MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

Grimly amused commentary from Team Def Political Batshit curator Lucky Bensonhurst

Now that Super Tuesday is done and the field has thinned considerably – Ben “Please Attack These Hands” Carson dropped out today, and given his last few debate performances it’s a miracle anyone noticed – the GOP race is pretty much down to Trump, Cruz and Rubio. Which basically means Rubio is now the Establishment guy, since he’s the only one left that the Establishment can stand.

Not that it matters, because at this rate Trump looks as though he actually going to pull this off. Which of course no one thought he would ever do (including me), if only because the traditional rules that dictate how elections work and how nominees are chosen told us he couldn’t possibly get this far.

Those rules, obviously, no longer apply. And no one is more surprised, perhaps, than the GOP Establishment. Though, as John Scalzi has argued convincingly, they shouldn’t be surprised at all. But they are. And they seem to be at a loss as to what to do about it – provided there’s still time to do anything.

Some pundits have thrown around some entertainingly desperate suggestions, to include, bizarrely, asking liberals to help them out. The general reasoning: “Hey, you hate Trump as much as we do, how about you help us by voting for Rubio, or Kasich, or hell, anyone except Trump?!”

Scalzi has a good take on that too. Executive summary: Ummmm, no. Demos may hate Trump, but the only reason they don’t mind him winning the nomination is because it will make Hillary or Bernie’s victory that much bigger a landslide.

Which may or may not be true. Trump’s poll ratings remain strong, and while imaginary-election polls suggest both Hillary and Bernie would beat Trump today, it wouldn’t be by a huge margin, although Bernie fans will smugly point out to you that the current point spread is wider in a Sanders/Trump race than a Clinton/Trump race. If Cruz or Rubio get the nomination, Sanders’ chances are even better.

Hillary’s chances have also been called into question by the Internet rumor that if she does win the nomination, Sanders supporters – or at least the so-called Bernie Bros – who are convinced Hillary is a cheating Wall Street RINO will ragequit and either vote for Trump out of petty revenge for Hillary’s treachery or give their votes away to Jill Stein or some other left-wing indie candidate. Normally I’d say that’s a non-issue – when push comes to shove, I’m pretty sure most liberals will hold their nose and vote against the GOP. But as I said, this ain’t yr traditional election.

Which begs the question: why is that? How are candidates like Trump and Sanders bucking the Establishment to varying degrees of success? (Note: Sanders may be losing to Hillary at the moment, but he’s been far more successful than anyone who has “Socialist” on his resumé should be in the USA, according to tradition. Also, let’s not forget, he’s not actually a Democrat – he’s just borrowing their party platform.)

Social media theorist Clay Shirkey and historian Jill Lepore have offered a very interesting theory: simply put, the media has changed.

Traditionally, both the Demo and Repub establishment have been able to shape voter expectations by directing what was essentially a one-way conversation about the Big Issues – “Okay Candidate X, here’s the Party Position, here’s the bullet points, here’s what you don’t talk about if you can help it, stick to this script and we can win this.” They had help in this from the traditional media, who tended to simplify and distill the Big Issues on their op/ed pages into one side or the other.

But two things have happened in recent times: (1) the mainstream media’s role has changed from gatekeeper to bullhorn (think: Fox News, MSNBC, etc) and (2) social media is now so ingrained in our culture that it allows non-establishment candidates to bypass the party machines and take their platform direct to the voters – and engage with them in any way they see fit. The Trump and Sanders campaigns figured that out quickly and have made astonishingly good use of it.

True, Trump also has the advantage of being rich and famous and very good at trolling the media (put another way: he’s good television). Even so, his unfiltered in-your-face style would have eventually killed anyone else’s candidacy in previous election cycles. And again, the fact that Sanders advocates any kind of Socialism would have kept him Martin O’Malley territory 20 years ago.

I’m still not convinced Sanders will ultimately translate that into a nomination, barring Hillary being taken out of the picture by injury, illness or a federal indictment. But I wouldn’t rule it out. And I certainly wouldn’t rule out a Trump nomination at this stage.

Which may explain why Chris Christie decided to throw his lot in with The Donald – a decision he may already be regretting.

Anyway. Whatever the explanation for Trump’s success, I have little sympathy for the GOP Establishment’s dilemma. It’s of their own making, and they are now reaping the whirlwind, Jim.

– L. Bensonhurst

[Unnecessary political horseplay from Team Frog Chief Executive Hack Lucky Bensonhurst]

We’re now less than a year away from POTUS 2016, and Donald Trump and Ben Carson still aren’t doomed.

