects and owed him deference.

When Kerry, who had been baiting him all year, finally got him face to face, the stature gap was tremendous. Bush looked like the grasping challenger and Kerry looked like the president. He wasn't any of Bush's lies, not weak, not unsure. Kerry, very simply, looked like a leader. It is a sign of how bad our press has become that no one told John O'Neill's Vietnam story, one where he was shunted off to less dangerous duty because of his John Wayne attitude. John Wayne is an insult in the military, denoting a man who takes mindless risks for personal glory. Yet no one ever bothered to ask about O'Neill's less than stellar military record.

What was surprising is that dirty trick blew up on Bush and may have been his single worst tactical mistake, and in a year where Zell Miller delivered his Beer Hall Putsch speech before the convention and then went wiggy afterwards, that's a pretty tight contest. What happened was simple: it told people exactly how brave Kerry was and how many enemies he was willing to make to do what was right. But even more importantly, it allowed the media to define Bush as what he was, a liar.

How bad was their game plan?

In the last week of the campaign, they realized that they needed to reach out beyond their base. My God, Kerry ran around Red counties all summer long. He reached out to Republicans for months. Even in the debates, he was reaching past his base right into the GOP. And Bush didn't see it. He was too busy sending coded messages to his base.

The simple fact is that when Bush ran, he promised to be compassionate and thoughtful. Instead he has been cruel and reckless. He has visited untold misery upon the innocent and unjust cruelty upon the guilty.

John Kerry is a liberal, but one with common sense. He doesn't imagine an American empire or a Middle East conquered for Likud. He talks like an adult to adults, whereas Bush is quoted as saying he thinks the American people are children. Kerry sees social injustice and doesn't try to wash it away with cheap words. He believes in the promise of America, one where people are treated fairly and humanely.

He is not a captive to the worst forms of ideology, shaping policy for his own personal beliefs and aims.

George Bush does not believe in democracy in the small scale. He lives sheltered and isolated from the world. He cannot even tolerate dissenters at his rallies, a fundamental American right. The mother of a serviceman killed in Iraq was arrested at a Laura Bush rally. The shame of that still stings. It was so wrong, and so evil that words should fail us.

Sacrifice to Bush is what other people do, it is what John Kerry lives with every day.

It's not just a matter of politics or policy. It is a matter of character. Prince Hal became King Henry V in his 20's. Bush is still Prince Hal in his 50's. He's not the drunken wastrel he was until he was 40, but he never left the arrogance behind. He has never paid for anything he's ever done. In any way, shape or form. When it came to ante up, daddy jumped in and saved the day. Not just once, which we are all entitled to, but from Andover to Florida. At every turn, someone saved Bush.

In contrast, Kerry sought out difficult things. He sought combat in the Navy, he sought out the anti-war movement, he became a prosecutor. When things got tough, the best came out in John Kerry. Even in that Senate career Bush liked to deride, despite being a drunken bum from the age of 18-40. When BCCI was at the height of their influence peddling, it was Kerry who took on old ward heeler Clark Clifford and exposed their links to terrorists and drug dealers. While the Bush family was cashing in, Kerry was asking questions.

We are in serious times. Our exit from Iraq will be painful and our sacrifice in Afghanistan is far from over. John Kerry lives, with us, in the real world. He has no grand ideology about the New American Empire. Just a desire for a safe, secure America. Something George Bush cannot provide us. John Kerry has the personal courage and moral clarity to serve this country and George Bush clearly does not.

We can no longer have a moral cipher as President. A man who countenances torture and lies. Who can admit no error and punish no one. A man who sends his National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense to campaign for him while we are at war. This is not how a president should act. It is not the president we should have.

John Kerry is a good man and decent politician. It is my hope that he will be a good president. Because we will need one.

And in case you don't remember, Steve also had some brutally pointed words for the third party candidate who wanted to lead the charge out of the party because there's not a dimes worth of difference between the something something corrupt duopoly:

Every vote for Nader condemns an American soldier to death

Ralph Nader and Howard Dean battled over the soul of the progressive movement, Friday

"We're taking apart the Bush Administration in ways that the Democratic party is afraid to," Nader said, emphasizing his campaign's antiwar stance and his take-no-prisoners assault on the influence of corporate contributors and lobbyists.

"This is not going to help the progressive movement in America," moaned Dean, who tried his best to suggest that Kerry is a legitimate standard bearer for that movement and added, "I wish you were on our team, Ralph, because we need you."

Anyone who imagined that Dean and Nader might have found some common ground with regards to the fall race came away from the debate sorely disappointed. But the truth is that no one who has spent much time watching Nader's campaign this year expected him to back off at the behest of Dean. While Nader has admitted to having been impressed with many aspects of Dean's insurgent campaign, these guys were never ideological soul mates. Nader was, and is, far closer to Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Dennis Kucinich, who continues to challenge Kerry for the nomination--albeit without much notice from the party or the media.

The Nader-Dean debate was less a serious dialogue about the possibility of forging a united front against Bush's reelection than a reminder that, while Nader and many Democrats share policy stances on issues ranging from opposition to the war to support for fair trade, single-payer health care and public financing of campaigns, they have not reached any kind of consensus with regard to the necessity of cooperation in the immediate political moment.

...

Nader was unconvinced. At several points, the independent candidate read down a list of sharp shots at Kerry--"corporate clone," "lesser of two evils." And then he reminded the Vermonter that those were Dean's own words from the primary season.

Nader allowed as how he preferred "Howard Dean the First," who took on the party establishment last year, as opposed to "Howard Dean the Second," who he accused of carrying the establishment's water this year.

Predictably, the conversation grew heated.

...

The problem is that it isn't alleged. The groups now openly announce their desire to help Nader get on the ballot.

