Hello, Anybody Out There? The Republican Vacuum

It has been rather amusing reading up on, and watching television reaction by, Republicans who appear to have been caught by surprise that Obama (and other Democrats) won in this election.  Why?  I think that an important factor is the alternate universe these people have been living in. 

I was watching CNN, Anderson Cooper's show, where he had David Frum and Mary Matalin on to discuss what they felt had happened to Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republicans seeking office, this election.  More specifically, Anderson parroted some of the meme floated by other Democrats in the media that, basically, the Republican electorate had been lied to by the Republican elite, ala Karl Rove and his heavily monied Super Pacs.  While Frum agreed with that analysis, it was rather interesting to watch Ms. Matalin completely discount that narrative. 

I think the people were lied to, and many of us on the left have been yelling at our television sets and grinding our teeth over the obvious lie infested, truth averse, Republican hierarchy's factless narrative.  It is rather pleasant to see the right wing nutjobs squirming in their attempts to spin this election any way other than a total loss for Republicans.

Dazed And Confused

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was so confident of victory against President Barack Obama that he spent $25,000 for victory fireworks, had already drawn up a list of White House appointments and took it easy on election day when his opponents were still working hard to get out the vote.

Political insiders tell Capitol Hill Blue that Romney didn’t think he could lose and was genuinely “shell shocked” when he lost the Presidential race in an electoral vote landslide to Obama.

“He was supremely confident and delayed conceding the race as long as possible because he just didn’t believe he would lose,” says one senior aide.  “It was overconfidence based on inaccurate assumptions and flawed data.”

In conversations with campaign insiders, a portrait of a clueless campaign emerges, driven by a candidate so sure of himself that he ignored all the obvious warning signs.

Romney told his advisers that he was sure minorities and young people would stay home and turn out for Obama as they had in 2008.  That turned out to be a politically fatal assumption.  Obama drew 90 percent of a large black vote and more than three quarters of Latinos.  Asian-Americans also turned out in droves for the incumbent President.

The GOP nominee’s campaign advisers convinced themselves that the polls showing a close race were flawed and that the “true electorate” would give give Romney at least 330 electoral votes.

“They were living in a fantasy land,” says one long-time GOP strategist who asked not to be identified.  “They remained in a fog generated by their candidate’s massive ego.”

When the numbers came in election night, Romney was stunned.  So was his running mate, who couldn’t even carry his home state of Wisconsin.

The wives of both the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates broke into tears.  Romney appeared dazed and it took a while for him to regain enough composure to deliver a long, rambling concession speech.

“Mitt is not accustomed to losing,” says one friend. “It was a bitter pill for him.”

A bitter pill, indeed.  I find it gratifying that I had no belief in the Republican spin going into this election.  My gut feeling was quite the opposite.  I had a sense that Obama was going to win, and win big.  I also believed that the Senate was going to gain Democrats, although I was pretty much resigned to the House remaining in Republican hands.

I am managing to watch Fox a few more minutes every day.  They are still on the Benghazi train, but let it never be said that Republican spinmeisters could let go of a flawed Democratic conspiracy theory.

Why No 9/11 Post

Every year, I post something about 9/11. I purposely did not post yesterday, and there was a reason.

A number of bloggers, as well as some editorials I read during the weekend preceding 9/11, made a point that I found myself agreeing with. That was, why keep "peeling the scab off" every year? Is this for political gain? Is it really necessary? There have been some comments to the many posts and editorials comparing 9/11 to Pearl Harbor (12/7), with the caveat that with age, the dire memories of the event fade, and the emotional toll evaporates. Questions abound as to whether those who have actual painful memories of having lived through 12/7 are around such that EVERY 12/7 they relive that infamous day, and would we, as a generation, eventually feel more stoic and less emotional on 9/11. I don't know the answer, but this year, it sort of rolled by me. Yes, I did watch some more 9/11 footage on the television. Who would not, when aside from emotional reactions, we have 11 years of knowledge as to what occurred leading up to those tragic events. And, yes, I am still hungry for that knowledge, because as most of us now know, the Bush administration was lax in preparing for, let alone understanding the threat, as they were much more interested in linking Saddam Hussein and Iraq to these tragic terrorist attacks than they were to ascribing the true source to Saudi Arabian trained terrorists and Osama Bin Laden! Let us not forget the ties that bind Bush, et al. with Saudi Arabia.

