Christy Mihos Must Be Very Proud

I haven't written in a while, not because there hasn't been anything to say, but because these are times for action, not words. That being said, I had to check out what the little men of Hub Politics had to say about Ted Kennedy's death. And, as I figured they would be, they were classy in honoring Kennedy's service, simply noting 'Say “hello” to Mary Jo.' One does have to wonder how Christy Mihos must feel, however, since his advertising is all over Hub Politics and the Margolis brothers are doing their level best to fluff the chances of their favorite candidate. What's that? A line between editorial and advertising? Never heard of it! I wonder how Christy feels about Ted saying "hello" to Mary Jo? I guess when you're a man desperate to win an election, you'll get into bed with the strangest people, even people who turn death into an opportunity for more hatred. Sorry Christy, but you're providing aid and comfort to the know-nothingism rampant on the right and for that, it will be hard to take seriously anything you say.

Family Values

TPM Muckraker posts that "John McCain personally took a shot at Obama over reports today that one of the members of his Veep selection committee, Jim Johnson, got a special loan that could complicate efforts to speak to public anxiety about the subprime mortgage crisis."

Yeah, it's too bad people need loans but we can't all have an affair with a really wealthy woman, ditch our spouse, and marry for money. What a straight-shooting maverick that John McCain is!

But We Freed The Slaves!

Republicans like to talk about how friendly they are to minorities because, you know, they freed the slaves. What they don't want you to know is that after the passage of numerous civil rights bills in the 1960s, white southern Democrats jumped en masse to the Republican party and the institutionalization of racially divisive politics became part of the standard GOP operating strategy. Minority candidates aren't stupid, which is why the GOP's efforts to recruit minority candidates have been, well, useless. One can only wonder what Thomas Sowell would have to say about this sad state of affairs.

Smack Down

Good lord...this is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. This is the way pretty much every discussion I have with a conservative ends, with them screaming incoherently about something they know nothing about, unwilling to answer even simple questions.

Anything For A Joke

So I'm not sure which it is. Does Kevin over at Pundit Review deliberately misread things or is he just too stupid to understand context? In an effort to be snarky (self declared, of course, like a four year old announcing he's made a joke) he tries to compare the current sexual harassment scandal in Ohio's Attorney General's office to Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky by saying "This can't be, can it? I mean, it is a private matter? This doesn’t rise to level of high crimes and misdemeanors?"

Of course, the Attorney General in Ohio having an affair isn't the reason Ohio Democrats are trying to bring impeachment proceedings, rather, it's the pervasive atmosphere of sexual harassment in the AG's office, the amateurishness of which brings to mind the idiocy of recent GOP political appointees who've had to leave office in disgrace. But Kevin apparently thinks the two things are comparable and I'm sure the majority of his readers just nod blankly. He wouldn't deliberately misunderstand this to make a stupid joke would he? I do find it interesting that Democrats actually try to do something about the mistakes they make, while Republicans are content to let their own stay in positions of responsibility.

Flatulence From Presidential Candidates

A gas tax holiday? Are you kidding me? Gas prices go up because supplies are low. So let's fix the problem by raising demand! I'm sure today's GOP equivalent of David Stockman wrote it on a napkin so you know it will work, and Hillary Clinton is a fool for playing along.

A Small Sample

I'd like to thank Dan Kennedy for his kind words on my return. I'm not sure my return is exactly newsworthy but it is nice to know one has been missed.

Dan picks up on another theme from Gregg Jackson's "field slave" column. He does an admirable job of taking apart Jackson's claim that Mitt Romney is the most liberal GOP presidential candidate in history. But why can a conservative make a claim like that and be taken seriously?

It seems to me that for most conservatives of a certain age, the GOP begins and ends with Ronald Reagan, the fulsome praise heaped upon the recently departed William F. Buckely notwithstanding. Let's think about this. The first Bush? He committed heresy and raised taxes and if you're a supporter of the current Iraq war, it is hard to reconcile that with Bush's decision not to remove Saddam during the first Iraq war. Gerald Ford? He wasn't around long enough to do anything particularly notable except pardon Richard Nixon. Nixon? Watergate and price controls. Eisenhower? Too far back in time and besides, no one even knew if Eisenhower was a democrat or a republican so how conservative could he have possibly been? Before WWII? Calvin Coolidge? Warren Harding? Taft? Teddy Roosevelt? No, since the end of WWII the GOP has only one president they can flock too, St. Ronald of Orange County. Given this fool's gold standard, Mitt Romney, by definition, has to be to the left. Add in same-sex marriage in Massachusetts while Mitt was governor in Massachusetts and presto, you have the most liberal GOP presidential candidate in history.