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"Cherish" is the Word I Use to Deride

 

Perish is the word that more than applies
To the hope in my heart each time I realize
That I am not gonna be the one to share your dreams
That I am not gonna be the one to share your schemes

 

"Principles", and "Cherished"... just two more entries on the long list of "Words which Bill Kristol doesn't know".

From Kristol's latest New York Times Column:

(What are cherished principles for but to be violated in emergencies?)

 

Well, I 'd hazard a guess that those principles which one truly cherishes should be embraced in an emergency, and even further, I'd state that one's most cherished principles are those which one calls on first to help one get through an emergency.

I don't know Kristol all that well, so I am not prepared to say which cherished principles, if any, Kristol has violated in his career, but statements like this can certainly help one to understand why the G.O.P. is so eager to label everything an "emergency" these days, no?

Pffft.

 

Antidisisbullshitmentarianism - New and Improved to provide 24 hour assertion support where you need it most

 

Insert relevant dialog between Alice and Humpty Dumpty here

 

Shorter, although it may not seem that way, Bill Kristol:

• Since the establishment for which I was such a willing advisor and vocal supporter has so monumentally fornicated the proverbial goat that it now appears as if the new establishment will be one which requires neither my advice nor my support, I have decided to call myself a disestablishmentarian.

  I am not alone in this, either. One can see everywhere signs of a growing disestablishmentarian movement in this country. That is, if you use my definition of "establishment", which, like my definition of other words, such as "feminism", changes from moment to moment, based on my needs.

  Also, it would help if you looked at these signs while gazing into direct sunlight, then put on these rose-colored glasses, squint a little, and wave your hand rapidly, back and forth in front of your face. See? Disestablishmentarians everywhere.

  Of course, if the establishment currently in power remains there after the 2008 elections, I'll quite happily revert to establishmentarianism, just not for those particular establishments, mostly nonexistent, which I find to be icky.

 

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 Update by ¡El Gato Negro!:

 

After rereading the post, I find that I have left open the possibility that those who are unfamiliar with the Kristollian ouevre may have pause to consider some of my assertions unsupported, and even that I could be *HlcK-clulthksppp!* exaggerating. I can hardly allow the appearance of such a thing to linger.

Although, were I to take the time required to unpack every lie, distortion and disingenuousity in Kristol's last column I should have no time to write about his subsequent column, and maybe the one after that as well, and who knows how many crazy things he'll say in future columns, fulfilling the responsibility for each one would mean that the damned things might start to pile up for weeks in advance.

After ascertaining the growth curve for this process, I can predict that by November, I will be analyzing columns that Bill Kristol wrote back in July.

Such an eventuality, in covering some New York Times columnists, is an unfortunate side-effect. In Kristol's case I'm starting to think it might be, if not exactly planned, possibly then the most extreme result of following the path of least resistance. So allow me to offer a few examples, and hope that suffices for all, here's the opening paragraph

 

When I was a kid, rumor had it that “antidisestablishmentarianism” was the longest word in the English language. I actually looked it up once, and discovered it had something to do with the status of the Church of England — which sort of took the fun out of the word. But in college, I decided I liked the idea of defending the establishment against those who sought to disestablish it.

 

So, Kristol wanted Anglicism to remain the established state religion of England, er... America?

 

Well, I’m older now, and have consorted a bit with various establishments. To know them is not to love them. I’m now a disestablishmentarian.

 

So, he no longer wants Anglicism to be the state religion of England America?

Of course, when Kristol says that he no longer backs establishments, he doesn't mention the establishment that he still works for, the establishment whose political party still controls the executive, the judiciary, and may retain enough power in the legislative after 2008 to jam up any real attempt at reform.

 

I’ve come to believe that, to (loosely) paraphrase Jefferson, the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the wreckage of torpedoed establishments and the shards of overturned conventional wisdom.

 

Jefferson's actual words are: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

However, since Kristol considers himself a patriot, and has toadied for a tyrant, he may feel less than sanguine about using the correct quotation.

