…I know, I know…we covered a bunch of this before in various places…& you’ve probably had enough of the whole debate thing to last you a while…but…well, it’s like this…you’re gonna want to freshen up that coffee…& for those that do that sort of thing probably make sure the smokes are within reach & the ashtray’s handy…or just skip straight to the comments…because…well…there’s gonna be some scrolling today
…there I was feeling pretty good about skipping the Pence/Harris “debate”…& then I ran into this
Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate was like traveling back in time to an era when political debates were tough, respectful and substantive. And Vice President Pence put on a clinic for how to rope-a-dope your opponent. He anticipated almost every line of attack Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) had prepared, and was ready with a devastating rebuttal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/08/mike-pences-debate-master-class/
…now, I’d read a few bits & pieces about the thing before that hove into view but it seemed to be such a contrast to pretty much everything else I came across that I actually went & found the video & watched the thing after all…& aside from the obvious interpretation that Marc A. Thiessen can’t possibly have watched anything with his head lodged that far up his ass I found myself thinking “I mean, maybe…if you kind of squint with one eye closed & facing mostly in another direction & you really, really desperately want to see it that way…I guess you could…sort of?”
…to be clear…I don’t think he’s even a little bit right…but I think the fact that he not only thinks he is but actually got his take published in The Washington Post is kind of a good example of something (besides the typical assumption of a white dude aspiring to mediocrity that his take is naturally the correct one because “how could it not be?”) which is a genuine problem despite being in all other respects anything but genuine…but I’ll circle back around to that
…because while Harris had to tapdance her way along a tightrope line between laying down the kind of snappy, whip-smart smackdown she did when she debated Biden in the primaries (which would have suited me just fine & I’ll admit to being a little disappointed to be denied) & not leaving herself open to the myriad of stereotypes that could be wheeled out to dismiss her as variously “angry black lady”, “overemotional woman”, “uppity”, “radical”…& so on seemingly ad infinitum all the way through to “making Joe look bad by comparison” …& therefore couldn’t take the facile frozen-faced fomented frankenstein’s monster to task for the abundance of trivially disputable disingenous disininformation he disseminated so assidously
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/08/america-hates-let-black-women-speak
…all Pence had to do was wheel out the same weak-ass-bullshit talking points (which his steroid-raging boss can’t deliver without frothing at the mouth & torturing syntax like some cruel & unusual punishment meted out upon language & listener alike) in as monotonous a tone as possible & there was an audience out there primed to lap that shit up as though it were masterful…& not the absolute bare minimum standard we ought to be able to demand from a debate between two people with a shot at being, as they say, “a heartbeat away from the presidency”…let alone your actual presidential candidates
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/pence-validated-harris-s-good-for-pence-bad-for-trump
…a bare minimum standard which he frankly failed to measure up to if you were so much as half-way objective or remotely capable of fact-checking the bullshit he was peddling like america’s creepy fundamendalist uncle
Pence described himself as a “principled conservative” and supporter of the Tea Party movement, stating that he was “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pence
…so, obviously in the approximately 45 seconds between the announcement the next Biden/Bargain-Biff-Tannen face off wouldn’t be face to face & the fanta-faced fantasist throwing his toys out of the pram about how he wouldn’t do that shit via a computer I was almost looking forward to finding out what the novel experience of a debate in which the agreed upon rules & structure meant anything beyond a guarantee of how things wouldn’t go might be like…but something about this really got to me
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/presidential-debate-virtual/2020/10/08/story.html
…to whit…this bit
“I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That’s not what debating’s all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate, it’s ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want.”
…now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that what caught me was the petulant whining about taking away his super-power of talking over everyone & everything as though somehow bombast & bluster multiplied by bullshit is anything but a self-administered indictment of his sheer inability to wield the implicit authority a real president possesses when they chose to say anything at all…but that wasn’t it…we all know he’s a fucking child & that drowning out what other people say is a desperate bid to keep up the steady diet of inartfully confected crap required to prevent even the dumbest of his fucking acolytes from experiencing a moment of clarity
…no…what really fucked with me was the bit before that where he actually said “that’s not what debating’s all about”…motherfucker you’re in arguably the most powerful position in the fucking world & you can’t use a fucking dictionary?
