Idiots! Kick Yourself While You're Down Edition

Trent Lott elected to GOP Minority Whip

Great move!  I'm sure GOP Senate members were thinking to themselves:  "Huh, the Democrats seem to be attracting a lot of attention with some corrupt members of the House.  What can we do to compete with that?  Hey, I know!  We could re-elect Lott, the guy drummed out of leadership for being affiliated with racists, to a position of power.  That will get some attention.  It will also do wonders for our base since Lott has said of the fiscal responsibility group "PorkBusters":  'I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina. We in Mississippi have not asked for more than we deserve. We've been very reasonable.'"

ARGH!

ARGH!

AAAACCCCCCKKKK!

Senate Republicans.  They're so flexible, they can kick themselves when they're down. 

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

I'd like to be sympathetic, Sebastian, but... heh.

[Ugh]

Well, the exit polls didn't indicate that the Republicans were voted out of office for "being affiliated with racists," so I guess they thought it was ok.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I would have said "Ugh" instead of "Aack", but I didn't want to be rude. :)

[Slartibartfast]

What a bunch of jackasses.

Ready, fire, AIM!

[Slartibartfast]

Goldstein, on the other hand, likes it:

Fantastic!

Now, if somebody will volunteer to dig up Dick Nixon and get him on the ticket for ‘08—maybe with Buchanan as a running mate (if Angnew’s moldering corpse proves too difficult to keep tethered to a chair in one solid piece)—the GOP can officially finish itself off with one last glut of pork, then, by way of massive party coronary, return us all to our republic’s salad days of Carteresque social and foreign policy.

Or maybe he's being sarcastic...so hard to tell, sometimes. Or maybe I am.

[Charles Bird]

Lott's election to leadership is almost as bad as Murtha's (if he does become majority leader), which would tell the nation that most Democrats in the House are not serious about ethics, spending or winning. The message the Senate Republicans sent is that they're not serious about spending, effective leadership or dealing with racism. My thoughts on Lott here (couldn't help myself).

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Ugh]

I would have said "Ugh" instead of "Aack", but I didn't want to be rude. :)?

The funny thing is that I started posting as "Ugh" upon reading something somewhere that made me think what you thought upon reading about Lott.

[kid bitzer]

wait a second--you mean your parents didn't name you 'Ugh'?

Are people allowed to do that on the internets, posting under assumed names?

[Prodigal]

Are people allowed to do that on the internets, posting under assumed names?

I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that there's psuedonymous posting going on here!

"Your login ID, Commander."

Why, thank you!

[rilkefan]

Did Lott have more than the Strom Thurmond remark on his ledger? At the time I didn't think his remark could fairly be interpreted as intending to laud the '48 Dixiecrat platform.

Never mind, just googled.

[KCinDC]

Does this increase George Allen's chances of running for Senate again in 2008 if John Warner retires?

[Jesurgislac]

I came to Obsidian Wings for the waters.

[hilzoy]

Sorry Seb: when I started writing my post, yours wasn't up, and I stupidly didn't check before posting it.

[Ugh]

wait a second--you mean your parents didn't name you 'Ugh'?

They almost named me Kandahar, which would have been sweet circa Star Trek II, but good and terrible after 9/11.

[ScottM]

Well said Sebastian. I wish that it wasn't against a backdrop of Democrats not understanding the corruption thing...

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Hilzoy, no problem. Mine is the emotional reaction. Yours was the factual background to it.

Take that gender essentialists! :)

[Prodigal]

Play it again, Jes.

[CaseyL]

When I was but a young lass, the stereotypes for Dems and the GOP were that the Democrats tended to be crooks, and the Republicans tended to be racist mofos. You basically had to decide which set of sins was more egregious.

Seeing the old stereotypes come back to life is... well, it's downright heartwarming.

[Phil]

The message the Senate Republicans sent is that they're not serious about spending, effective leadership or dealing with racism.

And this surprises whom, exactly?