Kristol apparently holds that "the establishment" today is represented mostly by feminist literature and feminist divinity professors. Really. His protean definitions of "feminism" and the argument he seriously advances against the "feminist establishment" which, Kristol thinks, this burgeoning new disestablishmentarian movement is choosing for its target, can best be summed up by this passage:

 

[...]Women wore pink ‘Hot Chicks Vote Republican’ buttons; one hoisted a McCain placard bearing a hand-scrawled message: ‘Guns, God, Lipstick.’ “Guns, God, Lipstick”? This is what feminism has come to? One can only imagine how many feminist comp lit professors are walking around campus, muttering to themselves the lines from T. S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”

 

That just makes my want to bathe.

Feminism has come to “Guns, God, Lipstick” because why? Because Bill "White women are a problem" Kristol says so? Because women wearing ‘Hot Chicks Vote Republican’ buttons show up to see Sarah Palin speak?

Pfffffft.

I can only conclude that I must stand by my original assessment.

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This is my favorite sort* of Bill Kristol column, one wherein he erects a rickety edifice of tortured logic and comically mishonest characterizations, in an attempt to support a conclusion which usually veers widely from the facts of a given situation off into realms of unwarranted, if not entertainingly irrational, speculation.

Cover it with wattle and daub made of prime Republican bullshit and straw arguments from the old culture wars, and it still seems unlikely to withstand a good, stiff breeze.

Listen, we're all used to conservative pundits who engage in the practice of what I euphemistically call  "fundamental sourcing", but this is just ridiculous.

Bill Kristol thinks his ass is a cotton candy machine.

 

 

Shorter fromat created developed and popularized by those far more aware of internet traditions than your humble servant.

*cf.

Tired Old Post for a Tired Old Pundit's Tired Old Shtick

 

Not Pictured: Onion tied to belt

Shorter David Broder:

• Both President Bush and the Democratic led [since 2007] Congress are equally culpable in mishandling the horrible $500bn. budget deficit which mysteriously appeared out of thin air, one day back in late November, 2006.

 

I don't usually write about David Broder, and his column in last Sunday's WashingComPost is a perfect example of the reason why; His act is broken down and dusty.

Mind you, this has little or nothing to do with Broder's age. He's been pulling the same crap for over a quarter of a century, and it's just getting very, very old, and rusty, and a little smelly, as well.

Here Broder expends over 650 words scolding both parties, and their presidential candidates, for mishandling our budget deficit, and gives not one mention of the fact that George W. Bush and the Republican led Congress created the biggest budget deficit in U.S. history, after they --the G.O.P.-- blew through the largest budget surplus in U.S. history, in just six years.

For Broder, presumably, the origins of this monstrous deficit will remain unexamined, and certainly, there will be no connection to the mysterious disappearance of any $500bn. surplus left to the U.S. by any preceeding administrations, who shall remain unmentioned as well.

Were I a centrist, or even just one of the many hacks who love to wag the finger at both parties and play the ersatz contrarian, I would give serious weight to the idea of composing a delightfully counterintuitive piece of concern-trolling to the effect that dried up pundits like Broder are giving contemporary centrism a bad name, and thus endangering its already tenuous ability to hold the shrieking masses of extremism at bay.

Helloooooo, Slate!

I think the NOLA Bloggers Would Call This a "Lagniappe"

Since I don't listen to NPR I may not be able to find for you, later, their soundfile of Obama -- in a speech yesterday, already covered by Jake "Tapper" Tapper, of ABC News, albeit somewhat dismissively -- saying this:

"If you think they're* working hard to put themselves out of business,   then I’ve got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska"

This line sounds so much like a classic Clinton barb, double hooked, and reiterating the negative about one's opponents, that it gives me pause to think that the Obama/Clinton Photo-Op P.R. dream-meeting, which the two Democrats held the other day, may not have been all smoke and mirrors.

Obama's use of the line " I’ve got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska" will get some press, because it's definitely how-one-says "a good zinger".

