"The ignored conscience of an increasingly crackpot party"
Since we're talking about South Carolina, this isn't all that surprising, but it's sad. Rep. Bob Inglis, "a voice of reason at a dumb, unreasonable time in American politics," is out of a job "for not hating Barack Obama nearly enough." He was trounced in the GOP primary by a Tea Party extremist willing to pander to the misplaced anger of Beckheads.
On some level, I'm not all that sad to see incumbents being kicked out on either side. I believe overly long entrenched politicians are a big part of what's broken in our system of goverance. But I'm sorry to see one that talks like this get beaten down by a ragemonger.
Since this is South Carolina, the Tea Party guy is likely to win. He'll be a disaster in DC. That's unlikely to bother the useful fools who will elect him, but for the greater part of electorate that still don't understand how dangerously unhinged this faction is, he will serve as a living illustration of how extreme the Tea Party movement is and there will be a backlash in 2012. So there's that...
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
On some level, I'm not all that sad to see incumbents being kicked out on either side. I believe overly long entrenched politicians are a big part of what's broken in our system of goverance. But I'm sorry to see one that talks like this get beaten down by a ragemonger.
"I figured out early in the race I was taking a risk by being unwilling to call the President a socialist," Inglis says. "I'd get asked a question and they'd all wait to see if I'd use the word - socialist - they were throwing around. I wouldn't. Because I don't think that's what he is.The author of the post sums up this sorry outcome perfectly.
"To call him a socialist is to demean the office and stir up a passion that we need to be calming, rather than constantly stirring up." [...]
"When you have one of our so-called leaders saying that Obama is a socialist, then others feel empowered to dial up the rhetoric and call him a Marxist. Or a Communist. Then you have something worse than words, you have the dehumanizing and demonizing of the President of the United States. And when that happens across history, scary things can happen." [...]
"Why do I have to see Democrats as my enemies? I've got Al Qaeda. I've got the Taliban. I've got enough enemies. I'm supposed to call this President despicable? The people who are despicable are the ones who constantly mislead the public in the interest of selling books. Or themselves. And always cloaking themselves in patriotism. Shame on them." [...]
"But then what do I know?" Bob Inglis says. "I lost."
His district did. His state did. His party did. He did not.True enough, he got out with his integrity intact.
Since this is South Carolina, the Tea Party guy is likely to win. He'll be a disaster in DC. That's unlikely to bother the useful fools who will elect him, but for the greater part of electorate that still don't understand how dangerously unhinged this faction is, he will serve as a living illustration of how extreme the Tea Party movement is and there will be a backlash in 2012. So there's that...
[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
Labels: Election 2010, Republicans, Wingnuts
posted by Libby Spencer at 10:49 AM
12 Comments:
Your post and Lupica's article both read like Mad-Libs for Liberals. Thought you should know.
P.S. Lupica knows about as much about SC politics as he does about personally dunking a basketball.
And your comment reads like someone who doesn't have the guts to own their words by using their real name.
Anonymous back again: If the substance of the criticism is too much to handle, it is definitely the noble thing to criticize the distribution method of said criticism. Well-played.
A suggestion: disallow anonymous posting. The downside is that I won't be back, but the upside is that you can chat with all 0 of the other commenters (despite Memeorandum linkage) on your post today.
Substance? Do you really have the nerve to call your silly post substantial?
It's substantially snotty, but sorry, that's a substance most of us blow into a kleenex and throw away.
So why the hell would there be a downside to your disappearance? Or your demise, for that matter?
Fogg, your brilliant analogies always knock me over. Thank you.
I would have disallowed anon posting in response but I have a few friends who comment occassionally that way and want to keep it open for them. They of course, sign their comments.
When the blogger itself is misperforming, occasionally, I have to post as Anonymous, glad you allow it.
Seriously, is there such a thing as Mad-Libs? (sounds like the usual avoidance of substance by the practitioners of myth)
Hey Ruth. I think Mad-Libs is a real thing. It's some of kind of game where you add words to stock phrases.
Yes, it's a real game. I remember it from the late 50's. You write down nouns and adjectives in response to abstract questions and then they're plugged into stock paragraphs and sentences which delight the adolescents the game is meant for. I suppose he's suggesting your post is composed of random strings of verbiage, which would be expected of one who can't read or isn't smart enough or even sand enough to understand it, but it's also likely it's just a stock and mindless response, full of sound and fury, etc.
I don't know whether the twit remembers it or if he's just, as so many do, patching together statements using his cloddish cliche's like Leggo blocks and is dumb enough to think it's trenchant wit instead of another word that springs rhymingly to mind.
At any rate, it's criticism without content and it's in a long tradition. Remember when they thought they could defuse explosive facts by saying you wore Birkenstocks or hugged trees?
There must be some sort of book, or they wouldn't all sound so much alike. It's certainly not a 'great minds' thing.
I wish I could get across to people that intelligence isn't achievable through effort or rote learning or reference to authority -- and I wish these jerks could spend half a century or so in a world where people all had IQ's of 25 and then perhaps they'd see how futile it is to pretend.
And by the way, how do you personally dunk a basketball? Would it be less personal from the ball's standpoint if you wore rubber gloves -- or does he mean that dunking it is, for some, just business?
Perhaps the 6 shots of Southern Comfort simply scrambled his word order and he meant to dunk a basketball personally -- not hiring someone else to do it, or not to use some automatic Dunk-O-Matic? The metaphor seems a bit strained anyway, don't you think? One would expect something more literate and pointed of such lofty intellect.
Ah well, I don't suppose we'll be hearing more from him, which is a shame. I have this little proof of Fermat's Theorem I'd like to discuss. . .
I so love you Fogg. Pretty sure you scared him off. Also relatively certain he's a reg at DetNews who followed me home. It also appears he's taken to emailing me directly under yet another persona. Kind of amusing how they always seem to adopt so many identities.
It's in the bible, they are legion.
LOL Ruth.
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