Not yet. But rumor has it that some players in the GOP Establishment are so worried about this – and annoyed with Jeb! Bush for failing to steal their thunder (or indeed anyone else’s) – that they’re trying to convince Mitt Romney to get in the ring.

There’s even a Draft Mitt website.

To be clear, the Draft Mitt contingent isn't a very big one. Also, Mitt is believed to be still not interested. Even if he was, he may have already doomed his chances by crediting RomneyCare as the genesis for Obamacare. He’s already walked that back, but the Angry Tea Party people who are driving the Trump/Carson campaigns are probably not going to forget that.

Let’s remember too that the Tea Party didn’t want Mitt the first time, and are reasonably sure he’s the reason Obama is still POTUS – which is why they’re pushing for someone hardcore and non-establishment in the first place. If Jeb! isn’t exactly setting Tea Party Central on fire, it’s hard to believe Mitt could do better.

What’s interesting is that none of this used to matter. The Establishment is accustomed to the traditional campaign model of weeding out the fringe outsiders and eventually rallying behind a candidate who can play the middle. As has been pointed out elsewhere on this blog, conservatives only account for a third of the US voting population. That means you can’t win the White House without playing to the middle.

That’s the tradition. But the Tea Party forces aren’t interested in the middle. They’re interested in ideological purity. And they’ve been burned before by trusting a moderate to defeat Obama. They have clout, and they have expectations, and the Establishment is not meeting them, and they’re pissed off about that.

Just ask John Boehner.

It’s hard to feel sorry for the Establishment Boys – they’ve cheerfully exploited both the general fear and loathing after 9/11 and the Tea Party movement (and its official news channel, Fox News) since its inception, and now they’re losing control of the clown car.

Also, the current dithering may be overblown. Trump is a great demagogue, but it’s still hard to believe that voters will channel their anti-establishment anger all the way to the RNC convention. And there are indications that Trump’s schtick is finally starting to wear a tad thin. On the other hand, it seems there's nothing wrong with Trump's campaign that an appearance on SNL can't fix. 

You may now take a moment to ponder the notion that SNL appearances improve yr chances of being Leader Of The Free World.

Maybe that’s where Jeb! has gone wrong. Maybe that’s how Mitt Romney can save the day.

But maybe not. Nate Silver makes a good case here that – aside from the fact that latecomers historically don’t fare well in POTUS elections – there are very limited scenarios in which Mitt could make a meaningful difference, all of which depend on just why Trump and Carson are still leading. And the one where Mitt is most likely to succeed is also the least plausible, statistically.

Stay tuned, Jim.

L. Bensonhurst

Or, “Donald Trump is surging and I don’t feel too good myself”

[Casual political neepery from Team Frog Batshit Political Curator Lucky Bensonhurst]

There is much a-dithering over news that The Donald’s comments about Mexicans has shoved him to the top of a couple of polls, which is being interpreted by The Left™ as a clear indicator that the GOP has finally gone total batshit and OMG WHAT IF HE WINS? 

My advice to the ditherers: relax.

First of all: he’s only getting so much attention because he knows how to troll the media, which basically encourages him to speak batshit because it’s good TV and effective clickbait.

And second: there's not just one poll. There are dozens. Trump leads a few of them, and his lead ranges from 14-24% of respondents out of a field of 15 candidates, and in most cases that’s only a handful of points above the Establishment Guy (a.k.a. Jeb Bush). That ain’t exactly a mandate. Also, remember in 2012 when Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich surged for about a week and everyone was saying the same thing they're saying about Trump now?

So yeah. Relax. Trump’s not going to be president. He’s not even going to be nominated.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is also surging, and one interesting result is that it reveals some weird parallels between him and Trump.

Both are surging in part because (1) they’re rallying their respective hardcore party bases with populist plain-spoken truthiness in ways the Establishment candidates aren’t, and (2) the media wants them to keep doing that – in Trump’s case because he’s a flamebait troll, and in Bernie’s case because Hillary needs some serious competition to keep the Demo primaries interesting.

Ana Marie Cox explores the first point in this piece here, and it’s guaranteed to piss off both sides, not least because she labels both Sanders and Trump “extremists”. I know plenty of Sanders fans who consider that a smear. That’s because they tend to use the word in association with blathering, foaming dingbats like Trump and Bachmann and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and the Tea Party in general – fringe-dwellers who want to pull the GOP as far to the right as it can go without violating Godwin’s Law.

Thing is, people who support Sanders (and also Elizabeth Warren, were she to decide to run) want to do the same thing with the Democrats – they want to pull it away from the center and waaaaaaaay over to the Hard Left where they think it belongs.