Anyway ... of course, I will never forget, as the mantra goes. But, do I feel the need to join the cacophonous chorus of MSM/politicians that sound the drumbeat of war every year on this anniversary? No. I silently now observe the day, with my own personal memorial (and yes, I do have a 9/11 memorial shelf in my library), and grieve personally for the sadness of that day.

Just Who Owns The Media

A pretty interesting article with graphics about the clear consolidation of media of the world into the hands of some six major players. Think about that for a while. I grew up when breaking up monopolies was the thing to do (remember the "baby Bells" as the telephone industry monopoly was broken up in the 1970's?) It's obvious why this country remains stupid -- big media wants it that way.

I'll have another cup of reality tv, thank you. H/T to The Frugal Dad.

Source: Frugal dad

2010 Might Be Another Banner Year For Democrats, After All

You know, I was pretty sure I was just going to sit out the 2010 election this year because, as most of my readers know, I am not a fan of Obama anymore, based on his lack of progress on his promise of changing America. And, I'm not buying any logic that being president is "hard work," either.

Also, I was pretty sure, based on what most of the liberal and progressives were touting on their websites, that we all felt the same way, and were willing to let the Republicans take over the majority, even if it was by default.

However, unexpectedly, for all of us, the teabaggers came along. They don't really bother me, except for their lack of knowledge about government and their deep reverence for all things Fox. But, they are a problem for the Republican party, because the teabaggers hate many Republicans, if not most, as well.

So, if you add that to the mix, plus the recent actions in the Senate by the whining Republicans who are refusing to let government do its job (never mind the fact that all the Republicans in Congress have en masse voted no on every bill, regardless of how much the Democrats, much to liberals' and progressives' chagrin, catered to their needs and wishes), it's not looking so bad for the Democrats this 2010!

The teabaggers represent a MINORITY of Americans. Fox news (as well as the right wing hate talk radio shows) coupled with all print media (right wing or liberal) and TV (cable and non-cable) only reach approximately 10% of the 300+ million Americans. See my post here from 2008 that indicates 90% of Americans do not get their news views from quote main stream media unquote.

There are more registered Democrats than Republicans, and the base of the teabagger movement is close to 100% Republican in origin (give or take a few percentage points). Which, pretty much rules out any effective takeover of Congress in 2010 by the Republicans!

The party of no, of violence, of intolerance, of hatred, of racism, of bigotry, of homophobia, of war, of religiosity, of lies, of deception, of greed, of white power (I could go on, and on, and on) will most likely not be representative of this country come 2010. They simply don't have the numbers, despite what the main stream media tries to say to the 10% that watch/read/listen to them. And, with Jerry Brown in the mix for Governor of California ... (grins) I guess I might have to just go to the polls in 2010 after all!

Bias In News Reporting?

Just a short comment about the television coverage of the teabaggers riotous moments this weekend, and the fucking LACK of coverage of the obviously LARGER demonstration by proponents of immigration reform.

To be expected, for sure. Yawn.

Obama Thinks Blogs Don't Fact Check, No, Seriously! He's One Confused Puppy

Mr. Obama said he noted the trend. "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual nderstanding," the President said.

Um, Mr. President. People shouting at each other across the void, without a lot of mutual understanding, is not a description of the blogosphere. It's not even a description of newspapers (which is what your comments were that preceded this one). It is, however, what television news has become. And the comment about fact checking being practically non-existent in the blogosphere, and "no serious attempt to put stories in context" shows how little you read the blogs and how much you actually DO watch television news shows! Actually, when it comes to not checking the facts, AP Wire Service, and its reporters, are fabulous for that.

News broadcasters have been telling outright lies for at least the past four to eight years now, with the most egregious lies coming since this president has been elected. But, with the weak-spined president that we have, instead of calling a liar a liar, to his face, this president has to put the blame on the blogosphere -- back to the pajama wearing, Cheetos eating, kids living in the basement of their parents, blogger mentality.

Time and time again it has been proven that the blogosphere is what is keeping truth out in the forefront while the mass media assault on truth is ongoing, with no abatement in sight.

