The Exquisite Contrarian

The GOP meme: if you say it’s not luck enough times, it’s not luck.

Using words like ‘socialist’ of course have the same impact.  Just remember, kids, all you need to do is say something enough times and it becomes reality.  If you have any questions regarding how this works, in Dick Cheney’s absence Sarah Palin will be happy to provide examples.

More quotes from William Saletan’s article on Slate.

Slate writer Jacob Weisberg points out the continual drubbing of Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during the current post-crisis evaluation.  Granted Weisberg assisted Rubin in writing his memoirs, so he got to know the man on a personal level – sometimes this colors one’s vision.  Yet, some good points are made here.

Gordon Brown quite possibly cost himself a competitive election and his party’s victory with this ill advised comment after he jumped in the car.  Sky News appears to have left the microphone they placed on him running, and after hearing this decided perhaps their audience would find it interesting.

Hey, at least he didn’t pull a Dick Cheney or a Joe Biden.

Eleanor Clift can’t be mistaken for anything less than a vocal, far left journalist that most often lets her leanings guide her pen, but the article she posted this week in Newsweek is no less interesting and valuable portrayal of Sarah Palin the politician than most, and it benefits from McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt’s candid narrative.  It’s obvious Schmidt sees the Palin bloc essentially controlling the GOP campaign message at this point in time, and just as obvious that he considers this a horrible path.  We’d have to agree since we know entirely too many people now calling themselves “reformed Republicans” in much the same way so many called themselves “Reagan Democrats” before just admitting they had become Republicans.

What will this new group of disenfranchised people be called?  Don’t say Tea Partiers.  They don’t seem to want any part of that conversation either.

Some great excerpts from the article:

• Before he took the stage, he said his problem with Palin had to do with her saying things that are untrue, which caused problems for the campaign. It’s a practice you could say she has since perfected with the “death panels” of last summer, and continues today with an assertion made in Louisville, Ky., last week that the Founding Fathers really didn’t want separation of church and state.
• Schmidt gives Palin her due as a political talent. He has said that without her on the ticket, McCain’s margin of defeat would have been even greater. But she is a divisive figure: “dark,” he said to me, “us versus them, and she’s inciting regional divisions, which we haven’t seen in this country for a long time.”
• He’s not happy with Republicans reading people out of the party for lack of ideological purity, a view enshrined by Louisiana Sen. David Vitter’s declaration that he’d rather have 30 Republicans with strong conservative beliefs than 60 compromisers. “Good for him,” said Schmidt, “but that’s not a winning or a wise electoral strategy.”
• Schmidt quoted a former Republican Party chair, from the pre-Palin heyday, who said there are two types of churches—one where members hunt for heretics to kick them out, the other where people go out looking for converts to bring them in. “If we’re a political party that goes out hunting for heretics, that’s not a strategically sound premise,” Schmidt said, adding with a mischievous grin, “I haven’t gotten kicked out yet.”

More: Steve Schmidt Says No to Party of Palin.

Is there any argument to be made civility really exists in the current American political dialogue?  Dick Cheney says he’s proud of telling off Patrick Leahy to f*** himself.  By our count, there’s really no civility in empty, crass confrontations like these – and please, spare us the self-righteous “mission of truth” stuff.

• Until recently, Heritage was quite willing to associate itself with Romneycare, but that appears to have changed. The words Romney and Massachusetts appear nowhere in Moffits op-ed, probably because the Conintern has lately concluded that Obamacare renders Romney damaged goods. See this withering Fox News interview with Chris Wallace, this dismissal from the libertarian Club For Growth, this video from David Boaz and Michael F. Cannon of Cato, and this editorial from the Wall Street Journal, which called Obamacare and Romneycare “fraternal policy twins.” Ouch!

We’ve generally taken the ‘trust no one’ stance, particularly when there’s a massive backlog of self interest involved.  This example just further reiterates the axiom.

Shocker: the rest of the world also knows W isn’t all that bright.  Thought we’d been able to hide that one.

Another ‘birther’ appears, in an interesting place and with impressive decoration.

Drones are effective. Should we be centering our strategy around them?  Are we already?