Either Bob Dole is dumber than a box of sporks or Viagra has some side effects they forgot to list on their commercials.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Aren’t we supposed to do the same with Her Highness?
She’s going to pick Newt as her running mate?
Probably someone as odious. Although she might pick Warren or even Sanders to neuter them.
I’d hope both would refuse based on their principles.
Knock it off with all the crude hyperbole. It doesn’t make a case and makes you look like a loon. It’s also sort of weird given your other two totally “faith based” positions because on those issues, you are completely in line with Hillary.
Many people have suggested Sanders or Warren as running mates. IIRC, Booman has suggested Warren.
My comment was intended to refer to many of your recent comments crudely denigrating HRC. Too many solid and good reasons to oppose her; so, going all rightwing BS on her only makes her stronger.
Sanders or Warren as HRC running mate are the sorts of suggestions that political hacks come up with. On a par with Ferraro, Bentsen, and Edwards.
Most of those were in response to posts crudely denigrating Sanders and/or “BernieBro’s”
Some of your crude anti-HRC slurs don’t seem to be in response to a Bernie slur. But even if they are, yours are giving those people more ammunition and it makes it easier for them to claim that Bernie supporters are nasty, rude, etc.
Now, as for all the nasty attacks on Bernie, I don’t have a good answer for how to respond to them. For the most part those attacks are based on lies and ignorance and the poster has no interest in any dialogue. Like trolls they want to disrupt conversations and engage in pie fights. What they don’t ever do is list reasons why they support HRC. If those reasons are similar to what Bernie supports, HRC’s positions aren’t superior to Bernie’s. What they never list are all the important and major differences between HRC and Hillary. Waiting for them to say that they approve of all the things that you and I disapprove of.
IOW, “don’t feed the trolls”. Good advice, but hard to follow.
Just to add that I’m not a Liberal and I’m not Middle Class, so I don’t take attacks lying down. I’m willing to live in the Liberal world, but my values have to respected too, which the neoLiberals don’t do, although the old time Liberals did. The old Liberals hated the bosses. The new Liberals hate the workers and embrace the bosses. THIS is the crucial thing. If you (generic plural) support me, I don’t care what you ingest, or smoke. I don’t care who you have sex with or how. That’s your business. You live your life and I’ll live mine. The only intoxicants I ingest are alcohol, preferably organic. I dress conservatively. I only have sex with one partner. I still wear a crewcut. The only change to my wardrobe in forty years is switching from Navy shoes to Postal shoes. I miss my old sharkskin suit. God! It was beautiful! I drive my domestic cars and I think iAnything is overpriced. I don’t expose myself on Facebook. What makes me different from the millions like me? I don’t believe that Mesopotamian goatherders 5000 years ago knew jack about the Universe and I believe Europeans are not genetically superior to anyone. You live your life and I’ll live mine. But if you want me to surrender to the bosses and the banks so that you can have your values, I’m getting off the train. If there is nothing for me, why should I support the Democratic Party and Liberal values? Hillary is NOT the lesser evil. Not to me.
Understand. You’re like most of Bernie’s older supporters and we run the gamut from lower income to upper middle class income, but we’ve retained are identity as workers and that government is supposed to work for the benefit of the many. On average, we also seem to have a greater breadth of general knowledge, more curiosity, and less interest in status symbols.
I’ve always considered myself a socialist, but in mixed company identified myself as a liberal because not so long ago they were mushy socialists. But that appears to have been an artifact of New Deal liberalism because traditionally liberals are what we see in the Democratic party — upper class identification with wealth and power, but sexually, morally, etc. completely progressive.
Only if you’re a Democrat, or sane, or care about the future of the country. Otherwise, get your election freak on.
I will NOT be voting for her because I care for the future of this country and choose not to let corporations sue local governments for regulations that cost them money or let the TBTF banks run the country.
I’m very glad for you, that you’ve figured out the two issues that matter. I’m sure Trump will be no different, or much better, or (whatever you have to tell yourself) on these issues.
Don’t try to scare me with the boogeyman. It’s not going to work this time. Hillary is worse than a Republican because she pretends to be for ordinary people while representing the 0.01%
Don’t scare me with the boogeyman…as you attempt to scare me with the devil.
Keep on keepin’ on.
Grow up.
If you are so blinkered as to be unable to perceive the massive threat Trump represents, as well as the plain truth that Hillary is an extremely competent, savvy and compassionate person, then you are, frankly, full of it.
