Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

I love how politicians forget their firmly-held principles when the shoe's on the other foot. Cons are especially good at it:

Remember when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) believed filibustering a president's judicial nominee was just about the worst thing a senator could do? When McConnell was prepared to change the rules, execute the "nuclear option," and declare judicial filibusters unconstitutional?

Well, never mind that now.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday that he would not rule out employing a filibuster to block Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee despite having vehemently opposed the use of the parliamentary procedure over judicial appointments four years ago.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the Kentucky Republican said that, per the rules of the Senate, "all things are possible" when it came to the vote on Obama's choice for the Court. When reminded that he threatened to resort to the "nuclear option" when Democrats were threatening to filibuster George W. Bush's Court appointments, McConnell largely embraced his 180 degree turn in position.

"The Senate rejected my advice," he reminded host Chris Wallace. "And the Senate is a place that frequently operates on precedent. So I think the Senate deliberately decided not to take a position one way or the other."

Mind you, he's talking about filibustering Obama's Supreme Court pick before there's even a pick. And he's basically throwing a tantrum saying that if the Senate doesn't want to play his way, he'll fuck up everyone's fun. So typical.

Meanwhile, the Cons' Big Tent's now so small they have to point to people who refuse to come near it as examples of what a loving, inclusive party they are:

David Gregory asked Michael Steele for an example of the GOP being as inclusive a party as the Democrats since Kaine is pro-life. Steele uses Christie Todd Whitman as his example to show America how "Big Tent" they really are.

Gregory: Is the Republican Party open to pro-abortion right candidates in the way that Gov. Kaine has survived in the Democratic Party?

Steele: We've had wonderful pro-choice candidates. Gov. Christie Todd Whitman for example was a very successful republican Governor...

She was so happy with the GOP that she quit the Republicans in 2003 after she was picked to lead the EPA in 2001 by Bush and then refused to do their bidding.

Is it just me, or is Michael Steele getting more pathetic by the minute? I kinda feel sorry for him, in a way - it's not like he's got much to work with. Then again, he's dumbshit enough to put himself in this situation and keep talking...

Speaking of dumbshits, Chuck Norris is definitely holding himself up as a shining example of fuckwittery:

It's been a heck of a week, what with the revelations about how Nancy Pelosi personally ran the Bush torture program and so forth. Amazing news! Besides that, Chuck Norris wrote something and got paid for it, which is, in its own way, also amazing.

And, shazam! Chuck Norris informs us that he is pretty pleased with the story of a Croatian bakery that put up a poster of him to frighten off robbers. Apparently this actually worked, proving, I suppose, that people who rob Croatian bakeries are easily intimidated by images of superannuated action movie stars who never learned to read lines convincingly and who also hate gay people. What we are do with this information, I am uncertain, as it seems (a) to be criminological information of strictly local utility, and (b) stupid. Besides that, Chuck Norris tells us that the poster is "life sized," which is I guess possible, though as per the newspaper photograph of it, if so, that means he's a whole lot smaller than I thought. I got a Norris in my pocket...

He's not much brighter or saner than I'd imagined, anyhow. His overall thesis is something about how America is the greatest nation on earth because of God, but it's also a total cesspit because Nancy Pelosi wants government thugs to replace Jesus with pedophiles, or something. It's not very clear. For instance, Chuck Norris informs us of this fascinating statistic: "Teenage pregnancies in the U.S. (52.1 for every 1,000 of those ages 15-19) are the highest in the developed world (four times what they are in the European Union)." Well, you know, let's hear it for abortion on demand and socialized medicine, then! Or not; Chuck instead seems to be recommending not what's worked for the Krauts and Wops and Frogs in regard to taking home the gold in the Fewer-Knocked-Up-Teen-Olympics, but instead MORE GOD. Jesus, in this sense, is the ultimate steroid and the ultimate prophylactic.

Look up delusional in the DSM-IV, and I'll bet the list of symptoms fits Chuck Norris to a T. Look at the "life-size" poster in the window of that Croation bakery, and you'll learn that Chuck is roughly 22" tall. They must have done some exciting things with camera angles to make him look average sized in Walker, Texas Ranger.

Columnist Maureen Dowd, in the meantime, wins first prize for plagarism:

These are the professionals we're supposed to be mourning and scrambling to save, the ones whose work all the rest of us are supposedly sponging off of. You know, the ones a democracy can't function without.

Maureen Dowd, Pulitizer Prize winner. Today. New York Times:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Josh Marshall. Blogger. Last Thursday. Talking Points Memo:

More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Maureen sez she was just repeating a friend of hers who told her that the above point would be a good one to make. Apparently, her friend read it out with all of the commas intact. But Maureen thought it was "spontaneous." Riiiight.

Finally, Steve Benen leaves us with a horrifying thought:

Much to the disappointment of the DNC, Dick Cheney did not appear on any of the Sunday morning talk shows. Instead, his daughter, torture apologist Liz Cheney, went on ABC News' "This Week."

It promoted Time's Karen Tumulty to tweet a clever-but-scary idea.

Does anyone else think that what the Cheneys are really after here is their own reality show?

That would explain a few things.

I'm admittedly out of my depth talking about reality shows, but looking over the Wiki page for the genre, there's a subset of reality programming involving well-known personalities. It seems, though, that most of these "celebrities" get reality shows, not when their careers are in ascendance, but when they're past their prime and have limited career options. The Osbornes, Hulk Hogan, MC Hammer, Corey Feldman, Vanilla Ice -- these folks seemed to go the reality-show route after their public notoriety had severely waned.

In this sense, the Cheneys would be perfect.

If a show like that ever ends up on teevee, and I stumble across it switching channels, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stab my eyes out with a fork. Guess I'd better tape one to the remote.

Oh, how I wish I could live in a sane country....