Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
Back to Main

November 10, 2006
WB: Proctological Exam +

Billmon:

What the Election Really Meant

—

This would have two useful purposes: It would force the Republicans to defend a bunch of corporate crooks and sleazy lobbyists, instead of the dignity and majesty of the imperial presidency, and it would also put some muscle behind the Dems’ efforts to break up what’s left of DeLay’s K Street Project and replace it with their own political extortion racket.

Proctological Exam

Posted by b on November 10, 2006 at 15:55 UTC | Permalink
Comments

ABC’s Mark Halperin, NYT October 1, 2006 [Hattip to Atrios]
Yet two years of controversy over the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, and the perils of high gas prices and low poll numbers, have led many to believe that the Republicans’ strategy of fighting from the base has worn out its welcome… Interesting theory, but it probably won’t work. If the Republicans want to keep their majorities in the midterm elections, their best chance is to stick with the old, base-driven Bush-Rove electoral strategy…
“Why? In the eyes of the Bush team, America is a polarized country, one where there are fundamental divisions worth fighting over… The goal is to accumulate just enough power to use the energies and passions of the base to effect ideological change in the nation’s laws and institutions, even if — sometimes especially if — those changes might be at odds with majority public opinion… For the Republicans, this brand of politics works because the United States in many ways remains a fundamentally conservative nation.”
I know you’ve been bucking for promotion from your pals to Sturmbahnfuhrer, Mark, but please — shove that sharp-cornered, square argument so far up your alimentary canal that it’s lodged right beside your black heart.
Oh — I’d brush up your resume, too. the entertainment industry’s pretty fickle, Mark.
What with the new winds of change and all, it might just be worth it for Disney to can your rascist, homophobic, Blackshirt ass.
Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.

Posted by: Austin Cooper | Nov 10 2006 16:25 utc | 1

“…replace it with their own political extortion racket.”
How dare you blaspheme our savior’s on their white horses!
May you turn into a pillar of salt you pinko sinner. They said the calvery was on it’s way remember! Hope was on the way! nay, help is was on the way!
O’ye of little faith.
It’s here! Miracle of miracles!
So what if it took years, and the fort has been destroyed, it was ‘devinly distroyed’. “Rise up! rise up! brother Lazarus…Praise be out to da Lord!

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 10 2006 16:41 utc | 2

So sorry for these guys: Out-of-Work GOP Aides Face Tough Road Ahead

The hundreds of Republican staffers — not to mention more than a few Members — who will lose their jobs in the next few weeks are going to face a hostile marketplace on K Street as unemployed Republicans flood the market.
…
While GOP aides are flooding the town with their résumés, it’s now plugged-in Democratic aides whom companies and firms really have an eye for.
“It’s going to be more of a buyer’s market for Republican staffers and a seller’s market for the Democratic staffers,” said Mike Tongour, who runs Tongour Simpson Holsclaw, a boutique lobbying firm with no Democrats on the payroll. “We’ve had a couple of phone calls from Democrats who are thinking about leaving the Hill, and we’re interested in talking to them.”
One prominent lobbyist who hires Capitol Hill aides said that, in general, Republicans can expect to slash about $50,000 from what they might have commanded before the election returns came in. Yet, another lobbyist who runs his large firm said there are senior-level Democratic aides for whom he would offer as much as $600,000 in total compensation to lure them to his bipartisan shop because of simple supply and demand.
Veteran lobbyists and headhunters said some of the soon-to-be-unemployed aides and Members will find new jobs in the Bush administration, where a flurry of turnover is expected.
…
“I think most bipartisan lobbying firms have gradually set their staff to sort of reflect the existing split of power, and they’ll recalibrate,” said Gregg Hartley, a former top aide to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is chief operating officer of Cassidy & Associates.
Lobbyists also said that Democrats, looking to boost their salary, will begin negotiations with other firms.
While few of the losing Members in Tuesday’s elections have K Street hiring partners drooling, several lobbyists said they’d like to scoop up outgoing Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), who lost a close race for Senate. “I’d take Harold Ford in a flash,” said one GOP lobbyist.

Posted by: b | Nov 10 2006 17:30 utc | 3

This is a chance to put the Ponzi sceme to rest: the neocons were convinced that they would be able to bury these “cost overruns” in the tons of money they expected to be earning from Iraq’s oil revenues by now.
Remember folks: “no-bid, cost plus contract” = “license to print money”.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 10 2006 17:39 utc | 4

Everything, everything the Dems do from here is preparation for taking even more of a grip on power in 2008. Nothing, nothing takes precedence over that.
The primary goal of the new Dem majority is to depress and damage and do in the GOP on all fronts at once.
Big projects like impeaching the Dauphin, bringing the troops home, rolling back Bush’s tax cuts, cancelling the Patriot Act, restoring the Fairness Doctrine, on and on will be approached only within a steady, incremental approach of oversight investigations.
In other words, the next two years are going to be full of GOP laundry, day after day after day.
One exception. They are going to have to put some sort of cherry on this whole thing, some positive and unifying project to win everyone’s enthusiasm. Doing dirty laundry day after day gets old.
Perhaps it will be energy independence, as in the Apollo Project or something similar. Really, it could be any of a dozen different ‘Grand Visions’ that need doing.
My personal favorite is establishing a free press, supported entirely by private and public trusts, totally walled off from advertiser monies.
An informed electorate would never have brought us to where we stand today.
/

Posted by: Antifa | Nov 10 2006 18:42 utc | 5

sorry. this is offtopic, but I thought it was in the general area, so to speak.
What is a power bottom?