You obviously know no one who actually knows her, nor have you bothered to learn much about Hillary’s record. And if she just represents the .01%, then kindly provide your proof of corruption.
BS can’t, but maybe you have proof that’s evaded everyone else on the planet.
You provide nothing but cant. It is hard to believe you either exist or, if you do, that you have ever lived in the real world. And by that I don’t mean the “never had to pick up a check” lightweight world of purity of Bernie’s Children’s Crusade.
“Compassionate” is too ludicrous to engage with. But let’s address “competent” and “savvy” – since that is the heart of whatever argument there is to be made for Clinton.
I think it fair to say she’s overrated on both counts.
Her current job is running for President and, by her own admission, she’s not talented at it. A competent politician does not invoke the assassination of past politicians, make up easily debunked fantasies about dodging snipers, or tell a state she’s going to put its largest employer out of business.
Nor is it savvy to allow one’s paranoia to lead oneself into breaking federal regulations. Or to silence well-meaning employees who attempt to right your mistakes.
“Better than Trump” is an embarrassingly modest achievement. But Clinton’s supporters are best to stick with it.
And just to be clear about “compassionate”…
“A million Iraqis are dead cuz of her”???
Hillary Clinton voted for the AUMF that lead to the invasion. Yes. I believe the commander in chief of US forces then was a guy named George W. Bush.
Clinton’s judgment sucked. I voted for Obama in the 2008 primaries for one reason: Clinton’s vote on that AUMF. But “a million Iraqis are dead cuz of her” is ridiculous. Change her vote to “no” and the fucking war would have proceeded anyway.
Saved me the effort of making exactly the same points.
Bob Dole has the same mentality as the rest of the GOP members. Thus it is covered under the, ” Stupid is as stupid does” clause.
Guess who’s going to play Cheney’s role while President Trump runs his business empire.
The Republican establishment really is longing for President Gingrich, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to slam through historically transformative legislation while Trump bafflegabs and signs the legislation.
Has Karl Rove singed on yet?
When Poppy Bush signs on, the party is “unified”.
Yes, Bob Dole always has been dumber than a box of sporks.
I do think Newt is the frontrunner for Veep/Premier/Chancellor, whatever you want to call the actual governing power of a <shudder> Trump administration.
The GOP establishment couldn’t stop Trump, so they are going to try and co-opt him.
Plus, as long as they are going to try and re-fight the ’90s, why not bring along the guy so odious, he made Bill Clinton look personally virtuous?
But who will they get to play Cheney’s role for the election? Seems to me that Newt doesn’t cut it because he doesn’t offer relief to those that have concerns about Trump. Newt brings the racists and Trump already has them. Who else does he bring to the table that Trump can’t get on his own?
When he chose himself for VP, Cheney had been out of office for less than eight years. Newt’s been out of office for eighteen years. Cheney brought the appearance of “gravitas” to the GWB ticket; Newt doesn’t have that.
What does Newt bring to the table for Trump?
That’s easy: “gravitas” — Republican style.
Bwahahahahaha !!!!!!!!
As Jennifer Rubin (no comments, please!) clearly recognizes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/gingrich-the-phony-intellectual/2011/11/17/gIQA
5VCGUN_blog.html
Disagree that he brings anywhere near enough gravitas to a Trump ticket. On that we can disagree, but it’s still nowhere near what Cheney brought to the GWB ticket. GWB was too dumb to satisfy the GOP suits, but Cheney was the reassurance from Poppy’s team that Cheney would be in change.
Someone like Lamar Alexander, if he weren’t so old, would do it. Former governor and multiple term senator; plus a cabinet position. Slim pickings with those criteria. Ones that come close Pence, Portman, Thune, Hoeven are up for reelection and no “LBJ law” in their states. Brownback has a record that would make him more loathed than Trump and HRC. The one that comes closest is Kasich. None of the others have that Gov-Sen combination and there aren’t many multi-term GOP Senators that aren’t old. Trump’s problem is that he needs to flip too many states to win and none of the potential VPs can be expected to move more than one or two states.
My goodness, Marie, you didn’t get the snark … and yet weird truth … of my statement about Newt’s “gravitas”? remember, we have to adjust the standards to the present …
Why, even the conservative Jennifer Rubin understands me perfectly! (Please take another look at the link, it’s worth it.)
link takes me to “sorry can’t find the page.” I do my best to avoid Rubin anyway.