You might not call that extremism – at least not for yr own candidate. (Remember that the Hard Left and Hard Right think of themselves as fair and balanced centrists.) Whatever term you want to use, the point is that supporters of Sanders and Trump (or, if he’s too cartoonish, let’s say someone like Ted Cruz) basically want a candidate that’s ideologically pure and unwilling to compromise those ideals. I hear this a lot from on both sides. They’re tired of two-timing sell-outs and want a REAL conservative like Ted Cruz, or a REAL liberal like Sanders or Warren, representing them in the race.

Suppose both sides get their wish. Cox hopes that doesn’t happen, and not without good reason:


She has a point. My Facebook newsfeed provides anecdotal evidence of this every day. A lot of people want that cage match. And they want it in a way that shuts out the opposition party more or less permanently – not to the point of kicking them out of govt, maybe, but certainly to the point of making them so powerless they might as well not bother showing up for roll call. “Fuck compromise – the future of the country is at stake, man!”

What they haven’t thought about is this: let’s suppose both parties adopt pure ideologies, and suppose yr candidate wins. Do you really think he/she is going to be able to work with the losers and govern effectively? Would you want him/her to even bother trying? Or flip that around: if yr candidate loses and the ideological opposition candidate wins, where does that leave you? What are you prepared to do about that? And is that really the direction you want to take this?

This is why I personally don’t want a liberal or conservative ideologue in charge of the country. If you want yr party to govern by ideology with no compromise, the word yr looking for is “dictatorship”. Democracy is not supposed to be a winner-take-all game where we have free elections to vote for dictators every four years. It’s supposed to be government by compromise.

Not that it matters, since neither Sanders nor Trump (or Cruz or whoever) have a realistic hope of winning anyway. Not right now. Stranger things have happened, of course. But under current conditions, we’re not likely to have that ideological cage match in 2016.

One thing you can be sure of – when Sanders and/or Trump concede, their respective fans will blame it on unfair smear jobs from biased mainstream media (especially the Gawdamn New York Times).

– L. Bensonhurst

Guest tl;dr commentary from Team Def Political Shenanigans Sifter Lucky Bensonhurst

As some of you may know, Elizabeth Warren has made a name for herself among progressives mainly by sticking to the progressive line against the 1% and Wall Street and Republicans in general. Put another way, if Daily Kos is for it, there’s a Facebook meme quoting Warren echoing support for that issue (tax the rich, hang Wall Street, make college tuition free, etc).

Now with the fuss over the omnibus bill – which 32 Democrats voted for – Warren is in the headlines again, and with the mid-terms over, a lot of progressives are thinking, “Why are we backing Hillary when we could have a REAL liberal in the White House?”

It’s the latest indication that we’ve reached a point in American politics where the hardcore base on both sides are sick of all this compromise bullshit and are convinced the solution is to kick out the RINOs and DINOs and bring their respective parties back to the hardline ideologies that define them.

Only they don’t think of themselves as hardline or extreme. From their POV, they’re the most reasonable people in the room. Which is why Robert Reich is so annoyed that media pundits are comparing Elizabeth Warren to Ted Cruz.

Observe:


What do I think? I think that’s really bad, blinkered logic that invites ideological dictatorship. That’s what I think.

In the first place, Reich objects to the comparison only because he considers Warren’s views to be fair, balanced, reasonably mainstream and in step with core American values, and thinks Ted is 100% batshit. Which may be true. But I think the comparison is fair in that both Cruz and Warren represent firm, polarized ideologies. How crazy one is vs the other is a separate argument. But they both embody the core idealism on their respective sides of the aisle. Okay.

However, my real issue problem with Reich’s post is that last point: “… if compromise means the halfway point between these two views, the nation doesn't move. It languishes.”

That’s not really true. If it was, America would still be stuck in the 19th century somewhere. Compromise is an essential ingredient of a two-party democratic system. Yes, everyone postures during election time and spouts the party line, etc, and of course, every party wants to be the one driving the bus. But when it comes to actually legislating, Congress is – or was, until recently – in the deal-making business more often than not. The only way to get everything you want is to control all three branches of government – and even then, it’s good business to give the opposition something. Otherwise, yr essentially a one-party dictatorship (albeit a temporary one with a smoother transition process). That’s the whole point of democracy of course – seize power for as long as you can – but it’s no way to run a country, even if it only lasts until the next election cycle.

In any case, we already know the results of a “no compromise” stance. Look at Congress right now. The GOP has resolutely opposed Obama and the Democratic Party on almost every major piece of legislation on ideological grounds. We’ve seen this “no compromise” model in action since 2010, and we’ve seen what gets done: pretty much nothing. And that’s with just one side refusing to compromise. If the Demos follow Reich’s “never compromise” advice, the result won’t be any different. Progress might be slower under a compromise model, but it’s practically nonexistent under the opposite.

