Which of course makes her part of the problem, as many former McCain-staffers turned Democrat consultants will gleefully tell you.
Again and again and again I’ve written “it’s the ruling class vs. the rest of us,” and the narrative is being pieced together just as we knew it would be: Cuccinelli’s loss in VA is yet another death knell for the “extremists” in the TEA Party who can’t win; meanwhile, Chris Christie — oh glorious east coast Republican, who can win Hispanics (by promising in-state tuition and supporting amnesty) — is the future, he’s inevitable, he’s a “maverick” who can cross party lines to “get things done.” Like, for instance, institute ObamaCare in NJ; favor gun control; support EPA programs to “tackle climate change”; argue for the erection of an Islamic center on the site of the downed Twin Towers.
You see, Mitt Romney — one of the architects of what is now ObamaCare — has declared that Chris Christie can save the GOP. And Matt Lauer — always concerned for the health of the GOP — is very keen on teaching the rather dull snowbilly that lesson, recalcitrant though she may be. Because honestly, who is she to reject the political acumen of a guy who lost an election to the man who, with his party, lied in order to force on us ObamaCare, whose policies have led to 10 million people removing themselves from the job market, who has given us skyrocketing debt, the shut down of some unfavored industries and the nationalization of others, and the growth of the entitlement state (through food stamps and other subsidies) that is positively Marxist in its aims?
That is, who is this Palin chick to reject the political wisdom of such a polished, kindly man as Mitt Romney, a man who not too long ago was a filthy 1% who wanted to kill old women, whose shrew wife lived in the lap of (admittedly disabled) luxury, and murdered a women with cancer?
If he says Christie can win, then by God, Matt Lauer is all for it, being the Republican booster that he is.
— all of which I point out not to pillory Matt Lauer, who after all is doing what is his job as a liberal media propagandist, namely, set the GOP up for ambush and failure in the long term, but in the short term, to help them defang what ace MSNBC host and conservative opinion leader Joe Scarborough has called “political amateurs” who, let’s face it, just don’t have the chops to “govern.” They “obstruct”, these zealots. They “refuse to compromise.” As if the end goal of our political system isn’t checks and balances and the protection of unalienable rights and the Constitution that guarantees that protection, but rather governing and compromising as ends unto themselves. It’s form over function, style over substance, politics as a thing unto itself, unmoored from the effects of policy, and if you listen closely, you should begin to hear the word “govern”, when used in such a context as to differentiate “amateurs” from political professionals — the ruling class and its court, attendants, scribes, etc., — as it is quite literally meant: that we require in our society a large and powerful centralized authority doing things on our behalf, whether we agree with those things or not, because they have determined that the things they do help to manage the unhealthy spread of diverse and selfish individualism and sculpt a society that looks like they wish it to look: a kind of neo-aristocracy, with a permanent political ruling class and its unelected enforcers in the bureaucracies, and then the herd that they will shape, nudge, experiment upon, and — through their consummate compassion — aid in making personal decisions that the poor dumb animals can’t make on their own. Paradise, in other words. With no middle class bringing their icky values into the equation or having the disposable income to pretend to live a lifestyle that simply isn’t their lot: that distinction goes to the big business leaders who work with the politicians in a crony capitalist system (liberal fascism) and the politicians who negotiate and pass the laws to aid those cronies in exchange for money to keep their power.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in that one odious moment where Lauer, in the clip, suggests that when all is said and done, and the President’s lie brings to the carping and ungrateful “5%” better health care than they had before, shouldn’t they then forgive Obama his lies, which he needed to cling to in order to get it the legislation past the dullards so that, ultimately, he could save them from themselves and their own destructive individual choice?
Honestly, I wanted to vomit. And that’s because what Lauer did, aside from giving away the narrative I and others easily saw coming, which is based around the planned responses to two elections orchestrated in such a way as to help forge the current rhetorical trajectory (using Obama donors, third party candidates, a GOP that shied away from incisive attacks on McAuliffe, and an RNC that all but abandoned him, spending but a third on Cuccinelli’s race what they spent on McDonnell, and then spending time and money in New Jersey hoping to pump up Christie’s victory margin to “prove” to us what a salable candidate he is nationally), is give a glimpse into the souls of the entirety of the current two party establishment.
They want to control you. To be your sovereigns. They find the American dream disgusting in many respects: why should some guy with an idea for how to improve skateboards become richer than they, who studied at the Kennedy school and who can “get things done”? Who creates the societal conditions where the nouveau riche can rise, contaminating the upper crust with their mold spores and gaudy sprinkles?
There is an arrogance, and entitlement mentality, and an enviousness behind every permanent ruling elite. Which is why such a system always devolves toward tyranny or authoritarianism. In our case, we use a perversion of language to affect changes to law that, ultimately, reinforce a particular political trajectory, something I’ve written on at great length and yet has been largely bracketed by the big “conservative” opinion sites, who don’t much care for my candor, particularly when they learn it can be aimed at their own (what I believe to be) missteps.
I’ve remained fairly constant, because my political beliefs are informed by my beliefs in the tenets of liberty, individual autonomy, free market capitalism, and a system the privileges federalism. That is, a constitutional representative republic that relies for its authority and functionality a fidelity to a stable rule of law and the belief in equality of opportunity left largely unmolested by those who would presume to write the rules and keep their thumbs on the scales of both justice and access.
And I’ve been doing this for going on 12 years.
Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds. But then, small minds don’t generally believe themselves capable of being gods, either. So I’ve got that going for me.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in that one odious moment where Lauer, in the clip, suggests that when all is said and done, and the President’s lie brings to the carping and ungrateful “5%” better health care than they had before, shouldn’t they then forgive Obama his lies, which he needed to cling to in order to get it the legislation past the dullards so that, ultimately, he could save them from themselves and their own destructive individual choice? –
Well, the ends justify the means. Duh.