However, Newt has always aimed to be respected for his gravitas and knowledge. And superficially in presentation style there is some similarity to Cheney’s. One difference may be that Newt has been over-exposed and Cheney in 2000 was under-exposed and could also ride in on the “successful businessman” horse. It wasn’t until many months later that the truth-reality of his tenure materialized and it was worse than Fiorina’s at HP. But by then Cheney was in a position to start a big whoop-ass war that rescued HAL-KBR and all Cheney’s stock options.
The unfavorability rating of both candidates are so high that I don’t know that whoever they choose for VP helps either of them, but that doesn’t mean that both couldn’t further damage themselves with a lame choice.
” Newt has always aimed to be respected for his gravitas and knowledge.”
That’s the point.
As for Rubin, I’m not exactly a fan either, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Anyway, here it is:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/gingrich-the-phony-intellectual/2011/11/17/gIQA
5VCGUN_blog.html
Opinions
Gingrich: The phony intellectual
By Jennifer Rubin November 17, 2011
Andy Ferguson, a senior editor at the Weekly Standard and arguably the most dazzling writer on the right, has been a one-man killing machine. In a series of pieces on Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Jon Huntsman, he has systematically done in (or helped to do in) more Republican candidates than Think Progress, the New York Times and George Soros ever could.
In some cases, the effort was an intentional dissection of the candidate’s foibles. He wrote of the liberal elites’ favorite Republican: “Huntsman seems to have missed something big in the landslides of 2010. The reason for his Rip Van Winkle aura, to use still another metaphor, is that Huntsman spent most of the Obama administration out of the country.” His kickoff suffered from “hoary rhetoric [and] the overpackaging that can’t quite obscure the obvious lack of anything fresh to say.” At other times, Ferguson has simply caught the candidates unaware, letting them sink themselves (Daniels’s “social truce” and Barbour’s musing about the civil rights movement in Yazoo City).
But none is so devastating as his literary journey through Newt Gingrich’s books. All of them. Twenty-one of them. In doing so he exposes what too few recognize: the vacuity of Gingrich’s ludicrously exaggerated intellect. Gingrich posits himself as a sort of Alvin Toffler meets Allan Bloom. Ferguson’s skewers it all.
There is the over-the-top Gingrich. “Reading the Gingrich catalog, you get used to intimations — or are they threats? — of Armageddon. Windows are slamming shut, or are just about to, all over the place, all the time. `Time is running out,’ he wrote toward the end of `Window of Opportunity,’ 27 years ago. It’s no wonder that Washington thinks he’s so smart: Gingrich was panicky before panicky was cool.”
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There is Gingrich the lover of technology by way of the Jetsons. “There are problems inherent in futurism, most of them involving the future, which the futurist is obliged to predict (it’s his job) and which seldom cooperates as he would hope. Gingrich has called some and missed some. In 1984, he saw more clearly than most that computers would touch every aspect of commercial and private life, but nobody any longer wants to build `a large array of mirrors [that] could affect the earth’s climate,’ warming it up so farmers could extend the growing season.”
And there is Gingrich the liberal. “The liberal revulsion toward him obscured how unorthodox — occasionally, how liberal — his conservatism was. The books then and now are full of heresy. He showed a willingness to criticize other Republicans, even Reagan at the height of his popularity. He advocated a health tax on alcohol to discourage drinking — social engineering, it’s called — and imagined government-issued credit cards that would allow citizens to order goods and services directly from the feds. He thought the government should run nutritional programs at grocery stores and give away some foodstuffs free. He was pushing cuts in the defense budget in 1984 and a prototype of President Obama’s cash-for-clunkers program in 1995.”What is noteworthy is not only how liberal are his prescriptions, but how mundanely statist they are.
Finally, there is Gingrich the disorganized. “Gingrich’s vagueness was always a problem, but the books show something more: a near-total lack of interest in the political implementation of his grand ideas — a lack of interest, finally, in politics at its most mundane and consequential level. Gingrich’s inattention to detail is one reason his speakership was so chaotic, as readers of a certain age will recall, and the primary reason he was shunned by his own party after four years with the gavel.”
When many in the mainstream media and far too many conservatives who should know better swoon over his pronouncements, the cannier on the right and left justifiably roll their eyes in disgust. Gingrich’s mind is an attic of throwaway, unusable and downright goofy ideas, piled high like newspapers in the room of a troubled subject on “Hoarders.” The volume is great, the quality is shoddy. His hobbyhorse is technology, or
rather gimmickry. (“The coming rush of high technology will dismantle the welfare state and provide a replacement that is humane and efficient; it will free the poor from government dependency, take apart a failing educational establishment, relieve the drudgery of industrial labor and provide a steady supply of pleasant jobs, defrock out-of-touch elites in every corner of the ruthlessly secular society, clean up the environment and bequeath to us an America that is `safe, healthy, prosperous and free,’ as he wrote in `Winning the Future’ and, with slight variation, in most of his other books too.”)