This is also why I’m not really convinced Warren will be president in 2016 (aside from the fact that she’s currently not interested in the job, or so she says).

Ideologues will always appeal to the base, and that can be enough to get you into the House or even the Senate. But you need more than your base to win the White House. Yr ideas have to appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. That’s just math.

Moreover, no matter what party the POTUS comes from, he/she has to lead all of America, not just their side of the aisle. It’s not meant to be a bully pulpit (although some presidents have certainly used it as such). Democracy isn’t meant to be Mob Rules. Winning the White House (or Congress, for that matter) means you get to lead the conversation and set the agenda. It doesn't mean you get to have everything yr way based on yr political ideology and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it.

That’s how the Tea Party works. That’s how the current GOP leadership is acting now. And that seems to be what people like Robert Reich are proposing Democrats do – ditch the sellouts and put the “real” liberals in charge so we can govern by ideology and never compromise. For the good of America, of course.

Fuck that, Jim. Personally, I don’t want a government run by uncompromising ideologues obsessed with keeping the other party out of power for as long as possible. (I live next door to China, where they do that already. The fact that America allows multiple parties to actually exist is a minor detail to me.)

Don’t get me wrong – I fully understand the desire to have a political party with a strong sense of identity and core values that set it apart. And I’m not saying politicians should compromise on everything. Obviously some issues are not up for debate.

The problem is that ideologues generally assume that every issue is a no-compromise issue, usually because they’ve conned themselves into believing the Opposition is a dangerous pack of criminal, atavistic thugs. Which is why I don’t really want one of them running the country.

Does this mean I think Elizabeth Warren would be a bad POTUS? Not really. I’m just saying I don’t fancy her chances for winning unless she moves closer to the center and demonstrates an ability to appeal to voters outside the ones who read Daily Kos and Addicting Info as though they’re objective journalism.

Put another way, the better her chances get, the more her current supporters are going to start labeling her as just another DINO – just like they've done with Obama.

L. Bensonhurst

Drive-by news analysis from Team Frog Batshit Political Curator Lucky Bensonhurst

ITEM: Finally, something Democrat and Republican voters can agree on: they both hate Congressional Republicans.

That’s according to a poll from Quinnipiac University, which found that, overall, the majority of Republicans polled (56%) disapprove of their own party in Congress. Democrats, by contrast, are more overwhelmingly supportive of Congressional Democrats (63%).

More details at HuffPo.

We all know about polls, of course (though this is an academic poll, not an online Fox News poll, but still, polls eh?). But the results aren't really that surprising. Establishment Republicans running for Congress this year have been fighting off Tea Party challengers. And while many of the establishment candidates have been successful, some have lost. And pretty much all of my Republican colleagues tended to back the Tea Party person for the usual reason – namely, the Establishment GOP is too fucking liberal for them. They want Real Conservatives who will stand up to the tyranny of Lord Obama, not these pansy bleeding-heart moderates who talk about weak bullshit like compromise. FUCK COMPROMISE, JIM! OBAMA IS TOO DANGEROUS FOR COMPROMISE! NEVER GIVE IN! Et cetera.

Yes. Ha ha.

So in terms of approval/disapproval, it’s no surprise the GOP is getting hammered from their own side.

For the liberals tempted to make serious hay of this and predict the Democrats are going to kick ass in November, sorry kids, but no. They don’t stand a chance in the House this year and their odds of keeping the Senate are slim. The meaningful takeaway here is that the Tea Party still has a lot of clout, and isn’t going to go away quietly like John Boehner was perhaps hoping they would.

Which, ironically, is bad news for the GOP in the longer term, according to John A. Tures, political science professor at LaGrange College in Georgia, because polls also suggest that the Tea Party’s hardcore policies are not really very popular:


Perhaps. On the other hand, that also assumes that Republican voters who prefer an establishment candidate would rather vote Demo than vote for a Tea Party Republican. I’m not too convinced of that. Tures does say “long term”, but that could mean anywhere from four to 40 years. Given both current demographic realities and the prospect of President Hillary Clinton in 2016 – and Hillary can expect the same amount of cooperation from a GOP-controlled House and/or Senate that Glorious Leader Obama is getting now (which is to say, none whatsoever) – Repub voters will probably stick to the GOP for at least the next decade no matter how batshit they become. Better a dysfunctional batshit democracy than a Socialist dictatorship, eh Ted?

Either way, it does indicate weird times ahead for the GOP. It will spend the next few election cycles at war with itself and – I suspect – adopting more unpopular positions that they’ll back as long as it doesn’t hurt their overall election chances, if only because of voter inertia. In which case the GOP could possibly* go down in American history as the most successful political party with the lowest approval ratings ever.