Well, the ends justify the means.
Casablanca. (Which, yes, whitehouse.)
Chances are, as such things go — in warfare, that is — these two, ends and means, will only harmonize when the actors are ruthlessly honest with themselves while they are dishonest with others — and even then it will necessarily remain a dicey proposition. TheClownDisaster? . . . has always lied to himself first and foremost of all the creatures under the sun.
I’ll stick with the amateurs of 1775 who also refused to compromise, thank you.
When Lauer was going on about lack of a Tea Party plan*, it reminds me of what I keep asking liberal friends, why is it so important that “health care solutions” come out of Washington DC? They really have no answer to this.
*of course what I want Sarah to say is “yes, exactly, no plan, leave us the hell alone”
Chances are, as such things go — in warfare, that is — these two, ends and means, anyway, in English, Lauer is repugnant. So is Lauer’s finely polished size six, thrust out there like Charlie Gibson’s phallic anti-snowbilly elevator loafer in another one of these chatty confrontations. What is it with these people?
Yup.
I think Emerson’s complete aphorism, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines,” applies quite well to your opponents.
This is your brain on being a Moderate. Any questions?
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9342/06ag.png
For those unfamiliar with the Matrix. The Matrix is a false reality that resembles Earth in the 1990’s. It is used to imprison mankind in a semi-humane manner so they can be used to power intelligent machines who don’t understand thermodynamics very well. The machines ruthlessly enforce the illusion and keep the humans alseep in the collective virtual reality illusion at all times.
Morpheus is a hacker who found a way to bring people out of the dream. When he does this he offers them a choice:
The red pill in the right hand represents waking up to a painful degraded reality. You get to wear home spun clothes in a rusty flying submarine and run from robot squids. The red pill disconnects you from the matrix and tells the crew of the flying sub where you are so they can collect you and help you adjust to real life.
The Blue Pill in the left hand represents a choice to stay asleep and deceived and confused by the artificial world you inhabit. You will forget that Morpheus ever visited you if you choose the blue pill and things will seem to go on like always.
The purple pill is held in the second left hand and seems like a blend between the red and the blue pills but it also feels like an illusion because it doesn’t belong in a binary choice to wake up or stay asleep. It exists as a comfort for those who choose the blue pill and need to be shielded from their cowardice with the illusion of a third choice. In reality the purple is a Nexium(TM) which might help a stressed out person with their acid reflux when taken with the blue pill.
Meh. I thought it was a pretty good skewering of the moderate choice…
1) I was gonna make a purple pill joke, dammit.
2) Don’t mess with the robot squids.
Yet oddly enough, in the degraded reality Carrie-Ann Moss still shaves her underarms.
5% of previously insured with their own dollars citizens is “no big deal” and they should shut up.
<2% of the population which is homosexual wishes to get married. This is a big deal and one that means we must move heaven and earth to accomplish.
I don't get it.
Tea Party with 30% approval is fringe and extreme and kooky.
Congress with 9% approval is moderate and dignified and respectable.
There’s a lot of things I don’t get.
Somebody, it might have been here, used the term “Vichy Republicans,” and I thought, “oh, that is perfect.” But I did not understand what I was liking so much. I was wrong about what I was liking. What I wanted the term to mean was more like Versailles Oligarchy.
And now I absolutely do not understand Versailles at all. I was aware of a picture that makes it look like a long building with impressive gardens, but that is hardly the case. It is much more than that, more like all the buildings of Washington compressed into a fairly unified complex and nothing at all what I thought. Enlarged by building “campaigns” the place gobbles up the whole town and fills up a whole valley as it is built forward over previous gardens and chews back into the forest until there is none left.
Just like Washington.
And now Versailles is a what? A park, an historical place to visit. Rather opulent and garish and off-putting, I imagine, walking all over the grounds feeling the life forces being sucked from an empire.
run run rudolph Sarah save the Christmas !
omg Mr. buttons is a prophet
he has the gift
de wetbacks like the xmas too mr. pickachu
jesus is the reason for the season Mr. newrouter
praise allan and pass the tacos
i wish i had tacos to pass
i stopped for habit burgers and they were UNSATISFYING
there’s just very little choice between work and home
Joe Mantegna has a place i pass called “Taste Chicago” that I pass that I haven’t tried yet but Yelp says it sucks ass
and that kind of food is hard to get excited about even when it’s done right
Newrouter, Tacos are more of a running food.
enchiladas then
The Revolution Starts Here
You sher use yer mouth pertier’n a twen’y doll’r whore
Vichy conservatives pimping for Versailles Republicans, perhaps?
@Ernst: It’s good to be the King. :-/
Especially when the aristocrats climb over each other for the privilige of kissing your ass in exchange for a seat at the table, Patrick.
Both of those metaphors are diamonds, in my humble opinion.
You have to remember that internet reviews, which in the early days used to be useful, are now a business where competitors pay to have bad reviews placed by their people and businesses pay to have good ones put in. When something has only reviews of SUPER and HORRIBLE then it’s best to simply try it yourself and see. Especially when it is just an item like food and not something durable and expensive.
ok i will try
maybe one night after work this week except I think the rest of the week is sort of brutal
we’ll see
Saturday I’m a go to the Universal theme park for the first time
I want to go *before* they open Harry Potter so I’ll know what it was like before they opened Harry Potter
Reviews that say nothing useful about why the product got the review it got, are best skipped over. And downvoted too, if that’s an option.