But, ironically, what he never masters is politics. His collapse as speaker is more understandable once you grasp the full extent of his egomania and grandiose visions (“Muddling through — which is the default option of our constitutional system and the one that most Americans, latently conservative as they are, seem to prefer — never surfaces in the swirling mists of his crystal ball.”) Daydreamers and narcissists can make (in small doses) amusing writers and entertaining cocktail party guests, but lousy political leaders. And as president? Shudder.
Still get the “Sorry — can’t find.”
That’s half decent from Rubin — but looks as if she allowed Ferguson to do her thinking on this one. Newt is like that party guest that pontificates for hours and all but an adoring spouse quits listening to after five minutes.
One quibble — In 1984, he saw more clearly than most that computers would touch every aspect of commercial and private life, — “most” had been seeing it for a couple of decades by then.
Do not underestimate the power of a Trump/Gingrich ticket and the cable and print traditional media to make a Trump Presidency happen.
within election-stealing reach of dubya.
Exactly and precisely. Why we need a big tent and a wave election that’s too big to steal.
But it won’t happen with Hillary and DWS’ handpicked candidates. The primary season is almost over. That means that the House and Senate candidates are already chosen. From what I can see Neoliberal all the way.
How many swing states have Republican Secretary of States?
SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT (SOSP)
Worked to help Democrats get elected to the office of Secretary of State in selected swing, or battleground, states
Received funding from Democracy Alliance members George Soros and Rob Stein, amongmany others
Became moribund in 2010
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=7487
Ballotpedia says 27 Republicans, 18 Democrats, and 5 states do not have the office. Three of those (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia call the position Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Republican Secretaries of State:
North Dakota
Nevada
New Mexico
Georgia
Texas
Oklahoma
Indiana
Mississippi
Wyoming
Nebraska
Maryland
Alabama
Ohio
Florida
New Jersey
Washington
Kansas
Idaho
South Carolina
Arkansas
Arizona
Iowa
Michigan
South Dakota
Louisiana
Tennessee
Colorado
My suspicions of where those could act against a candidate are: New Mexico, Washington, Georgia (if it becomes swing state), Texas (of course), Indiana (if it becomes a swing state), Maryland, Ohio, Florida (of course), New Jersey, Washington, Arizona, Michigan, and Colorado.
The Democratic Party in all those states have election protection operations already riding herd on these secretaries of state, right?
Glad Pennsylvania not on that list.
I thank our lucky stars for Elaine Marshall.
a country that elected obama twice is not gonna pull a 180°.
the media does not elect presidents; voters do, and do not mistake gop primary voters for the general electorate.
A country who elected Clinton twice, then Bush II twice, then Obama twice certainly can elect Trump. The pendulum is swinging wildly, and wider each time, between what the general populace perceives as opposites (and they are opposites, no matter what the permagov conspiracies say).
In certain ways, Clinton was a 180 from Bush I, Bush II is the same to Clinton, Obama is a 180 from Bush II, and Trump would be a 180 from Obama. It might seem like superficially wild mood swings for those hung up on “both sides are equally shitty” hokum, but the differences between each of the last 3 presidents and their predecessors are vast enough to seem real to the general populace.
those “superficially wild mood swings” weren’t so superficial; clinton was dragged down by impeachment while bush was dragged down by iraq and economic meltdown.
so far obama has no such albatrosses around his neck.
And a response to trump would not be a swing to the right but a swing into insanity.
The GOP is hugging that insanity to try to get the white house they hope. They hope they can play him, like Cheney played bush Jr.
Agreed, it’s insane–but the people voting Trump certainly don’t see it as insanity. I’d guess for them it’s a reactive vote to all the things they dislike about Obama. Just like perhaps many votes for Obama were reactive votes to Bush II–and what people saw as a continuance of that in McCain/Palin. There’s nothing logical about it; I’m just saying the actions seem to have been more and more reactive as time has gone on.
except that the folks voting for trump are reacting not to obama but instead to their own failed leaders — basically giving their own party a big middle finger. this radical response is wholly internal to the gop and limited to a loud faction, and is not a symptom afflicting the general electorate, as shown by obama’s steadily climbing favorables.