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 10 2006 18:49 utc | 6

Antifa as ever posts a great post:
An informed electorate would never have brought us to where we stand today.
ergo: They are woefully misinformed. You must have read Pat Lang’s latest post.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Nov 10 2006 19:09 utc | 7

@faux – try here and no he wasn’t one, he just was a regular bottom paying for a prostate massage …

Posted by: b | Nov 10 2006 19:12 utc | 8

@faux,
dunno about the “power” part, but a “bottom is the term for the partner in a gay realtionship who plays the part usually assumed by a female in a hetero relationship.
I wonder when the first scandals will come out involving a politically influential Imam buying Afghani heroin from a gay muslim hooker…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 10 2006 19:12 utc | 9

love the link faux. have to admit i had to google power bottom myself. (i already knew what a bottom was, and the power part too 😉

Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2006 19:34 utc | 10

#8, i originally thought he was getting some kind of oral massage so i am glad you set the record straight.

Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2006 19:36 utc | 11

I knew what a bottom was, too. but power bottom, when I looked for it, wasn’t really that telling for me. I knew if I asked here someone would come up with good links and explanations. so, thanks (and thanks to you, too…who knows who you are. 🙂
I thought maybe it was a badunkadunk. 🙂

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 10 2006 20:18 utc | 12

badunkadunk?

Posted by: annie | Nov 10 2006 20:33 utc | 13

The old ideological question of apple vs. pear shaped and the borders between – no need to get further into that – it is a not decidable – Schroedinger cat like case.
With closet gay Mehlman out, what closed guy will lead the RNC in future?

Posted by: b | Nov 10 2006 21:15 utc | 14

If anyone really cares, my pork n bean mates tell me ‘power bottom’ is the gay relationship equivalent of a ‘woman who wears the trousers’ in an old timey straight relationship, fairly self evident when you think about it, but I must confess I hadn’t thought about it.
Probably cause one tends to idealise other preferences’ relationship models in the hope that somewhere some how some group has got it right in a collective sense rather than the ‘lucky few’ or ‘together few’ or whatever.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 10 2006 21:58 utc | 15

badunkadunk — for some reason, remindes me of a theater in cleveland named the Scrumpy Dump. I sense a connection.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 10 2006 22:02 utc | 16

This IS a proctology thread, no?

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 10 2006 22:03 utc | 17

Bugger the proctology which one of you jokers gave Free Image hosting by ImageSnapMrs. Rumsfeld my email addy?

Posted by: markfromireland | Nov 10 2006 23:20 utc | 18

Not me.

Posted by: beq | Nov 11 2006 0:36 utc | 19

“My personal favorite is establishing a free press, supported entirely by private and public trusts, totally walled off from advertiser monies.”
Antifa my dear, such a thing already exists, and youre one of its many dedicated talented writers.
.. That free speech is a niche market is another matter entirely.

Posted by: bianco | Nov 11 2006 1:00 utc | 20

When I heard the phrase “power bottom” I thought it might have meant a john that a hooker was able to squeeze, so to speak, for bribes. But I found out that’s called cashtration.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 11 2006 2:28 utc | 21

as mentioned earlier- Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, and high level military to be charged for abuses at Abu Ghraib and G.Bay.
Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides “universal jurisdiction” allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 11 2006 4:52 utc | 22

Ummm Beq did you actually click that link I posted?
If you’re feeling a little schadenfreudeish (Sorry B I’m sure that’s crap German how should I say it?) Anyway If you’re in the mood for a little schadenfreude feel free to click the link 🙂

Posted by: markfromireland | Nov 11 2006 5:03 utc | 23

Didn’t know Rummy had a Nigerian wife.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 11 2006 6:44 utc | 24

Sorry mfi, I went to bed after that. I did click the link and there were three ads, two of them were for businesses in Richmond, Va. so I said, “not me”. Now I see the letter. I had the same reaction as Debs is dead when I read it. My feeling is more scam than schadenfreude. Anyway, he’s rolling in money. He’ll need it for lawyers, I hope.

Posted by: beq | Nov 11 2006 17:25 utc | 25

wolfowitz – that most straussian of war criminals was living with a woman oof libyan origin who worked for none other than mad-as-a-meataxe cheney
he is chief amongst those who should dance from the end of a rope – the massacre that was once called iraq -is a responsibility that ought to weigh heavily on his shoulders – tho i doubt he thinks about that slaughterhouse at all today
he is not the gentle face of the necons – instead he is one of its most brutal theorists & one of the members of this administration most covered in blood

Posted by: r’giap | Nov 11 2006 18:25 utc | 26

I hear you r’giap, and though I am against the death penalty, and as hypocritical as it sounds, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. However, I would rather they spend the rest of their lives in a 4×8 cell. With weekly visits from the families of the dead.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Nov 11 2006 18:43 utc | 27

I’m sorry… consistency might just be a hobgoblin of my particular small mind, but little inaccuracies drive me crazy.
@ralphieboy (#9)
“Bottom” is not a term used exclusively to describe male homosexuals and does not imply recipience of male sexual attention. Let the accusations that I am a PC thug commence.
@r’giap (#26)
Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, is Tunisian, not Libyan, according to the UK’s TimesOnline.

Mr Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, works at the World Bank. Ms Riza, who was born in Tunis and grew up in Saudi Arabia, is an ardent proponent of spreading democratic rights throughout the Arabic world. Her low-key presence in Mr Wolfowitz’s life surprises critics, who assert that he masterminds a Zionist conspiracy from the Pentagon.

Some folk have noted the conflict of interest his relationship with her and his positions regarding the IraqDebacle and his job at the World Bank present.

Posted by: Monolycus | Nov 11 2006 19:54 utc | 28

Back to Main