*PRODUCTION NOTE: I say “possibly” because I’m not sure what the current record is for party wins vs approval ratings. It’s worth remembering too that the Demos’ approval ratings aren’t exactly stellar right now (though they’re still higher than the GOP). Still.

– L. Bensonhurst

And now, emergency political analysis from Team Def Political Fuckery Chief Lucky Bensonhurst

You’ve heard by now that Eric Cantor lost the Virginia mid-term primary to Tea Partier David Brat. And the reaction around the blogscape has been something like this.



Of course, it won’t be all that funny if Brat goes on to defeat the Democrat challenger, Jack Trammel. But there’s just something irresistibly delicious about seeing one of the most conservative establishment Republicans in Congress – who has pandered to the batshit wing of the conservative bloc to the point of letting them basically run the House and oppose every single thing Presidente Obama has ever tried to get done – have his ass handed to him by the same constituency because he’s now too liberal for them.

On the other hand, the reports I’m seeing suggest that’s not exactly what happened. Cantor didn't lose because he didn’t tow the Tea Party line – he lost because he’s an arrogant jerk who ran a lazy campaign that didn't take Brat seriously, couldn’t keep his story straight on immigration reform, and spent more time lobbying for a House Speaker gig than he did in his own district actually listening to his constituents. Brat listened to them, and he beat Cantor’s ass like a gong.

It says a lot when you lose an election even when yr spending more money on steakhouses than yr opponent has spent during his entire campaign.

Actually, that’s one of the more interesting aspects to this: the results fly in the face of tradition that the biggest war chest wins the election. Which in itself is amusing because several prominent Tea Party groups are claiming responsibility for Brat’s success even though none of them contributed a dime to his campaign fund.

Now that’s fiscal responsibility.

Well, you can’t argue with the results. And wouldn’t it be ironic if this turned out to be the template for future Tea Party victories, which would mean that the Tea Party would get full credit for getting Big Money out of politics? How would you like to be Rachel Maddow having to go on TV and admit that?

I’m kidding, of course. That won’t actually happen. I’m reasonably sure this was a fluke based more on the fact that Cantor just assumed he would win and didn’t take either his opponent or his own constituency seriously enough.

Which is why I’m not really impressed with claims that Cantor’s loss proves the Tea Party is the mainstream Republican constituency now.

Ha ha, but no.

To be sure, the Tea Party will milk this for everything it’s worth – either to prove the GOP is washed up as a conservative party, or strongarm the establishment even further to the right. And I’m sure the House GOP will continue taking its cues from the Tea Party wing – at least while Obama is still POTUS. But that’s the status quo now. And the degree to which that is maintained will depend on (1) Brat actually winning Cantor’s seat, (2) existing Tea Party Congresspeople keeping theirs and (2) a significant number of establishment Republicans suffering Cantor’s fate.

The first one could happen, if only because Cantor’s district is heavily conservative, so Jack Trammel will have a hard road no matter who he goes up against (though he stands a better chance against a fellow challenger than a brand-name incumbent like Cantor). The second seems likely – they might lose a few seats, but not many.

The third one seems less likely to happen now that they’ve seen Cantor burn. It wasn’t all that likely to start with. The Establishment is still smarting from Tea Party’s “our way or fuck you” shutdown shenanigans, and John Boehner, for one, would much rather be making deals than playing ideological hardball. The prospect of more Tea Party creatures in the House can't be a pleasant one, and with their sites set on reclaiming the Senate this year, the GOP has already been looking for ways to make sure the Tea Party doesn’t fuck it up for them.

So if Republican politicians didn’t take their Tea Party challengers seriously before, you can bet they are now.

Of course, anything can happen in politics, so we’ll have to wait until November to know for sure. But I’m pretty sure this is only big news because of Cantor’s role as House Whip. It’s heavy on symbolism, but it doesn’t herald any real trend. In the end, it will all come down to a case study of an overconfident man who had a clear path all the way to the end zone and still managed to drop the ball.

Not that it matters. Cantor probably already has his million-dollar K Street lobbyist gig on lined up. So I wouldn’t get too smug about his defeat.

– L. Bensonhurst

[Guest sociopolitical commentary from Team Def Political Batshit Curator Lucky Bensonhurst]

50 years ago today:



It’s one of the great speeches, and one I highly recommend listening to from beginning to end at least once. And by “listen” I mean “really listen”, not “play it in the background while you scroll through yr Facebooks, Twitters and Tumblr dashboards”.

And of course, as you may know, MLKJr’s Dream has not yet been achieved, as was pointed out Sunday in the DC.