Party uber alles.
What big tent parties enforce.
was it really only 5 weeks ago that the NeverTrumpers were first ridiculed?
l do believe at that time the consensus was that they’d all fall in line like the good party apparatchiks they are.
“Heil, mein Führer!”
Same with Bernie Or Bust. Don’t laugh at them without looking in the mirror.
For Hitler, against Hitler: same thing.
Hitler in a pantsuit.
You’re a lunatic.
Good lord, you’ve lost it. The good news is, once you go that far, most people won’t take anything else you say seriously.
Six marriages between ’em. And Hillary “stuck by her man.” Let’s talk family values.
R-i-g-h-t. Lets get Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers to do testimonials.
Bill Clinton is not running this time (unless he, um, inserts himself into the campaign too forcefully, like he did in 2008 in South Carolina).
The conservative and feminist rap against Hillary Clinton is that she is a Cuckquean. In Middle English, that would be an objective fact. In modern English, however, it carries some additional baggage.
It is that additional baggage that conservatives seek to exploit and feminists use as one interpretation of what would otherwise be conventional behavior among the family values crowd prior to 1980. And in many cases is conventional behavior today.
Myself, I think it’s non-issue, stirred up because the haters can’t make hay on policy criticisms. It shows a lack of research and a propensity to drama and media sponging.
I think if Dems were more vicious, the serial marriages would be a salient issue. It speaks to a lot of issues of character. Likewise in 2008 with McCain and his leaving his injured wife for a beauty queen. It might only make a difference at the margins, but it make a difference.
Gingrich is even better.
http://www.salon.com/2011/03/08/gingrich_divorce_hospital_cancer/
require explanation, but . . .
The assertion was that Hillary “stuck by her man”, not that Bill stuck by her.
Could you come up with an any more irrelevant non-sequitur? Your comment is in the running for poster-child for same.
“Either Bob Dole is dumber than a box of sporks or Viagra has some side effects they forgot to list on their commercials.”
Or…both.
AG
is dumbest?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Enter them all in a quiz contest against Bob Dole and you’ll find out.
OT: John Aravosis and Barney Frank jump the shark.
The issue for denying Frank co-chair of the rules committee has to do with banks not homophobia. Also Sanders would like one of his supporters to be a co-chair of the committee given the proportion of delegates likely to be in the Sanders column for first ballot.
Do Democrats expand the big tent to the left or not?
No, Democrats don’t throw their best people under the bus for non-Democratic candidates intent on raiding the party’s treasury.
Or perhaps, on the deck of the USS Misouri, the Japanese said, “We hereby surrender. Now, here is a list of our demands.”
The party actually has people who toiled in the fields through good and bad, and managed to accomplish things. Unlike the Gadfly from Vermont who has always been too pure to accomplish anything.
just put the crack pipe down and back away.
I really don’t miss MyDD after all. What a thread.
Well the media have their nice, shiny Trump. And they’re not letting it go. What does it tell you when Emperor Murdoch grudgingly but willingly sacrifices his hand-reared, assassin apprentice Megyn Kelly on the alter of accommodation merely for a fair wind with Trump? That Trump was right all along about how bent everything is, that’s what.
Watch out, folks. The Republicans are just going to ride this one out but the media have signed on for the whole spectacle. Their collective moment of introspection has passed, briefly, almost unremarked. There is no further barrier to their debasement. It’s off to the races now. We are headed into politico-tabloid oblivion. A presidential election with all the gravitas and dignity of a professional wrestling match.
I want to go on record as saying that this seventy-four-year-old socialist Jew from Brooklyn probably has a better chance of weathering the pending poop-storm than Hillary; but I could be wrong. It seems to me Hillary would have whooped any other nominee than Trump while Sanders would have perhaps struggled against them. But with Trump it seems reversed. In any event, we best be sure we don’t get beaten. I think over-confidence in assuming victory over Trump is badly misplaced.
Wow. I’ve never seen this level of sh*t-flinging, I mean, in-fighting at the pond before. I sincerely hope that we don’t spend the rest of the election season like this.
I think Voice is here to guarantee that every comment thread devolves into Hillary bashing. Every one. Booman, I suggest you post a photo of cute kittens as a test: can he resist turning it into Hillary bashing?
As for Dole: I am reminded of my neighbor, who told me when we first met that he “wasn’t a damn country club Republican”, but by 1996, had voted for Bob Dole because “at least he had some dignity”, and in 2000 voted for Dubya because “we needed an adult in the White House.”