More like this, por favor, much more, if possible.

* [the ppl whose monetizing concepts led directly to the current financial crisis, and, not too coincidentally (¡koff!) support McCain]

If I Had A Bigger Hammer, I'd Hammer Out a Narrative

 

You don't have to be a useless, overpaid, hack, skull-faced, soul-sucking lizard person democratic media consultant to see the juicy correlations between Palin's "Fannie-Mae is a liberal plot to steal yer tax dollars" gaffe, and the big faceplant McCain did earlier this year on the issue of not knowing the status of his real estate.

 

• McCain: Doesn't know how many houses he owns
• Palin: Doesn't know the first thing about how Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac helps millions of real Wal-Mart Moms™ and their families, every year, get a taste of that American dream and buy their own homes.

 

This is just another example how John McCain and Sarah Palin are out of touch with ordinary Americans.

Come on, blogueros... come on, Democratic Party.

They just handed you a bigger hammer.

 

*necessary link, and comma, added - oops.

McCain't Going to Lose to Hillary As Well

 

Democrats? Mavericky Rejectsy

 

As if the prospect of losing to Obama wasn't bad enough. From the NYTimes OpEd Page:

 

GAIL COLLINS McCain’s Grizzly Politics John McCain is not actually running for president. He’s running for Senate majority leader. All his passion is directed at defects in the legislative process.

 

Does Collins really think the GOP is going to run the Senate after the `08 election?

O.K. then...

Oh, and the silly thing is that you read the column, and it seems to poke good fun at the McCain camp,
but then you come to the final paragraph:

 

The problem with the Senate is that the skills you need to thrive there — even if you thrive as a maverick — aren’t the ones you need to be president. If McCain wants to convince us that he can adapt and widen his vision, he can start by vowing never to mention the bridge or the bears again.

 

Collins is, in effect, saying that it would be a good thing for McCain if he refused to speak about two issues that are damaging to him, a big tax boondoggle, and anti-environmental federal spending policies. She thinks he should simply not talk about them.

Of course it would be good for McCain's campaign if he shut up about issues that could damage him, but surely it's not the job of a former news editor and supposedly disinterested columnist to play hectoring p.r. mom for the GOP. Let McCain keep flapping his big yammerhole and he'll eventually learn that crap on his own. Conservatives are usually unable to do otherwise.

 

David Brooks: Lie of the Day

 

Reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which Brooks's pants are on fire.

 

The lie

Here's David Brooks, from his New York Times column today, regarding McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his V.P. candidate:

McCain was meeting a woman who risked her career taking on the corrupt Republican establishment in her own state, who twice defeated the oil companies, who made mortal enemies of the two people McCain has always held up as the carriers of the pork-barrel disease: Young and Stevens.

 

The truth?

Ummm not so much.

From yesterday's WashingComPost:

Palin Was a Director of Embattled Sen. Stevens's 527 Group By Matthew Mosk ST. PAUL -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings. Palin's relationship with Alaska's senior senator may be one of the more complicated aspects of her new position as Sen. John McCain's running mate; Stevens was indicted in July 2008 on seven counts of corruption. Palin, an anti-corruption crusader in Alaska, had called on Stevens to be open about the issues behind the investigation. But she also held a joint news conference with him in July, before he was indicted, to make clear she had not abandoned him politically. Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race. Shortly after Palin was announced as McCain's vice presidential pick, the ad was removed from her gubernatorial campaign web site. It remains available on YouTube.

 

 

It does?

Why look, there it is.

Thanks, Talking Points Memo.

 

 

Gustav

 

 

My thoughts and hopes go out tonight to the people of the gulf states getting pounded by hurricane Gustav.

I sincerely hope all of our NOLA blogger friends are high and dry and warm and safe this evening.

The intrepid scout prime over at First Draft has lots of Gustav updates and links to NOLA bloggers, if, like me, you wish to follow the storm through some method other than our execrable news channels.

 

Image from thecheesereporter.blogspot.com