Which isn’t to say we’re still in the segregated 1950s. We have come a very long way. For example, African-American people only occasionally get thrown out of restaurants for being frightening to white people, and that’s just the result of Frightened White People, not actual policy. So instead of institutional racism we have case-by-case racism. 

Progress!

Still, the above Wild Wings incident shows we’ve got a ways to go. As do things like the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program and the apparent fact that it’s apparently more illegal to smoke weed if yr a black person than if yr a white person.

To say nothing of the whole Trayvon Martin case – as conservatives helpfully pointed out last week by making hay about those  three black teenagers  two black teenagers and a light-skinned black teenager  black teenagers (and maybe a white teenager) who killed Chris Lane for a laugh.

The coverage of the Lane murder is arguably a low point for conservative media – not just in the way they seemed to deliberately pretend there was no third white dude involved at first, but also by using it to accuse Obama and other Trayvon defenders of hypocrisy by not being as outraged when black people kill white people. 

It’s a dumb comparison, of course – as if there’s no difference between teen psychopaths killing a guy for fun and the bizarre circumstance of a neighborhood watch guy chasing and ultimately killing a black kid (in self-defense!) for wearing a suspicious hoodie while being black, and not even being arrested for it for 44 days because it’s not illegal to defend yrself against people even if you have to chase them down to do it.

But a bunch of prominent conservatives are making that comparison anyway, because they want both murder cases to be about something other than what they are about. They wanted the Trayvon Martin case to be about the constitutional right to suspect black people of being suspicious and shoot them in self-defense as guaranteed in the 2A. Consequently, they want the Chris Lane case (and pretty much any other case where a black person does violence on a white person) to serve as proof that Zimmerman was justified in pegging Trayvon Martin as a potential perp.

All of which boils down to the fact that a lot of white people are afraid of black people because GANGSTA RAP and HOODIES and BLACK PANTHERS or whatever, and hate being called racists whenever they try to point to statistics showing all the black people in prison (though that’s been going down) and all the black people killing white people (though actually homicides are way down, interracial or otherwise). 

Basically they want to justify their own fear, and they don’t think it’s fair that blacks get to make a big deal of a white (Hispanic) killing a black kid but whites don't get to make a big deal about black kids killing a white guy. As if everything African Americans have had to endure for the last 600 years from slavery to Jim Crow was magically erased with the Civil Rights Act and The Black People are being ungrateful for not pretending all that other stuff never happened.

Or something.

So. Yes. MLKJr’s Dream has a ways to go, Jim. 

– L. Bensonhurst

Emergency commentary from Team Def Political Voodoo Analyst Lucky Bensonhurst

George W Bush is popular again, I am told.

Well, relatively speaking. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll claims that Bush’s overall approval rating has gone up from 33% since he left office to 47%. Approval of his economic policies have risen from 24% to 43%.

Context is important here. All this is coinciding with Bush emerging back into the public eye with the opening of the George W Bush Presidential Library And Museum, one of those events where even the guy who replaced you thanks to the terrible job you did has to say nice things about you. 

Somewhat more predictably, Junior’s comeback has been accompanied by some probably sincere but unseemly gushing from the likes of Jennifer Rubin, Dana Perino and Karl Rove, who have been going on about how nice it is to have him back and wasn’t he a much better president than that awful Obama who took a perfectly good America and ruined it for everyone? 

Etc.

Typical as this revisionist history is for the GOP base, there’s also a reason for it, besides the library opening – namely, Jeb Bush has a 2016 campaign to run (reportedly), and that’s going to be hard enough without everyone bringing up Junior’s legacy.

Certainly some Republican dingbats will use Junior’s improved ratings as evidence of growing discontentment with Presidente Obama. That’s probably true, but only with Republicans who were so disgusted with Bush II that they turned on him in 2008. On the other hand, the same poll claims Bush’s favorability among Demos is up from 6% to 25%.

Which is why I suspect the improvement in Junior’s ratings is more comparable to the fading of trauma over time. As James Madison once said: “Someday we will all look back on this and laugh.”

Ha ha, Jim.

Longtime followers of this blog have a pretty good idea of how I feel about Dubya and his “legacy”. And if you don’t, I will refer you to this collection of charts about his presidency. They are mostly not very flattering.

I’ll also direct yr attention to this bipartisan report released earlier this month on whether or not the US ever tortured anyone during Junior’s heyday. (Hint: we fucking well did.)