How ignorant. And here, I thought GWB was the twit. Imagine that.

And You Call This Journalism?

Liz Cheney is really the perfect face of Washington's political culture, a perfect manifestation of all the rotting diseases that define it and a pure expression of what our country has become and the reasons for its virtual ruin.

Couldn't have said it any better.

Another Rhetorical Post, Even At This Bar

I am just completely and totally amazed at the mass, non-liberal, (cough, cough) media and Republican politicians going on the record as hoping for a President of America to fail! That astounds me.

In a country that overwhelmingly in 2008, in city, state and federal elections, elected more Democrats to office than Republicans, the very small minority opinion party is espousing a policy of failure?

Ma ma mamacita, donde es santa claus? (quoting Cheech & Chong).

Do they not realize that most of America does not agree with this minority party's platform, and said so in the voting booth, despite the same old attempts to rig Republican votes. Even with Coleman still trying to figure out a way to make it a two year fight so that Al Franken never gets to represent his state, are these people so out of touch that they don't think the American public will vote them even more out of office?

I cannot imagine every day Republicans being in agreement with this new Limbaugh "Policy of Failure" attitude. I know the ones in my office building are shaking their heads and holding their hands up (as in, "well, what can you do"), which is in stark contrast to their vocal support of the Republican platform during the past eight years.

Just about everyone I know has only a one degree of separation from someone that is (a) either in a foreclosure, (b) filing bankruptcy, (c) lost their job, (d) lost their apartment, (e) lost their health plan, (f) lost their retirement, (g) lost a good deal of their financial portfolio, (h) dropped out of college because of losing grants, or (h) any combination of the above. This is what real Americans are facing.

And the Republican party in the last eight years has fallen all over themselves in trying to hand out taxpayer money to the Haliburton war profiteers and their ilk, hand over wads of cash, I'm talking cash, people, to anyone and everyone in Iraq that had agreed to anything and everything any young 20 something who was managing Iraq right after the invasion, said were qualifications for the money, deregulate the shit out of this country, free trade the shit out of this country, send our jobs out of this country, etc. so who the fuck are they to have any job qualification to pontificate over a policy of failure?

Is that Beltway bubble so tight these people and their cronies really and truly do not have a clue as to what their constituents (their voters) really want from this government?

And they say the Democrats have no balls. How the ruling policy maker of the Republican has become Limbaugh is beyond my rather bright mind to comprehend. Oh, the quivering and shaking of the Republican party, Rush said this, Rush said that, mantra this, mantra that, bullshit. It's now a true meme -- Republicans actually root for failure. I was taught all Americans root for success, otherwise, you don't succeed. But in our government, especially those in Washington, Republicans truly believe that Americans will support their rather small opinion that Americans want our President of the United States, to fail. Poll, after poll, after poll, completely debunks this theory, and yet, on tv and in Washington, you can't drop to the floor fast enough to repeat after Rush -- "We want Obama to fail."

And who was it that said ""I didn’t vote for [John Kennedy], but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job," oh, yeah, John Wayne!

I need another drink.

UPDATE: Funny quote -- “I’m sorry Limbaugh called for harsh sentences for drug addicts while he was a drug addict. I’m also sorry that he’s bent on seeing America fail. And I’m sorry that Limbaugh is one sorry excuse for a human being.” [Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)]

The Beltway Journalists Running Scared

Another great post by Glenn Greenwald, on the Beltway mentality, and their fear that Obama just might have really meant what he said during his campaign for the presidency. The media lies to the public constantly. The media distorts reality to the public constantly. And this is supported by the bad guys in government that have something to gain by distorting public opinion to gain their advantage. And just like Greenwald, I am sick and tired of it. Journalists are not supposed to regurgitate press releases ... they are supposed to research and report on the truth and relevancy of the topics. But, between the singularly corporate controlled media (anyone notice the change in tone in editorials once Murdoch took over the WSJ? Yeah, I thought so) and their government officials with a stake in the lies, it has become patently possible to watch and/or read anything emanating from what is considered main stream media.

