#rsrh QotD, ‘Unexpectedly.’ edition.

If you’ve followed the economy for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed by now that every month it turns out that the economy has gone to pot – and that every month this shocks economists and financial reporters, like the first green-gray mountain of sea water on the horizon legendarily terminally shocked the sages of Atlantis.

Every month.

Jim Geraghty has finally stated the obvious about this:

If you ever have to get into a fistfight, make sure your opponent is an economist often consulted by the mainstream media, because that way you’ll always have the element of surprise.

Via… Jim Geraghty.

#rsrh QotD, Get Your Comic Book/Political Geek On edition.

Jim Geraghty, who sounds slightly (or maybe more than slightly depressed) about this entire debt ceiling brouhaha:

This is the conservative version of the Marvel Civil War, a comic book storyline in which all of the publisher’s most prominent heroes took sides on the institution of a “Super Hero Registration Act,” in which any person in the United States with superhuman abilities register with the federal government as a “human weapon of mass destruction,” reveal their true identity to the authorities, and undergo proper training. Those who sign also have the option of working for a government agency, earning a salary and benefits such as those earned by other American civil servants.
[snip]

Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four supported the act; Captain America and Daredevil opposed, and the storyline tossed away the familiar story of heroes fighting villains to the surprising, unpredictable, and incongruous sight of popular, noble heroes fighting other popular, noble heroes, each convinced that their view is the right one and the best way to protect their values.

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Get Your Comic Book/Political Geek On edition.

#rsrh QotD, We’re Assuming Obama’s Competent, Here Edition.

Jim Geraghty, on one core assumption permeating the entire debt ceiling crisis, on both sides: to wit, that the President knows what the heck he’s doing.

But at this point, are we even sure if Obama could tell if he has a losing hand? (This is, in fact, the same poker player who apparently warns opponents not to call his bluff.)

(pause)

Oh, dear.

#rsrh QotD, Hawaiian Good-Luck Symbol edition.

Jim Geraghty, towards some self-identified rubes (in this case, wealthy moderate Republicans turned off by THAT WOMAN) who just got the recent disappointing news that Chris Christie is not running for President:

Dear wealthy moderate Republicans: I mean no disrespect, as you’ve made more money than I’ll probably ever earn and you’re quite accomplished in your fields. And like you, I find Chris Christie to be a bold and inspiring leader, who makes a very intriguing option at the national level someday.

But not all of us are shocked and stunned about Obama’s class warfare and his demonization of you and the sense that he doesn’t think of himself as your president too. Some of us spent two years telling anyone who would listen that he was a lot more liberal than his bland, blank-slate rhetoric suggested. And was all of this worth it because you “couldn’t live” with Sarah Palin? Really? The prospect of having her living at the Naval Observatory was so epically offensive to your sensibilities that you really thought this, and all of the economic joy we’ve endured for the past 30 months, was the better option?

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Hawaiian Good-Luck Symbol edition.

#rsrh Confirmed: Obama watches just MSNBC?

I was going to hit this Political Punch post about the President ‘telling an untruth’ about why he finally released his long-form birth certificate, and I was going to point out this Ace of Spades HQ post noting that the network that obsesses most about Birthers was MSNBC – only Jim Geraghty hit this in his Morning Briefing, so read that instead.

But I’ll note this: if President Obama’s getting all of his information from MSNBC, it would explain handily why he thinks that the media was obsessing over his birth certificate; the people at MSNBC were, and it was warping their coverage of the President (something like 9.2% of MSNBC’s total coverage last week was on birthers).  I recommend that if the President would like to get a better idea of what people are talking about, then maybe Obama should try a less biased, and more mainstream, news source.

Like, say, Fox News.

#rsrh Adding Jim Geraghty to the answer list.

He never actually asks the question formally, but it’s there: Why do some people act so horribly towards their political opponents*? Well, this question was asked a few days before, and the answer’s still the same:

Because they hate us.

That’s why I make as good an effort as I can to avoid hating people; it’s clearly corrosive to the soul – and burns IQ points like nobody’s business.  Fortunately, merely elementally despising the wicked doesn’t seem to have the same effects, so I go with that instead and sleep like a baby.

Moe Lane

*In case it isn’t obvious, it’s in the context of yesterday’s abrupt discovery by Wonkette of just how far they can go before people drag them outside for a long-delayed curbstomping.

#rsrh QotD, Tea Party edition.

Jim Geraghty, on the deliberately decentralized nature of the Tea Parties:

The whole point of this movement is that these people hate being told what to do.

To pile on, it has been fascinating to watch liberal Democrats so comprehensively sabotage what was one of their greatest advantages in the political sphere: to wit, “Rightie don’t march.”  Conservatives thought that they hated activism.  We were proud about hating activism.  “Do I smell like a patchouli-reeking hemp nut?” “There are better ways to meet girls.” “That’s something that they do.” “Marching around with signs never accomplished anything – look at the peace movement.”  And, of course, the classic put-down:

“How come,” I asked Andy, “whenever something upsets the Left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch flag?”

“We have jobs,” said Andy.

Annnnnnnd that would be the problem, right there.  Because the hidden deal that the Right made with the Left in all of this was that if they wanted us to leave the marching and the megaphones and the signs and the slogans and the organized protests (and, yeah, the costumes and the theatrics and the camera-friendly stunts) to them then the Left had better reciprocate by making sure that we still had jobs. But apparently that deal no longer applies… and a bunch of people have now discovered that hey, this activism thing is kind of fun and gets them out into the fresh air on a regular basis, which they’ve been meaning to do anyway.

The long-term implications of that last realization will be playing out over the next twenty years.  Particularly once the Left fully internalizes their realization that there was a reason why their operating economic/cultural paradigm of Big Government Solutions was never able to spark a true populist movement… Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Tea Party edition.

#rsrh Geraghty’s back.

Good line on the entire Obama-is-Job thing: “So This Would Make the 2010 Midterms a Landslide of Biblical Proportions, No?”

Also, check out (ahem) RedState’s analysis of the theology involved in the (absurd) original comparison. We were fortunate to have access to an actual theologian; it’s not something that we would normally consider necessary, and I’m just a little annoyed that The New York Times felt it acceptable to drag laughingly bad religious arguments into what should be a straightforward policy debate…

Moe Lane

#rsrh Maddow would be tolerable.

On Jim Geraghty’s list: Rachel Maddow would be tolerable, and she almost certainly has pre-MSNBC conservative friends that she quietly keeps; she probably also is the one that gets along best with non-liberal family members.  Keith Olbermann is too crippled by his overwhelming need to prove that he’s relevant and a Smart Guy; he’s got a honking big inferiority complex over the cow college thing and the starting in sports journalism thing, and it shows.  The talking head… does not allow itself to engage in higher cognitive processes; its interior life is restricted to tingles up legs and lashing out in frustrated projection whenever a negative stimulus (usually some variant of THAT WOMAN, these days) is presented to it.  And Ed Schultz?  That’s easy: nobody likes him.  MSNBC only keeps him around because they figure that having one of their TV personalities die on-screen one day from a self-inflicted coronary will boost the ratings.

Which might even work, at that.

#rsrh In which I solve the NRA’s dilemma for it.

Said dilemma being, as Jim Geraghty put it, that the organization will have to make some hard choices this election on whether to endorse Republicans or Democrats: fortunately, it’s actually easy to solve.  All you have to do is remember this:

Democratic politicians lie.

Democratic politicians lie.

Democratic politicians lie.

Glad to help!