If you really want Junior Bush’s legacy spelled out for you, for my money you could do worse than the sociopolitical aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

Not five minutes after the bombs went off, conservative dingbats blamed Muslims, illegal immigrants and Obama (who is both), and liberal dingbats blamed the Tea Party. A bunch of innocent people (all of them brown foreign-looking people) became suspects on Reddit, and now that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in custody, everyone is scrambling to find someone to blame for all of this besides the actual bombers. Especially Republicans, who I promise you will spend every day between now and 2016 claiming loudly that this is all Obama’s fault JUST LIKE BENGHAZI and that those people would all still be alive (except for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his fucking Miranda rights) if Mitt Romney was president.

All that hyperpartisan dithering and fear and general paranoia and Constitutional shreddery and desperation to pin it all on That Other Party That Hates America So Much? That’s the Bush legacy in action.

To be fair, much of that is the product of cable TV news, talk radio, Andrew Breitbart and Daily Kos. Bush himself never really actively encouraged such things, apart from his “yr with me or against America” spiel.

But that slogan did set the tone for the next 12 years, and his neocon cabinet (and their fans in the punditry) ran off the goddamn end of the Earth with it. Bush let them do their thing, then defended them afterwards. The Left responded in kind, and now it’s basically impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone about whether Bush was a good or bad president. Or Obama, for that matter. Because it’s about what you believe and what yr afraid of, not facts.

And so much for the Bush legacy.

As for his library, it will be interesting to see how many visitors it racks up, and how many of them are only there to see if the library includes a copy of The Pet Goat. Or a FEMA manual. Or John Yoo’s “torture is legal” memo. Or …

Well, I could go on all day. The secret is knowing when to stop.

L. Bensonhurst

Emergency op-ed from Team Def Political Voodoo Priest Lucky Bensonhurst.

It is an election year. My editor demands copy. “Send me visions of the future! Eight thousand words! You have two hours!”

Well, why not? I am a professional, and I can pound these out in my sleep. I often do. I’m doing it right now, in fact. Which explains the plus-size lingerie-clad cabana ladies in my bungalow. One is giving me a pedicure. The other one is chopping up coconuts with a machete for the pina coladas the third one will be engineering as soon as she’s done massaging my nose.

So. To business.

ITEM: Mitt Romney is blowing it.

Well, maybe not. He’s not out of the running yet. But between his reaction to the anti-American riots overseas and his theories about Obama’s support base, a lot of Republicans probably wish they’d gone with Anyone But Mitt after all.

Not that they necessarily disagree with what he said about any of those things. Indeed, every Republican worth his/her mettle sees the dead Ambassador to Libya mainly as ammunition they can use against Obama and other Muslims. But not while the body’s still warm, for God’s sake.

In any case, as Mitt has about 3.5 years less foreign policy experience than Obama, the GOP’s strategy has been to sell him as a guy who understands both the problems of working-class Americans AND how to bring America Inc. into the black. But Mitt is making it clear to more and more people that he knows about the working class about as much as a cocaine-addicted monkey knows about Lehman Brothers. This is, after all, the man who thinks $200k a year counts as middle-class.

Perspective!

But then I find it fucking disingenuous that a millionaire who only pays 13% in taxes when he’s supposed to be paying 35% thinks the solution to the deficit and unemployment is to give people like himself a tax cut as an incentive to create jobs, so I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Anyway.

If Mitt keeps talking “off the cuff”, he’s going to find it increasingly difficult to take control of his image, what with essentially handing Team Obama material so good it needs no editing or rewrites.

Take his and Ann Romney’s appearance on ABC's "Live! With Kelly and Michael”, in which Mitt tries to pass himself off as human (as opposed to a robot), and instead portrays him and the missus as the Whitest, Straightest, Couple In America:


Fucking gaaaaaaaah.

Okay. Maybe it’s just me. But reading that, I liked him better as a robot.

Granted, that won’t cost him the election. It fucking well should. But it won’t.

But then it’s worth remembering that Mitt is doing as well as he is in the polls mainly because has a built-in GOP base fueled by fear and loathing for Comrade Imam Hussein Obama, and because he has Paul Ryan in his corner (who himself is in the comical position of having voted into place some of the govt policies that Romney is criticizing Obama for).

So no matter what big dumb things Mitt says between now and November, that support isn’t going anywhere, if only because it’s got nowhere else to go, and they’re so terrified/outraged at the prospect of a second Obama term that they’re not likely to risk a conscience vote with Gary Johnson.

The indie/mod vote is another matter. And he’s not exactly endearing himself to them.

But then neither is Obama.

And the size of the indie voting bloc, incidentally, is getting bigger.

Fun times, eh Jim?

L. Bensonhurst

Political commentary from Team Def Batshit Affairs editor Lucky Bensonhurst, who filed this report two weeks ago. Publication was delayed due to legal clearance issues on the advice of our attorney, Lou Heineken. We apologize for the delay.