It's amazing how explicitly Brooks here is endorsing -- and demanding -- deliberate deceit of the public. There is, for obvious reasons, extreme anger among the American citizenry towards the piggish sleaze, systematic corruption, and wholesale destruction permeating the political establishment and our political and financial elites. In order to pacify those sentiments, political elites tolerated, perhaps even desired, a presidential candidate with credible outsider pretenses who claimed to empathize with that popular anger and who wanted to combat the political elites who were the targets of it -- but only on the condition that he didn't really mean any of it, that it was all just a means to deceive people into believing that they still live in some sort of responsive democracy and they retain even a minimal ability to shape what the Government does. The anti-Washington rhetoric Obama was spouting was tolerated by media elites only to the extent that none of it was sincere.

There is a direct relationship between (a) evidence that Obama didn't mean any of his campaign rhetoric and doesn't intend to do anything other than blend into and perpetuate the Washington status quo; and (b) the media's sentiments towards Obama. The more there is of (a), the more positive is (b). Conversely, the less there is of (a), the more negative is (b). That's why Brooks is angry with Obama here: there is almost a suggestion that Obama might have meant some of the critiques he voiced about Washington during the campaign or, at the very least, that Obama's anti-Washington rhetoric might force him, now and then, to oppose prevailing Washington orthodoxies and go against dominant Washington power centers even if Obama doesn't want to (which is what happened when his "campaign blather" forced Daschle out). Brooks is fearful and thus angry that Obama created a Frankenstein: leading people to believe that there would be any changes in Washington and that they had the right to expect it.

[snip]

This is exactly what Brooks is saying. Indeed, if one reviews most of the political controversies of the last decade, one finds exactly this dynamic: the political and media establishment joining together to deliberately distort American public opinion and thus render it irrelevant in what the political class does: the mass desire for de-funding of and withdrawal from Iraq; the overwhelming demand for investigations into Bush crimes during the administration; the widespread belief now that those crimes must be investigated; the extreme majorities favoring "even-handedness" in our Middle East policies; economic policies and government processes promoting the interests of the majority rather than the narrow corporate interests that so transparently own and control political officials. The overarching role of the Beltway journalist is to obscure and distort those widely-held views on the part of the citizenry and thus prevent them from having any impact, protect political power from those beliefs.

Once In A While, Couldn't The AP Actually Research A Story?

This is what happens when the right-wing controlled media regurgitates what the stupid Republican congresscritters tell them. The only problem, of course, is the stupidity of the Republicans who, in their rush to find anything they can use to discredit anything with an Obama (or any other Democrat, for that matter) stamp on it, fail to actually read documents, or more likely, fail to actually understand what it is they are reading! And, of course, if you give it to the definitely right-wing run AP, which couldn't find a truth if God gave it to them directly, you end up with this kind of crap:

Reports of a recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the vast majority of the money in the stimulus package won't be spent until after 2010, have Democrats on the defensive and the GOP calling for a pullback in wasteful spending.

Funny thing is, there is no such report.

"We did not issue any report, any analysis or any study," a CBO aide told the Huffington Post.

As Steven Benen points out:

Oops.

It appears that the preliminary, incomplete numbers put together by the CBO were distributed to a small handful of lawmakers in both parties earlier in the week. Someone(Republican congressional offices) then passed the misleading data onto the AP, which predictably ran with the incomplete numbers, telling the public that it "will take years before an infrastructure spending program proposed by President-elect Barack Obama will boost the economy."

Other major media outlets quickly followed, and voila, Republicans had a talking point: "Boehner and other Republican aides roamed the Capitol press galleries, flogging the CBO numbers."

Obviously, congressional Republicans were less concerned about reality than undermining an economic rescue package. But as DDay noted, let's not brush past media culpability: "It's pretty clear that the media has no ability to or interest in understanding this stuff, because then they wouldn't have their precious 'conflict.' So they regurgitate whatever some GOP staffer feeds them, just to spice things up."

OMB Director Peter Orszag, who used to head the CBO, has already responded to the bogus reports and talking points. Republicans and reporters might want to check it out.

It gets tiring having mainstream media (and AP, in particular) disseminate unresearched, unchecked, and unconfirmed information as fact, especially in their haste to bash whatever appears to have a liberal bent to it.

And they wonder why print circulation keeps diminishing, and television ratings are scant?