Given the heinous dust that’s been raised, it seems likely that end-of-life counseling will be dropped from the health-reform legislation. But that’s a small point, compared with the larger issue that has clouded this summer: How can you sustain a democracy if one of the two major political parties has been overrun by nihilists? And another question: How can you maintain the illusion of journalistic impartiality when one of the political parties has jumped the shark?

(See pictures of angry health-care protesters.)

I’m not going to try. I’ve written countless “Democrats in Disarray” stories over the years and been critical of the left on numerous issues in the past. This year, the liberal insistence on a marginally relevant public option has been a tactical mistake that has enabled the right’s “government takeover” disinformation jihad. There have been times when Democrats have run demagogic scare campaigns on issues like Social Security and Medicare. There are more than a few Democrats who believe, in practice, that government should be run for the benefit of government employees’ unions. There are Democrats who are so solicitous of civil liberties that they would undermine legitimate covert intelligence collection. There are others who mistrust the use of military power under almost any circumstances. But these are policy differences, matters of substance. The most liberal members of the Democratic caucus — Senator Russ Feingold in the Senate, Representative Dennis Kucinich in the House, to name two — are honorable public servants who make their arguments based on facts. They don’t retail outright lies. Hyperbole and distortion certainly exist on the left, but they are a minor chord in the Democratic Party.

via The GOP Has Become a Party of Nihilists – TIME.

I don’t agree with Joe on every point here, particularly the part about civil liberties, you have them or you don’t. I can’t accept a “just trust us” approach t from Bush and I don’t from Obama.

The Democrats may stray into hyperbole and exaggeration, but they don’t just make stuff up to suit their arguments. The larger point stands. How can you have a reasoned policy debate with people who ignore inconvenient facts and simply lie about things?

I used quotes around the word journalist at the top because by and large the media has miserably failed to do it’s job during this debate. They’ve become so afraid of being labeled “liberal” by the right that if Sen. Kyl announced that the Sun revolves around Earth they’d announce it every few minutes. Then they’d have segment where it would be debated between some neanderthal moron who would try to shout down an astounded astronomer. We report you decide indeed. The media has failed and it appears the people of this nation will suffer for their incompetence.

Ah, the delicious irony of it all:

According to a Rasmussen poll released last week, 37 percent of Americans under age 30 prefer capitalism, 33 percent prefer socialism and 30 percent are undecided. Among all Americans, 53 percent prefer capitalism, 20 percent prefer socialism and 27 percent are undecided…

…The data on the young are particularly telling. Twenty-somethings are more open to socialism — or social capitalism — than 30-somethings not only because they never lived through the Soviet threat but because the economy, during the years in which deregulatory policy and Wall Street financialization were at their height, hasn’t worked very well for them. Americans under 29 scored well to the left of the general public in a recent survey by the Center for American Progress, and voters under 30 backed Barack Obama by a 34-point margin in November, 66 percent to 32 percent.

The young may now disdain Wall Street — but what do they know of socialism, past and present? Who even speaks of socialism in America today? The answer, of course, is the demagogic right. According to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and their ilk, Obama is taking America down the Socialist Road. As Benjamin Sarlin has noted on the Web site the Daily Beast, the talkmeisters of the right have linked a doctrine that never commanded much support in America to a president whose approval rating hovers around 60 percent and much higher than that among the young.

Rush and his boys are doing what Gene Debs and his comrades never really could. In tandem with Wall Street, they are building socialism in America.

Go Fox, go Rush, go Sean, heck of a job there boys! They’re doing more to build socialism in American than Molotov, Trotsky and Mao put together.  Their nearly complete ignorance of what socialism is coupled with a willingness to throw around the accusation willy nilly is having the effect of pushing American youth further to the left.

This is not to say that I believe a “worker’s paradise” is imminent or even desirable, but the excesses of the right are chipping away the future of the right and the GOP. As I’ve said several times before, we need a right center party to counter balance the Democrats.