December 5, 2011:

One of the downsides of being a political junkie is that there is no such thing as the holidays during an election year. Which normally suits me fine, as I have as much use for Christmas as a shark has use for a weed-whacker. (Take it from me – sharks do not give a fuck about lawn grooming.)

Still, it does mean that I can’t sit down in my favorite dive and enjoy a bourbon eggnog with a traditional side order of ravioli without being accosted by political strategists, campaign directors and media hacks. Especially in a weird election year like this.

Truly. Andrew Breitbart did it just now. Walked right up to my booth, collapsed in it and began pounding the table helplessly.

“Bensonhurst!” he snarled. “What the fuck is WRONG with this campaign?

“You’ll have to be more fucking specific,” I advised him. “Also, don’t even think about touching my fucking ravioli. It is sacred.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Breitbart wailed. “Haven’t you heard? Herman Cain just suspended his campaign. He babbled something about distractions and Pokemon and just quit! Do you realize what this means? Have you seen the fucking polls?” He leaned forward across the table, his eyes spiraling wildly in his head like some savage cartoon. “NEWT GINGRICH!”

I shrugged. “He’s yr problem, not mine. Yr Tea Party minions are the ones who can’t stomach Mittens and refuse to compromise on anyone to the left of Sean Hannity. You’ve tried Bachmann, Perry and Cain, and they all blew it, and Palin and Huckabee are smart enough to stick to their million-dollar day jobs.”

“That’s not our fault! They were all doing fine until the goddamn liberal media –”

That’s when I threw him physically out of the booth. I may be paid to listen to half-assed partisan conspiracy theories, but I am not paid to take them seriously.

Which isn’t to say the spectacle of conservatives dithering over GOP candidates hasn’t been grimly amusing. It’s hard to remember a time – apart from perhaps 2008 – when any political party machine was more reluctant to back the candidate that seems like their best bet.

But then that’s what you get for sleeping with extremist dingbats and letting them move into yr apartment.

It’s hard not to wonder how Mitt Romney feels about the Anyone But Mitt meme that’s governed most of the GOP race so far. It’s like being told by yr boyfriend/girlfriend, “Look, I do love you, I really do – I just think we should see other people, is all. And it’s not because yr Mormon – not exactly.”

As for Gingrich … well, why not? All the other hard-ass Not-Romney conservative candidates have had their shot, and now that it’s time to scrape the bottom of the barrel, it’s either Rick Santorum (who has no chance because no one can Google his name without giggling anymore), Jon Huntsman (basically Mitt Romney’s smarter, less popular body double), or Ron Paul (who is, as usual, a figment of yr imagination). Gingrich at least is a fighter with a ton of experience. He does tend to put his foot in his mouth, but the only GOP candidates who haven’t done that this season are polling below 5%.

So in that sense, the Newt Surge should surprise no one – especially not after 2008, when everyone was convinced that it would come down to Hillary vs Giuliani. Remember too that in mid-2007, John McCain’s campaign was declared as dead as Newt’s campaign was earlier this year. Like McCain, Newt has the benefit of a fractured base that just can’t decide what it wants in a candidate, apart from being able to beat the Democrats like a gong.

Unlike McCain, Newt does not have a “scrappy underdog” card he can play. Also unlike McCain, the best Newt can hope for at this stage is replacing Romney as the “Anyone But …” candidate, though it is getting a little late in the game for that. Still, I wouldn’t underestimate the capacity of the Tea Party to convince the GOP that you can win on a hard-ass no-compromise conservative ticket, and that they don’t need the mod vote to take the White House.

Which is, by any measure, delusional. Mock-election polls show Obama beating both Mitt (47-45%) and Newt (50-41%). Which means little in an electoral college system, granted. And Obama’s fortunes, such as they are, could change drastically in the next six months.

But I seriously doubt they’ll change to the point where anyone in the GOP field will command a big enough lead that they can win without the swing mods on-side. Which is why at some point the Tea Party commanders are going to have to decide who they’d rather have as president – Obama, or Any Republican They Can Get.

“Sorry about that, Mr Bensonhurst,” said the waitress as she brought me a complimentary replacement bowl of ravioli.

“Hazards of the profession,” I shrugged. “Think nothing of it.”

The waitress hovered.

“Just out of curiosity, Mr Bensonhurst, who do you think has the best chance of defeating Obama?”

“Marvin E. Quasniki,” I smiled grimly.

The waitress looked at me uncertainly. “Isn’t he a Muppet?”

“Indeed he is,” I nodded as I sipped my eggnog. “And he may be our only hope." 

L. Bensonhurst