In one word or less, it translates as Waaaahhhh!
I saw this at Lean Left and dismissed it as spoilsport, sore loser nonsense. Then I saw it at Jay and Jane’s and decided I’d comment. Here’s the quote:
So what’s next? The California recall is just the latest in a lengthening string of naked power grabs that reveal the cankered soul at the top of the Republican party these days. Even leaving aside Florida 2000, we’ve seen unprecedented mid-decade redistrictings in both Colorado and Texas; campaigns that compare Democrats directly to Osama bin Laden; an indecent and truly morally bereft performance following Paul Wellstone’s death; the end of the traditional blue slip rule for judicial nominees in the Senate — because control of both houses of Congress and the White House and most of the judiciary isn’t enough for them; and the Valerie Plame affair, a scandal that, I think, is truly an “At long last sir, have you no decency?” moment.
Politics is dirty pool. All the way around. Seems he’s just upset the Democrat dirty pool of various sex scandals didn’t work. Hell, we had 8 years of Clinton to get the American public apathetic towards sex scandals. After all, that’s what the Dem party line was for 8 years: It’s just a blowjob. Regardless of the fact that Clinton’s sex life was also about lying, perjury, sexual harassment, groping, and Clinton paying Jones $850K to go the Hell away. Democrats got their wish and sex scandals aren’t a big issue in politics and it’s bitten them square in the ass. Beautiful.
Republicans are the party of the rich? Yeah, I see all those poor, starving Democrat politicians scraping to get by. Democrats get most of their funding from large dollar value donors whereas Republicans get their money from many middle class voters and the wealthy. They’re both the party of the wealthy. So can we all please acknowledge that and drop the class warfare nonsense?
If the roles were reversed, I think Democrats would be saying nanny nanny boo boo. As it stands, they’re hearing nanny nanny boo boo and, after last November, it has a loud, dull ringing to it.
October 9th, 2003 at 9:32 am
I agree that the Clenis lowered the bar of public behaviour and discourse. But does that mean that Bush and his supporters have to accept that? This latest on the Plame affair has me shaking myy head..the “it was STUPID, not CRIMINAL so it’s not that bad” speculation. What about ethics?
October 9th, 2003 at 9:40 am
I’m not a Bush supporter so you’ll have to ask someone else. I’d like to any administration take the moral highground but we’re talking about politics ferchrissakes.
The plame thing is stupid and it is criminal. The lefties seem to turn it into a bush issue, even though the odds are slim he had anything to do with it.
October 9th, 2003 at 4:55 pm
They’re both the party of the wealthy.
Here, at least, I agree with you. But here:
Democrats get most of their funding from large dollar value donors whereas Republicans get their money from many middle class voters and the wealthy.
I have to call minor bullshit. Large corporate interests donate heavily to the Republican party and Republican causes. Unions are generally the largest Democratic donors.
As for individual donations, I don’t have any stats, but I’d be surprised to see a huge skew in individual donations toward one party or another, in any income class. The lower incomes probably would donate Democratic, if they could afford to donate at all. But it seems to me that there are plenty of rich leftists out there to balance out against the rich corporatists who would tend to donate Republican.
October 9th, 2003 at 5:12 pm
It also bears repeating that hypocrisy cuts both ways. If the Democrats are hypocritical for pointing out corroborated allegations of sexual assault and harassment against a current Republican candidate, then the Republicans are at least as hypocritical for voting for such a candidate, after having made such a stink about Clinton’s antics.
Never mind the relative merit of the various charges, which are far from equal in the two cases. And never mind the obvious difference that in one case, the allegations came out after the guy had taken office, and in the other, the allegations came out years before he ran for office.
The point is that there’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around. People in glass houses, and all that.
October 9th, 2003 at 5:22 pm
How would the Democrats react if one of their hopefuls had corroborated sexual misconduct allegations leveled at them? Two words: Gary Hart.
October 9th, 2003 at 5:50 pm
I thought you said you were going to comment on the quote, SayUncle? Why didn’t you? Your commentary didn’t address anything in the quote. The quote didn’t mention sex scandals, and the quote didn’t mention class warfare, and these are the two subjects you choose to rant about.
The quote calls the California recall was a “naked power grab” because the conservative loser of the 2002 election personally funded — at the cost of millions of dollars — the gathering of signatures in a successful attempt to nullify an election (nay — a REelection) that had happened just months earlier.
The quote correctly notes that the mid-decade redistricting in Texas and Colorado is unprecedented, and, “legal” or not, violates long-standing understandings between the parties that prevent ongoing chaos.
The quote notes the stunning smearing of a Vietnam multi-amputee as “unpatriotic” using a blatant distortion of his voting record (and perpetrated by two men, Saxby Chambliss and George Bush, who chose to sit out all that unpleasant fightin’).
The quote notes the disgraceful, blatant mischaracterization of the Wellstone funeral, taking the closing comment of a mourning speaker, claiming it was representative of the entire three-hour event, and then using it for partisan political gain.
The quote notes the sudden changing of long-standing Senate rules by Bill Frist because they were just too damned inconvenient.
And the quote notes the outing of a CIA operative by “two top White House officials,” and the subsequent admission of that by a “senior administration official.” This is petty, illegal, and as unpatriotic as can be imagined, all in order to keep future dissenters in line (as also claimed by the senior administration official). Again, throwing any hint of principle to the wind in the lust for yet more power.
Rather than actually address any of these individual points, or the damning implications of them collectively, you go off on yet another rant about Clinton and sex. How original. How worth our time as readers. None of those things are “nanny nanny boo boo” material, none of these things are acceptable by any party, and its rather remarkable that you think they are. If you somehow think they are and can explain why, perhaps THAT might be a worthwhile post.
October 9th, 2003 at 6:09 pm
Wow. I still can’t get over it. You call indignation over things like the outing of Valerie Plame “spoilsport, sore loser nonsense.”
SayUncle, I thought I knew ye.
Guess not.
October 9th, 2003 at 8:30 pm
Sorry balisardo, i didn’t realize it had to be spelled out so directly. the link to Jay’s illustrates the point about the supposed issues. 2000 election stuff is nonsense, wellstone was a democrat debacle, etc.
My point is, cal lists various dirty tricks alleged against the repubs when the dems are guilty of as much.
And class warfare is what i meant by the party of the rich.
And i haven’t addressed plame in a while because i’m uncertain of what i feel about it.
The point of the post (in broad terms) is simply that the dems are guilty of dirty pool as much as republicans.
And tom, i’ll have to search for the link about Dems contributoins.
October 9th, 2003 at 8:31 pm
Oh, and the rest of cal’s rant is just emotional blathering screed.