Look we’ve already tried it their way and the results are in: utter failure for American world standing and its economy. A very narrow swath of already very wealthy people did even better. But that’s about it. The rest of us have suffered stagnant wages, joblessness and destitution. Perhaps it will all accidentally bring a bit more balance to American political life.

This is Steven Benen on the meaning of the popularity of Glenn Beck’s batshit crazy antics on Fox News and much more importantly what in bodes for the GOP. This was about what happened off camera right after Glenn pretended to dose a man with gasoline and set him on fire on his show:

But that’s not really the interesting part. Alex Koppelman added, “Unfortunately, not captured in the video is what happened next, when Texas Gov. Rick Perry came on and Beck asked, ‘Governor, you’re regretting being on this program at this point, are you not, sir?’ Perry responded, ‘Not at all, Glenn Beck. I’m proud to be with you.’”

And that, in a nutshell, helps explain what’s gone terribly wrong with conservative Republicans of late. Beck appears to be in desperate need of medication, and the chief executive of one of the nation’s largest states is “proud” to appear on the show, just moments after Beck pretended to set a colleague on fire.

Credible, serious public officials would ordinarily want to avoid making eye contact with a deranged figure, but Gov. Perry was delighted to chat with the Fox News lunatic. Maybe it’s because Perry actually finds Beck’s madness compelling; maybe it’s because Perry has a big Republican primary coming up and wants to curry favor with Beck’s followers.

Lunacy is soooo in for the GOP this year…

Sounds a lot like good ol’ Sean Hannity is guilty of inciting revolution. Didn’t that used to be a crime? Is this another case of “It’s OK if Your a Republican”?

Stewart clear got round 1 with punishing body shots and a knockdown. In round 2 Cramer is clearly on the ropes. Maybe his corner should throw in the towel?

1. You have to be at least as high as Paula Abdul.
2. It must be recorded to allow fast forwarding through they inane chatter, “touching” personal stories and out right bad singing, or about 90% of the show content.

If done right you can rip through a 2 hour episode in 15-20 minutes! Many contestants sound better muted anyway.

Stewart nails the dysfunction that is the modern day GOP:

There’s not a whole lot of steel in Steele’s spine.  Limbaugh makes threatening noises and Steele folds like sweaty palmed Black Jack player. So our corpulent, drug addled friend Rush makes the GOP chairman dance to his tune. This does not bode well for the future of the GOP. If they want to be the permanent minority party of the South and parts of the inter-mountain West, then following Limbaugh is the way to go. I believe that the Democratic Party needs an opposition party for the health of the nation. But today’s GOP lacks the honesty and self-awareness to understand that they are headed for many, many years of minority status.

Is Obama’s Tax Cut the Biggest in History? – Steven Waldman.

The Democrats have been so busy defending federal spending, and denigrating the stimulative power of tax cuts, that they apparently either forgot — or felt they couldn’t — point out something rather dramatic: the tax cuts in this stimulus plan appear to be the biggest in history.

The compromise stimulus plan includes $282 billion in tax cuts over two years.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Bush’s first two years of tax cuts amounted to $174 billion. A second batch in 2004 and 2005 cost $231. And those were thought to be bigger than the tax cuts offered by Reagan, Kennedy or others.

Now, perhaps some new analysis will show that the tax cuts end up not quite being the largest in history by this measure or that. But it’s clear they’re massive.

Bill Kristol’s op-ed column in today’s time is standard fare wherein he strokes himself off to memories of St. Ronnie. It’s only notable in that it ends with this true gem: “This is William Kristol’s last column.”

The Dilbert Strategy – New York Times
Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.

You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration’s new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it’s all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive.