[hilzoy]

Seb: back in the late 80s, when some people in philosophy were busy pontificating about how greater numbers of women in the profession would change ethics (more focus on interconnectedness and relationships! an ethic of care! more emotions, less reason!), someone pointed out (correctly) that there was one area of ethics in which women were absolutely, totally dominant (in the sense of being the best people in the field; they're all quite nice and not personally domineering): Kantian ethics, which is all about reason, principles, and so forth.

It was a wonderful moment.

[Ugh]

someone pointed out (correctly) that there was one area of ethics in which women were absolutely, totally dominant (in the sense of being the best people in the field; they're all quite nice and not personally domineering): Kantian ethics, which is all about reason, principles, and so forth.

What a bunch of crappy mother f**king bull sh!t!!!!11!1!!1! Men obviously f**king argue with less f**king emotion and more f**king reason!!!!11!!1!! Say something f**king stupid like that again and I'll come reach through this f**king monitor and kick your mother f**king a**!!!1!!!11!!!

Ugh: man and God-d*mm f**king proud of it. What are you looking at a**hole?

[Ugh]

I hope that wasn't too over the top.

[JakeB]

Well, even if it was, it's darn funny.

-Jake "Creature of Pure Reason" B.

[radish]

Seeing the old stereotypes come back to life is... well, it's downright heartwarming.

Who dares to claim that America has lost touch with its valuable cultural traditions?

I'm cautiously optimistic that the combination of "netroots" oversight plus the sheer screaming nightmare urgency of the problems facing this country will make for a better 110th-114th congress and 44th exec, but still and all...

*sigh*

[OCSteve]

I already screamed in the last thread. I got nothin' left.

At this point I'm taking the decisions this week personally - as in attempting to drive me personally away from the party forever.

[Ara]

OCSteve: if you left the party, where would you go?

[Nell]

Wonderful stuff, Ugh. It reminds me of someone.... Oh, that's right: me. In the Hilzoy thread on Lott.

[OCSteve]

if you left the party, where would you go?

Floating for now. I was never really of the party as in GOP. I’m conservative so have voted R all my life until last week.

But a bigger bunch of idiots I can never recall. Phttt!

[Ara]

Well, if you thought Lott was bad, check out your new minority leader.

A six-month examination of McConnell's career, based on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, shows the nexus between his actions and his donors' agendas. He pushes the government to help cigarette makers, Las Vegas casinos, the pharmaceutical industry, credit card lenders, coal mine owners and others.

Some conservative.

[Ara]

Sorry for the double post but:

"When he asked for money, his eyes would shine like diamonds," Simpson said. "He obviously loved it."

[Jackmormon]

Holy moly. I hadn't realized that Thurman's party was not just pro-segregation but openly pro-lynching. (I assume that this-all circulated during the scandal, but I was out of the country then and read only FP blogs.) Wow.

[KCinDC]

JM, I don't want to go all rilkefan on you, but I think there is a difference between being pro-lynching and being anti-{anti-lynching bills}.

[Jackmormon]

Perhaps, but I wouldn't want to be near either side of that thin divide.

[Anarch]

I think there is a difference between being pro-lynching and being anti-{anti-lynching bills}.

Is there, however, a distinction with a difference in this instance? I can't really imagine someone being anti-anti-lynching bills because they think lynching is, as an abstract matter, best reserved to the individual states.

[KCinDC]

As an analogy, I think it would be unfair to say that someone opposed to the Violence Against Women Act was in favor of violence against women.

[ajay]

"They almost named me Kandahar, which would have been sweet circa Star Trek II, but good and terrible after 9/11."

"Please, what is this 'Junior'?"

"It's his name. Henry Jones, Junior."

"My name is Kandahar."

"We called the dog Kandahar."

"You are named after the dog? Ha ha ha ha!"

"I've got a lot of fond memories of that dog."

[Ugh]

"You are named after the dog? Ha ha ha ha!"

Better than being named Belloq.

[John Thullen]

KCinDC:

True enough regarding violence against women bills, I guess.

I wonder, though, if women had been routinely lynched in various states for decades, what exactly IS an anti-anti-lady-lynching vote?

