Karl Rove, along with the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal, are concerned that the GOP will nominate an unelectable whackjob for President.
Really, Karl? You spent your career catering to teh crazee and conditioning voters to respond to a whole symphony of dog whistles. And the worldview you helped create out of sound bytes and hysteria has now been so internalized by many Republican voters that it’s all they will respond to. So what’s the problem, Karl?
You used to be able to play the whackjobs like a fiddle. You’d signal the fringies with winks and nods while keeping up a sane, rational facade for the rest of the public. But now the Frankenstein’s monster has escaped from the laboratory; the Terminator is out of control.
Towards the beginning of the original Terminator film, Kyle Reese, who has come back to the past to save Sarah Connor – whose spawn will save mankind – lets her know what she’s facing in her new cybernetic stalker. “Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
Substitute “Tea Party” for “Terminator” and “U.S. Government” for “you,” and with the exception of “fear” (which I’d argue is what drives them), this pretty much sums up the story of the 60-odd birdbrain Birchers who have rebranded themselves Tea Partiers and brought more crazy than Kanye West to the House of Representatives.
Steve M. wrote, “I love it that Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul scored nearly 30% of the vote each in the Ames straw poll and the result is that we’re told it’s now a two-person race — Perry vs. Romney.” That”s because Everyone Knows the GOP establishment isn’t going to let Bachmann or Paul get the nomination. That’s how the GOP primary process works. There’s some primary theater, and somehow the guy the establishment had already settled on gets to win.
What will the establishment do to get the process back in hand? I doubt editorials in the Wall Street Journal will do it.
But now the Frankenstein’s monster has escaped from the laboratory
🙂 Exactly!
I see at National Review Online another round of Ryan-for-President boosting. The hour demandeth the man, apparently. Clearly they are very nervous about the prospect of any of the current front-runners actually getting into the White House.
I heard that Joe Scarborough was talking about how Bachmann was a joke. Well, I remember reading his column during the Schiavo fiasco, playing the “why do liberals want poor Terri to die?” riff. Now, that was not just a mean-spirited lie about liberals, it was such an egregious lie about the facts of the situation that he should be ashamed to show his face in public.
Now Rove is worried.
And Gingrich, one of the primary architects of the “let’s pretend liberals are evil!” game can’t get any respect either.
It’s unfair of me, but the only thing I can think is that it should be more painful, to reap what they’ve sown.
They’re the ones who tried to normalize crazy, and now that crazy is normal, it takes even more crazy to differentiate one’s self. This was all predictable.
But as I said, as unfair as it feels to me, I still can’t help but think it should be more painful for them.
Again:
Well, there are some photos of Michelle and Marcus getting jiggy with corndogs at the fair, should they be needed.
Ron Paul has learned to use God a bit more than he did last time, he still rails against the wars, and the far flung military bases, but his ideas to kill social programs the TeaTards have grown to depend on will bite him.
Rick Perry, as you mentioned in a previous post, is way too much like Dubya, but I think there is a bit o’ Bush nostalgia, missing that tsunami of testosterone and his charming mangling of the English language.
As’ Gulag suggested yesterday “What’s old Jeb Bush doing thesedays” makes a bunch of sense to the Rovian mind;but is the GOP suffering from Bush overload?
FOX ‘N Fiends has indeed poisoned the well with LSD and created this pro gun, greedy, old testament, “don’t tread on me” looney bin
Praise the lord for those constant FOX news alerts, we’re now all part of something big, kinda like the Manson Family…..
Poor Karl,
He’s made his lie, and now he has to go to bed in it.
Sleep tight, Karl.
Don’t let the nightmares haunt you like they haunt us.
Here, Karl, is your unspinnable legacy to this country you purport to love; you couldn’t have done more harm to it if you’d tried:
-The worst President in American history, with maybe only Buchanan as competition.
-Tax cuts for wealthy people funnel money up, helping to destroy the middle class in this country.
-9/11. Either through ignorance or possible complicity.
-One botched war and occupation in Afghanistan, where a Marshall Plan could have made a difference. Blood and treasure hemorrhage to this day.
-A completely unecessary war and occupation. Still more blood and treasure.
-Torture, rendition, spying on citizens, etc.