…that greasy-ass phone you spend so much time on spewing out twitter-based bile & bullshit alone gives you access to about a million of the fucking things…like this one
YOU DON’T FUCKING KNOW WHAT THE WORDS YOU USE ACTUALLY MEAN YOU GOD-FORSAKEN MENDACIOUS FUCKING MORON
…being able to muster actual arguments in the face of opposition within a framework that offers a level playing field such that the “deliberative body” can, upon deliberation, identify the superior argument is LITERALLY THE ONLY THING THAT ACTUALLY CONSTITUTES A FUCKING DEBATE…just because you quite literally aren’t equipped to do any part of that & have spent your entire fucking life reinforcing your delusion that coming from a position of privilege so firmly entrentched that you think failing to be able to follow the most basic of rules is evidence of your brilliance rather than your overweening arrogance & fundamental proof that you are a witless, talentless & most of all egregiously fucking vacous waste of fucking oxygen IS NOT AN ASSET YOU MONUMENTAL FUCKING ASSHAT…there is a word beginning with D that accurately describes the pathetic dog&pony show you’re thinking of…it’s “diatribe”
…sorry…I might be a little riled…for the record though…that wasn’t me getting to the circling back…although obviously that is also a genuine problem that is inherently anything but genuine
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-infections-election/2020/10/07/story.html
Dialing in for his first interview since being hospitalized, President Donald Trump went on an hour-long ramble that devolved into vicious and sexist attacks on the Democrats running against him, desperate claims against old enemies and dangerous boasts about his own apparent recovery from coronavirus.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/trump-covid-fox-interview/index.html
Being ill was not the kind of thing to be fixed in a hospital (he must not stay in the hospital); it was the kind of thing to be fixed in post-production. As long as he got the right shot, he would be fine. Not the vaccine; that hardly mattered; besides, maybe he was immune already. There was a video where someone very trustworthy (the President of the United States, even!) said that he could possibly be immune. In other words, the thought was out there. He had only to sit back and see what miracle might occur in the editing room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/07/picture-donald-j-trump
…&…equally obviously…THAT’S NOT WHAT FUCKING IMMUNE MEANS EITHER YOU SHUDDERING MASS OF METASTISIZED MORIBUND MISAPPREHENSION
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-antibody-treatment-fetal-tissue/2020/10/08/story.html
…even Mitch “I would do anything” McConnell hits “but I won’t do that” somewhere around this level of lethal laxity with the life & death lies for crying out loud
“Well, look. It won’t surprise you to know we talk frequently — on the phone,” McConnell said in response to a question about Trump’s health. “I haven’t actually been to the White House since August the 6th, because my impression was their approach to how to handle this was different from mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-coronavirus-trump-mcconnell/2020/10/08/story.html
…but then, sadly for all of us, that particular turtle’s self-preservation instinct has been inexplicably impervious to legislative consequence for longer than seems in any way reasonable…much like my inability to drag this back around to that point I claimed to have way the hell up at the top of the page…so, here it is
…nothing about these people is genuine besides the threat they pose to everything from the lives & livelihoods of their citizens to the fundamental integrity of the very fabric of the nation they purport to serve…& everything in between
…or to give a more direct example
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/michigan-governor-kidnap-plot/2020/10/08/story.html
…see…there’s a lady who can use a dictionary
Portland: officers targeted medics with teargas and projectiles, report finds
…if that really was the war they claim to be fighting that shit would be against the actual original goddamn Geneva Convention…there were actual fascists prepared to call themselves that in public who wouldn’t stoop that fucking low…while these hard-of-thinking fuckwits apparently never met a bar they couldn’t lower
…least of all Bill Barr…an AG so committed to miscarrying justice as to make the asshole from Kentucky seem like a rank amateur…as opposed to merely as rank as the injustice he continues to heap upon the memory of an innocent women murdered in her home by those sworn to serve & protect her
…or the least qualified judge to be nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court despite Brett fucking Kavanaugh already warming the bench…which is truly a travesty heaped upon an insult before it’s even begun
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/barrett-court-health-care-senate/2020/10/07/story.html
…all to enable a cause so steeped in disregard for the little things…like truth…or justice…of the liberty to, you know, not fucking die for the vanity of a buck-ass-naked wannabe emperor
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions/trump-covid-cure
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/08/us/white-house-coronavirus-cdc.html
…a man so vain as to expect to have his electorate pay for the privilege of his supreme indifference to their suffering
…so is it any wonder that the folks who’ve made it their life’s work to “first, do no harm” can’t fucking take it any more?
…no…no it fucking isn’t
In more than two centuries of publishing, the New England Journal of Medicine has never weighed in on a U.S. presidential election. That changed this week.
On Wednesday, alongside its usual peer-reviewed scientific studies and analysis, the journal published a blistering editorial taking President Trump and his administration to task over their handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The respected journal broke the nonpartisan position it has held since 1812 with an editorial titled, “Dying in a Leadership Vacuum,” which urged voters to oust Trump over his administration’s failures.
“Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions,” said the piece, which was signed by 34 of the journal’s editors. “But this election gives us the power to render judgment.”