Now, while away, I saw much of the Dean-Nader debate, and Nader came off second best. The thing is that Dean, having actually won elective office, was more able to deliver hammer blows against Nader's musty idealism.

But to me, this debate has gotten painfully simple: if you want to save Americans in Iraq, vote for Kerry. Not because he has some great anti-war stand, but because he isn't tied to Iraq the way Bush is.

Every vote for Nader is a vote to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

Why?

Because he isn't going to win and the man who could win will not have those votes.

So, there are two ways to keep the war state going. One, vote for Bush. Two, vote for Nader.

Now, some of you might say: but Nader is against the war.

My reply is: so fucking what? He isn't going to win and every vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. Nader is great with talk, but sabotages any action he can't control. So if you want to see more American dead, vote Nader. If you like crippled teen soldiers, vote Nader. If you like widowed 20 year olds, vote Nader.

Ralph Nader's selfishness and short sightedness works against his professed goals and towards not only the continuation of the war, but the expansion of it.

Talk is cheap. It will not save one American life. Maybe Kerry won't end the war, maybe he will. But maybe is better than the Bush/Cheney/Nader/Canejo ticket. Nader runs blocking for Bush. For years, Nader has been allowed to do what he wants electorally. Now, with lives in the balance, Nader continues a campaign who's consequence will be to undue his life's work and extend Bush's term...

For the record, down in the belly of the internet there also still exists -- as fragrant as the day they were laid down -- a rich history of various dark and terrible conspiracies to steal the nomination for the forces of evil.  One example involves John Kerry, Howard Dean and various other agents of the New World Order using electronic election fraud to subvert the candidacy of the only honest man in America, Lyndon LaRouche (wake up sheeple!). Which was, in turn, merely the culmination of a concatenation of catastrophic (and strangely alliterative), criminal conspiracies which only the BRAVEST of FREEDOM loving Americans dared to speak about openly. 

Some of us have been to this rodeo before.

Many many times.

In Days Of Old, When Knights Were Bold...

We rejoin our story as the slow-motion GOP freakout over the !Sudden!Discovery! that the Republican party is full of -- gasp! -- Republicans ...



... continues to dominate the nation's Grand Guignol comedy circuit (for today's example we turn to the Breitbart Collective Farm):

LIMBAUGH: TRUMP MOVEMENT EXPOSES LOW REGARD CONSERVATIVE INTELLECTUALS HAVE FOR ORDINARY AMERICANS

Which is certainly horrifying.  And not funny at all.  And bitterly funny-as-hell.

But let us leave the fog and thunder of America's political media battlefield where everyone is feigning surprise that, under it's tissue-thin veneer of David Brooks respectability, Conservatism is a roiling cesspit of ignorance, racism and crazy...

...and return to a simpler time.  A time before YouTube and Instagram.  Back before your 'umble scrivener was even a blogger -- when I was just a long-winded commenter at the late Steve Gilliard's News Blog.

Steve's comments sections are long-gone now, existing only in the memories of those who found a home there and stomped the jolly fuck out of the trolls that sometimes stumbled through the door (Looking at you, "bloomie".)  But sometimes Steve would haul a comment up from below-decks and turn it into a post, so while all of my comments have turned to digital dust and blown away... thanks to Mr. Gilliard occasionally front-paging my comments, what you see below was saved from the bony fingers of internet entropy.

I am reposting it here because I think from time to time it is vital for us on the Left to to look back and remember just how fucking spot on we have always been about the GOP, and how aggressively we have been slandered and ignored by the Beltway media and by the political elite precisely because we have been right about the Right all along.

From The News Blog in March of 2005:

They are serious

Driftglass posted this in comments and it's too damn funny to stay there.

IMHO it’s as simple as: “Never jump into bed with someone who’s crazier than you are.”

For the Suburban Gated, the non-deranged gunnies and the Tax Cuts Uber Alles Republicans, it’s all jolly good fun having a romp with the Fundies…as long as they keep delivering the 20% margin the GOP must have to win anything and as long as they stay the fuck away from my house and family, its all just good kinky fun…

…until the sun comes up, and you realize that the Electoral Candy you were offered was just bait to get you into the Windowless Fundy Panel Truck. Oops.

And now you’re waaaay out in the country somewhere you don’t recognize without your pants, and you start to figure our that all the Burning Crosses and Swastikas and Apocalyptic Paraphernalia that tricks out the inside of the van isn't tatted-up Goth Chick posturing.

And Randall Terry and Tom DeLay wave to you from the front seat and say, “Mornin’ shug! Get ready; we gonna burn us some ‘a them Chirst Hatin’ Abortionists today.” Or Fags. Or Negros. Or Liberals. Or Ay-rabs. Or Jews. Or, really, Anybody.

And all of the slack-jawed yokels who were so eagerly helpful while you were passing you’re Lovely Tax Cuts are sitting around you giggling…and armed to their snaggled teeth.

And then you hear, “Bring Out The Gimp.” (Which, for my money, should be the Democrats’ Lead Media Message for the next four months.)

Oh. God. You mean these crazy fucks were serious? Like, really, really serious?!

No shit they’re serious, Suburban Weekend Bad-Ass -- and it's not exactly like you weren't given Ample Warning: Now they have your shriveled nuts in a razor-lined C-clamp, they want the very high interest vig on the Electoral Loan they made you to pay for your Optional War and Drunken Safety Net Shredding Good Times.

As I've been saying, the devil wants his due, and he's come to collect.

They thought they could play them forever. I guess forever is today,

 Other than a few of the names, there is absolutely nothing about this post from more than a decade ago from a long-dead blog that needs updating.

Absolutely nothing about the Right which we did not see coming and have been shouting from the rooftops since forever.

And that's a tragedy.