-Disregard for any regulations that still existed in finance and banking.
-A housing bubble that almost blew up the world’s economy.
-After being handed a surplus, you and your cabal added more debt to the deficit than in almost the entire history of this country.
The list can go on and on.
And still, you are treated as if you had something to offer, besides ruin, by some in the MSM.
Why?
Because in some of the circles you travel in, all of the above spell “Mission Accomplished!”
You should be in jail for the rest of your life.
If you were foreign born, and not a native, with your record, people would have been clammoring for the death penalty.
I would have been against that. I think serial killers and terrorists should be studied to help prevent things like this in the future.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish you a long and painful death.
And if that makes me a bad person, then so be it…
I don’t know, but I’d wager that poor Karl is comforted in his shame by a very large and fluffy fortune.
After so many years of public praise for his genius, can there be any doubt that his words are well compensated?
Maybe he and the clowns are just supposed to distract us from the real destruction happening now.
The Republican Revolution devours its children.
My take on this is that Rove is not part of the current GOP power structure. He’s not happy that none of the crazies have hired him.
When he was Bush’s Brain, he was in the thick of it running the White House with President Cheney, while Acting President Bush was distracted with shiny objects.
But now he’s locked out. The predetermined winner doesn’t want to hire him and they have their own staff of handlers. It’s just sour grapes.
If it were just Rove making noise, I’d agree. But you’re hearing some of the same thing from other parts of the GOP power structure, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page. This is bigger than just Rove.
Daily Show had an interesting bit about the major news networks flat out ignoring the fact that Paul is running. They go out of their way not to mention him and if they do its so they can comment on what a joke he is.
LongHairedWeirdo – Crazies, however, often end up in America running the country. That dynamic due, Cheney and Rumsfeld, were called “the crazies” (by fellow Republicans) when they worked in previous Republican administrations.
Guess what. They ended up basically running this country for 8 years.
Don’t you know that the Wall Street Masters have the man they want in the White House now? He is doing their bidding just fine. By Boners own estimation they got 98% of their wants in the last round of negotiations.
And you believe Boehner, why? Boehner was just covering his ass.
It wasn’t hard to see this coming. Rove never had complete control of the crazies anyway. The GOP had consisted of those who played to imaginary fears with tongues in cheeks but now the ones they’ve let in the door are straight-faced and serious about everything imaginary from their oppressors in government to their certainty that America needs to be ground into dust economically in order to save it. The cost of their doing so is a necessary evil…they are so disenchanted that they believe there’s nothing worth saving. Sadly they lack a basic grasp of the moving parts in government and our economy that they are easily coopted as an aimless, angry mob. They make a lot more sense when I listen to them if I substitute “total dominance” for freedom.
This was in the works for a long time and has been predictable and repeated often enough throughout history. Rove must not have read those history books and might be considered a tragic figure were he not so disgusting and vile.
One always needs a program for any play or game…something that gives one a little idea of what they are about to witness. Many supply us with one and I find no better interpreter of this “arc of history” than Rex Warner who notes that:
So we see that ultimately the GOP will be changed by the fringe and not the other way around….that is if history does repeat itself. Warner comments on the fate of the strong man:
Warner describes how the strong man is doomed, in the grip of necessity and in danger from the social conscience which he has rejected. The mob that he though he could control turns on him. What comes around goes around.
However, this time around we are in dire need of an opposition leader and advocate for the enlightenment, willing to fight…one we can put a face on. Somehow, Obama does not seem to be that person. With the crew he’s up againsthe can and should be criticized, pushed, motivated and even knocked around a little bit by his own base. Maybe he can change.
I don’t expect anything less here but the chances of a reasonable, peaceful outcome are much better with a two party system than in a feudal monarchy (er..uh corporatist/fascist one?). I have absolute confidence that despite the incursion of irrationality into the Democratic party that our politicians, like chameleons, will stop on a dime to change colors and come to their senses once the wind blows the other way. After all, that’s what they do. They ride this wave…barely in control themselves though pretending they are and they go, not where they desire but wherever it takes them.
The really amusing thing is that even Perry isn’t acceptable to the establishment–the Wall Street Journal has an editorial up begging anyone other than Romney, Perry or Bachman to run for the nomination.
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