Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Aw, isn't this cute?  Cons are contemplating a purity test!

The Republican National Committee could be on the verge of imposing a strict purity test on GOP candidates and officeholders, if a proposed resolution passes at their upcoming meeting in January: If you disagree with the party line on three or more out of a list of ten key issues, no money or official party support for you.

The resolution, officially called "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" draws its standard through a literal interpretation of an old saying of the Gipper's -- that someone who agreed with him 80% of the time is his friend, not his 20% enemy. Thus, this resolution sets 80% as a floor for support of GOP issues.

There's a punchline.  You knew there'd be a punchline, didn't you?  Drumroll, please:

It occurs to me, looking over the list, that George W. Bush would have been deemed ineligible for support from the Republican National Committee. He did, after all, increase the size of government, run enormous deficits, endorsed cap and trade, allowed North Korea and Iran to become more serious security threats, and rejected the right's line on immigration.

For that matter, I'm not sure if Ronald Reagan would have gotten RNC support, either. Reagan, you'll recall, voted for several tax increases, began the modern era of massive federal debt, ran huge deficits, and approved an immigration measure the far-right still resents.*

And it's not just the past, either -- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) of Maine would easily fail this test, and be made ineligible for support from her own party.

I can't wait to see how the purity test turns out for the RNC. They're a clever bunch, aren't they?

* Update: Reader S.T. also reminds that Reagan would have failed the RNC Purity Test after withdrawing Marines from Lebanon in 1983 in the wake of the barracks bombing. Dick Cheney bashed the decision years later.

I love it when they open fire and shoot their own heroes in the feet, don't you?

Here's another good on in the annals of Con stupidity - John "Daddy Helps Me Cover Up My Affairs" Ensign is even more of a reprehensible bastard than we knew:

More nuggets are being reported from Doug Hampton's interview with Nightline, set to air tonight, about Sen. John Ensign's affair with Hampton's wife. And they somehow make the Nevada senator look even worse than he already did, if that's possible.

Politico, which seems to have gotten a look at the full interview, reports:

Doug Hampton said that when Ensign fired him and his wife over the affair in April 2008, he still made the Hamptons attend a goodbye party in their honor so that no one would guess the real reason behind their dismissal.

"[Ensign] called me and said you need to come back here; I need to throw you a party. If you don't come back here and let me throw you a party, people will suspect something," Hampton told ABC. Ensign reportedly gave Hampton a crystal replica of the Capitol with the inscription "To the best AA on Capitol Hill."

So not only did Ensign sleep with his good friend's wife, before firing them both. He then forced both to attend a "goodbye party" so that no one would suspect the departure was anything less than cordial.

Words fail.

They certainly do.  Let's hope this douchebag gets the Sanford treatment very soon.

I'm a little sick of Sarah Palin, mostly because she's too easy a target - it's harder to hit a hippo with a howitzer than find something about Sarah to make fun of - but I have to say that Steve Benen has the definitive assessment:

I frequently get emails from readers warning me not to underestimate Sarah Palin. She has a rabid fan base, I'm reminded, who care little for reason, and are outwardly hostile towards reality. The right-wing enthusiasm surrounding Palin, the argument goes, is cause for genuine concern.

Perhaps. Time will tell whether the popularity of idiocy can endure and grow, but in the meantime, I think grown-ups should at least be able to agree that the half-term governor has the intelligence of a wilted salad.

O'REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have -- I believe the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans are -- could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

Ladies and gentlemen, the one national political figure that can make George W. Bush look like Socrates.

So sad, so true.

Oh, and about that rabid fan base - doesn't look like it exists in Fort Bragg, at least.

Meanwhile, Palin's ostensible running mate for 2012 has The Plan:

Yesterday, while promoting his latest book at “a festive campaign-style rally” in The Villages in Florida, Fox News host Glenn Beck announced that he was crafting “a 100 year plan” that will be “radical” and will “restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting.” In his speech, which Media Matters captured on video, Beck told his followers, “we need to start thinking like the Chinese“:

BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.

So, Glenn's using Communist planning models and thinks he's clever, but if a Dem jokingly quotes Mao, that's un-American.  I don't understand these people.  Deranged huckster, indeed.

Speaking of 2012, brace yourselves: we could not only see a Palin/Beck ticket, but Lou Dobbs is thinking of making a run for it.  And you thought our politics were nothing but a circus now.

And Arizona's apparently willing to elect Joe Arpaio governor.  If that happens, there's no hope for my home state.  I just hope I can persuade my parents and friends to abandon ship before the place falls apart.

Faux News has sent out a memo advising employees, after many embarrassing "mistakes," that there will be a zero-tolerance policy for footage fuck-ups.  I am putting $20 on the bar right now that says it's less than two months before we see another incident like using old campaign footage to inflate Palin's crowd size.  There's a further $20 saying that no one gets disciplined.  This is Faux News, after all.

In further evidence that the Catholic Church is run by a bunch of fucking two-faced lunatics, here's their latest bit of political fuckery:

You know, the Catholic Church certainly gets to enforce whatever rules they make - but this wouldn't bother me so much if they were consistent. After all, when was the last time a bishop singled out someone for supporting what the Church itself labeled an "unjust war" or for voting in support of the death penalty?

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

[snip] 

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him "that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I've taken as a public official," particularly on abortion.

I know I'm not alone in thinking the Catholic Church should maybe just possibly lose its tax-exempt status after interfering so freely and directly in our political affairs as they have lately. 

And, finally, since the WND can't prove CAIR is a terrorist organization, they're choosing to call them terrorists anyway:

The head of the company that published Muslim Mafia says that the Council on American Islamic Relations is engaging in "economic terrorism" against the book's cash-strapped author, who can't afford to fight CAIR in court.

The comments by Joseph Farah, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily, parent company of WND Books, are buried in a profile of Martin Garbus, one of the lawyers defending Muslim Mafia author Dave Gaubatz, and his son, Chris, who went undercover as an intern at CAIR.

In response to Gaubatz's decision to accede to CAIR's demand that he return thousands of pages of documents and electronic files taken by Chris Gaubatz, Farah said:

"But, remember, what is being returned to CAIR are documents that were headed for CAIR's shredder. Once CAIR was eager to dispose of them. Now, suddenly, the group is treating them like they are the crown jewels. Go figure."

Which makes sense, if you assume for some reason that private organizations are fine with the publication of documents sent to the trash.

Companies use shredders for a reason, and when fucktards steal documents from them, they sue.  If that's economic terrorism, well, every company I've ever worked for is a terrorist organization.  I'm sure if I waltzed into the WND offices and waltzed out with stuff headed for their shredder, they'd become "economic terrorists" pretty damned fast.

'Tis the season when most people are in need of snowblowers.  I, myself, am in the market for a stupidblower.  I'm tired of shoveling so much stupid shit.