The journal has only published four other editorials signed by all the editors, including an obituary for longtime editor in chief Arnold S. Relman, who died in 2014. The three others, published in 2014 and 2019, tackled contraception access, abortion policy and draft guidance from the federal government on informed consent requirements in standard-of-care research. Never before have the journal’s editors collectively weighed in on an election, let alone a presidential race.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/08/science-journal-endorsement-trump
…but if someone actually gets their shit together to follow through on this it fucking will be
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-we-re-going-be-talking-about-25th-amendment
Before I read through the rest, I have to stop at the Marc Thiessen quote. Thiessen is a partisan hack from way back and has served as a spokesman/speechwriter for Jesse Helms, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W. Bush. He has made his living avoiding reality and lying/fabricating with a straight face since he was in his 20s.
I can’t imagine a city I’d less like to live in than DC, pleasant though it is to visit. I have plenty of friends in DC so I get down there, but I’m in a warm, protective bubble. My friends aren’t government workers but their lives are pervaded by it. One couple owns a trendy bar (“tavern”) popular with young Capitol Hill types. One manages a division of a company that supplies benign services to the federal government. Some work for trade associations whose only reason for being in DC is lobbying, although they’ll deny this and claim they perform a vital public educational mission for “an often misunderstood” industry (and they represent different industries. How much misinformation is out there?)
It’s like Plato’s Cave. There is no fashion industry but there is fashion industry lobbying. There is no aerospace, no automobile industry, no manufacturing whatsoever, but there is lobbying. There is no agriculture but there is the Department of Agriculture.
A very weird place. And if the federal government chose to move somewhere more central, like St. Louis, the area formed by the boundaries of DC would be…an exurb somewhat within commuting distance of Baltimore?
Where is Meg to comment on all of this? She recently said she drove by Walter Reed while the super spreader was in there. Maybe she’ll have insights/a counterpoint.
The best explanation I read for Thiessen hanging on at the Post is that he fulfills the quota mentality which inflicts opinion page editors and that the right exploits.
It’s grounded in laziness. There are a million hyperqualified people who would love the permanent slot that Thiessen has at the Post. They would bring a genuine diversity of viewpoints and original ideas that are missing from the mainstream, instead of the repetive conservative hackwork you can find anywhere. But recruiting and editing takes time, and opinion pages think it is somehow more productive to spend their time taking pitches from the PR firm repping the Association of Amagamated Associations instead.
Seconded on Marc Thiessen…
I live in the ‘burbs of DC and have for quite some time (longer than anywhere else, including my hometown). I think some of what you said is true, especially when you start to deal with the K Street crowd and the lawyers (god, all the lawyers!).
In DC, for sport, the first question anyone will ever ask you is “What do you do?” and once you answer, you can see the wheels turning as to whether or not they think you are worth speaking to further.
In general though, I find my neighbors to be a highly educated and engaged bunch. MD is solidly blue, there’s tons of BLM and Biden signs on my street and once you get past the whole “What do you DOOO?” thing, it’s not hard to find interesting and cool people to talk to.
I have, over the years, started to answer that particular question with “customer service in finance” as opposed to “Partner of x firm” because it’s fun to see who still wants to talk to you when they think you are a peon.
We have arts and culture and all the museums are free.
I’ve had interviews and opportunities in NYC, but never made the final cut. I talk too fast for Cleveland, and walk too slow for NY.
The DC lawyers! I forgot about them. The irony is my friends in DC have lots of different backgrounds but none has a law degree. However, excluding the DC crowd I think about 1/3 of my friends have law degrees. I like lawyers because they tend to be jaded and smart, like I think of myself (I do not have a JD.)
I think it might be the workaholism of DC that’s kind of off-putting, that “what do you do” obsession. This is a stereotype of New York, work hard, play hard, claw your way to the top, but I’ve never found that to be the case.
My friends in DC are my friends so work might come up but we have far more interesting things to talk about. But I’ve been out to dinner down there and a friend of a friend will say, “This week has been killing me. In the office until 9 every night.” “God that sounds awful.” “It’ll pass. What happened was the House Subcommittee on X scheduled a hearing on House Bill Y and we–” and then I immediately tune out and try to think of happier thoughts, like who were the members of the Partridge Family and what were their real names, including the two boys who played the youngest, Chris, and poor David Cassidy, but I guess with a father like Jack Cassidy–“but we think we have the votes lined up. So what’s everyone having? The Z is really good, I’m going to get that.”
@MegMegMcgee
To be mean, but fair, most marginally educated people talk too fast for Cleveland. Ohio has great colleges, but our public education is woeful.
Tough, but fair.
In other debate news, Lindsey Graham is refusing to take a Covid test before facing off against Jaime Harrison tonight.