I just heard CNN White House Corespondent Ed Henry say, “it’s not just about moving bureaucratic boxes around, It’s about trying to restore confidence in the markets.” And they’re doing this by what means? By moving bureaucratic boxes around to give the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke power over existing regulatory bodies. Will that be enough? I think not…

Ferraro defends controversial comments on Barack Obama – The Daily Breeze
“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up,” Ferraro said. “Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”

She should probably gone with the ever popular “no comment” until after the election. Gerry, you probably ought to shut up now, you ain’t helping!!!

So will Hillary embrace this narrative and become the campaign of down trodden white people? Remember kids, we’re on 231 year streak of white people running the country. I’m going to get physically ill if the Hilldog embraces her “victimhood”.

Where to begin? How about Hitchens adding up the comparative costs of the containment policy that was demonstrably working? They’ve yet to find the mythical WMDs that were supposed to have made Saddam a worldwide threat. The policy pursued  by Bush Sr. and Clinton worked, plain and simple, at a much lower cost in blood and treasure, even if you totally ignore the plight of the Iraqi people and the uncounted death and suffering they endured. It would have still been cheaper in America blood and treasure, even if you take the morally indefensible position of ignoring the suffering inflicted on innocent families.

Their lame joint effort to affix a cost to the Iraq war is entirely based on an unspoken assumption that has nothing to do with economics or even with political economy. And that assumption (widely shared but seldom if ever articulated) is that our engagement with Iraq was somehow “a war of choice” — to use a favorite catchphrase from a few years ago — and thus that all of its costs, ranging from the physical damage to Iraqi infrastructure to the moral damage to our warriors, could have been avoided by abstention.

I don’t know anybody who knows anything about the subject who believes anything so frivolous.

Yes Chris it WAS a war of choice. It’s your lame attempt to rewrite history to favor your viewpoint that’s “frivolous”.

Update : An additional takedown by attaturk here.

Can I get a collective AWWWWWWW, over the fate of poor little Tucker Carlson? Maybe not. I am relieved at the prospect of not having to listen to his wankery anymore.

I heard that Prince Harry has been secretly serving with the British Army in Afghanistan since December, this is until he was outed by Matt Drudge. Military officials will now have to pull Harry out of his unit because he’s such a high profile target that he endangers other members of his unit.

Two things strike me about this story. First Matt Drudge is an asshole for breaking this story despite the obvious fact that it place lives in danger. Maybe that should just be a base assumption that just goes without saying. Secondly, I applaud the tradition of military service in the royal family and I wish the elite families in our country would feel the same obligation to serve in the military. If you want to be in a position to be commander-in-chief and order people to die in battle, you should have a very, very good idea of what that means on a real personal level.

Oh thank god!! Please let it be true.

Chelsea Remark Earns MSNBC Correspondent A Suspension – washingtonpost.com
In case there was any doubt, using a prostitution metaphor for the daughter of a presidential candidate is not a good career move.

Ouch, they really really don’t like McCain. About the only thing that would get them out the door to vote on election day would be voting against Clinton.

I don’t watch Fox Noise, if I can help it. There’s nothing worse than being forced to listen to a fool like Steve Doocy blather on in a waiting room because it someone’s bizarre idea of a “good news show”. Ewwww

Anyway, Auggie took one for the team and posted this segment from Hannity and Colmes where the High Priestess of Adam’s Apples and Hatin’ on Liberals, Ann Coulter swears that she will campaign for Hillary if McCain is the Republican nominee. Can you see it? Can you picture what that might look like in your mind’s eye. Me neither. Maybe Hillary will take her up on the offer. That would really be taking “keep your friends close and your enemies even closer” to a ridiculous extreme.

Update:

Sully loves it when Hugh Hewitt gives Ann a good talking to.

But you already knew that right? After his repeated claims that there are no homeless veterans, homeless veterans paid a visit to BillO, who asked the Edwards campaign to let him know where these Vets were so he could help them. The were turned away. I guess BillO was too busy to bother following up or acknowledge that he was simply wrong.

UPDATE:

C&L has video

Can I get collective “awwww” for the propaganda wing of the GOP?