Maybe Thurmond thought the bill went too far in disincentivizing creative knot-tying. Or maybe the language of the law could be construed as preventing blacks (or ladies) from enjoying themselves on a rope swing at a picnic, picky regulatory bureaucrats being what they are. Maybe he was concerned that local bar owners would see their business drop off, because without some middle-of-the-night hijinks in hoods and with torches, what's the point in the boys getting numbfaced with cheap booze?

I don't know. ;)

[Ara]

Ugh: But there are plenty of good people named Belloc.

[Anarch]

As an analogy, I think it would be unfair to say that someone opposed to the Violence Against Women Act was in favor of violence against women.

I don't think the analogy holds. The Violence Against Women Act is a specific piece of legislation aimed at, obviously, curbing violence against women; so it's perfectly possible for someone to oppose that particular piece of legislation without opposing its overall goals. Someone who was opposed to the very idea of anti-violence-against-women act -- who considered the mere talk of such acts sufficient grounds to form their own anti-anti-violence-against-women act in order to preserve their cultural heritage -- that's a much trickier road to hoe.

[rilkefan]

"JM, I don't want to go all rilkefan on you"

... I am become a name
For always reading with a hungry heart.

[Ugh]

JM, I don't want to go all rilkefan on you

Much more palatable than going all "Ugh" on you, or, heaven forbid, all "Thullen" on you.

[hilzoy]

Curiously, my great-grandfather got into naming trouble, though he was dead by the time it became clear. He was friends with Rudyard Kipling, who suggested he name his house 'Swastika', sometime around the turn of the century, when Hitler was still a toddler and there were no Nazis. My great-grandfather was rather taken with the swastika, and Kipling made him a swastika doorknocker, and his desk had inlaid swastikas... I ended up with the desk, and ended up popping the swastikas out and replacing them with anonymous pieces of dark wood after one too many movers refused to move it. It broke my heart, since it was a gorgeous antique and the inlay work was wonderful, but having to explain it every single time, and having movers storm off in protest, got to be too much.

[Jesurgislac]

I feel for you. My parents between them own a good many Kipling books with red hardback bindings, lovely frontispieces, and line drawings. There is no way I am ever getting rid of them (assuming I and not my sister or brother inherit them, but I'm the Kipling fan of the three) and fortunately, I can put them in boxes before the movers come round and want to know why I have books with swastikas embossed on the cover.

At that, I've had several friends ask, but they're usually more-or-less willing to accept that it's a Sanskrit symbol that Kipling used before the Nazis perverted it: especially when I show them the dates of the editions.

(And how fabulous to have that direct link with Rudyard Kipling!)

[John Thullen]

Hilzoy, what do the movers say when they find your mutilated Barbie Dolls?

Yup, Hitler ruined swastikas for everybody.

It's one of the earliest known symbols and is beautiful IF a person can somehow disengage it from the Third Reich.

Too bad he didn't use a yellow smiley face instead. Every time I see one of those, I feel an urge to invade Poland. ;)

[LizardBreath]

fortunately, I can put them in boxes before the movers come round and want to know why I have books with swastikas embossed on the cover.

Hey, I have "Puck of Pooks' Hill" in that edition, and I love it and am likewise embarrassed by the teeny gold swastikas on the cover. And what a rotten lousy thing about your desk -- I can't see what else you could reasonably have done, though.

There's a synagogue somewhere in NY with a beautiful inlaid marble floor from the '20s, with a, you guessed it, swastika motif. They have rugs.

[LizardBreath]

I switched halfway through that from addressing Jes to addressing Hilzoy, which was probably clear but I thought I'd over-explain.

[ajay]

Jes: my parents have that edition too, I think - it has a cartouche on the spine with an elephant's head in profile and a small swastika. But it's been around the house as long as I can remember, so I don't get the same associations...

[Jesurgislac]

ajay: But it's been around the house as long as I can remember, so I don't get the same associations...

Nor do I. It wasn't until the first time a friend asked (looking at my parents' bookshelves) "Why do your parents have books with swastikas on the spine on their shelves?" that it occurred to me that most people first encountered the swastika in connection with the Nazis, not, as I did, as a design on the cover of The Jungle Book.