“Is any other South Carolinian demanding that every person they come in contact with be tested before they meet?” the senator asked in his statement.
I’m pretty sure it’s not every person he wants tested. Just the ones who have been in close contact with the putrid, noxious, rotting, citrus fruit cosplaying as president, or the people he’s infected.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/520310-harrison-calls-on-graham-to-take-a-covid-19-test-before-debate
Extra stars for this
SHUDDERING MASS OF METASTISIZED MORIBUND MISAPPREHENSION
Also a fun turn of phrase “putrid, noxious, rotting, citrus fruit cosplaying”.
Thanks! I’m no SplinterRIP but every now and then I get in a good one.
Shout-out for:
bombast & bluster multiplied by bullshit
RIP’s alliteration game is on point, y’all.
And yes, RIP’s post is deservedly launched in high dudgeon, which I appreciate. Pence did not deliver a master class in debating. He barely managed to stammer out his talking points, and that only by interrupting and wandering off question. A friend of mine teaches debate in high school. Her students would obliterate Pence on stage. For fuck’s sake, he got upstaged by a fly!
is it just me or did that fly look a little like Jeff Goldblum? Help me, help me!
I wish someone would follow up with him on birtherism.
My nomination for the SplinterRIP Phrase of the Day ™ is “GOD-FORSAKEN MENDACIOUS FUCKING MORON”. A close runner-up is “SHUDDERING MASS OF METASTISIZED MORIBUND MISAPPREHENSION”, followed by “buck-ass-naked wannabe emperor”.
I come for the political news but stay for the precision wielding of the English language.
“Fanta Faced Fascist” for the win.
…think I actually called him a fanta-faced fantasist…but maybe I shoulda gone with fascist
…either way, you’re all extremely kind to make with the compliments…& I thank you for that…not to mention for being good enough to actually read the whole thing…I know if we let this shit get to us we’ll just be paralyzed with rage day in & day out so I try not go off the deep end if I can help it…but this one ran away with me a little so I’m glad it wasn’t too much of a chore to read
For me, it’s all about Fur Face Friday!
https://groupthink.kinja.com/fur-face-friday-1845319395
…four legs are better than two?
…always seems to be good for what ails me, anyway…& let’s face it…I could use a little of that today…as ever…thank you
McTurtle is putting the ramming through of a supreme court justice as a higher priority than a stimulus package needed by LITERALLY millions of the Americans he is supposed to be representing as senate majority leader…some of whom vote for him in KY for whatever fucking reason.
The best (worst) part is that the knuckle-draggers will 100% not care. They’d much rather have a permanent majority on the supreme court to continue fucking them over economically, than concern themselves with how they’re currently getting fucked over by McConnell and Trump.
I read a fascinating article on Republican support yesterday. It’s here: https://www.vox.com/21502189/preexisting-conditions-trump-republicans
The thesis is that many (most?) Republican voters don’t actually grasp the full scope of their candidates’ “platforms,’ and when confronted with it, simply refuse to believe it. They quote an idiot who basically states “Trump isn’t trying to eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions, because if he did, nobody would vote for him” and then plans to vote for Trump.
Other examples included Mitt Romney wanting to end Medicare and the bizarre attempt to pass a capital gains tax cut for the rich after 9/11. Focus groups simply wouldn’t believe that “their” politician would even consider fucking them over that hard. They just said, no, that doesn’t make sense, and refused to believe it was actually occurring.
It’s a good read, and relatively short.
So, basically what we already know about these people. They are gullible and stupid. Film at 11:00.
Something else just dawned on me. A huge part of the Republicans’ decades-long mission to fuck over this country has also been a constant message of “don’t trust the media–they are lying to you.” So, when confronted with a reporter from Vox, then of course the first thing they think of is “I can’t trust this liberal shill.” I’d bet real money that if the reporter pretended to be from Fox or some other right-wing outlet, they’d at least get a little more traction with the rubes.
…it’s the way they somehow contrive to pride themselves on their status as “low-information voters” that continually perplexes me
…the “logic” of a stance that basically says “I refuse to listen to people who know what they’re talking about or pay attention to people willing to do so for me” just makes it sound like they ought to get knocked down by traffic every time they try to cross the street
…sometimes I catch myself wondering how they remember to breathe
That’s a solid supposition. I wish someone would try it and report the results. But yes, when you constantly reinforce an ongoing distrust of … well, it’s not just news, it’s reality. They’ve created a massive group of the gullible who will actually not accept reality if it conflicts with their worldview. It’s alternative facts taken to its ultimate conclusion.
I was surrounded by these fuckers for 16 years. Trust me, it is not any easier to understand their off-the-charts stupidity.