You Lie, Yo

My main man, Michael “Mother-Fuckin'” Steele (D), says Obama should stop puttin’ the whup ass to the CBO bitches just to get dem digits he be needin’.

-Ian

POTUS Interrupted

I actually believe that our public officials should be subject to more not less confrontational interviews, but the obvious double standard here is pretty amazing. Fair and Balanced.

-Ian

At Least He’s Not Massa

I’m sure someone in the media will notice eventually. Oh, that’s right, he’s a Republican. Forget it.

LAS VEGAS — Nevada Senator John Ensign is in the crosshairs of a Department of Justice criminal investigation.

The criminal probe stems from a romantic affair Ensign had with the wife of his key staffer and close friend, Doug Hampton, and what Ensign has done to help Hampton financially.

Subpoenas have been issued to at least six Las Vegas businesses. The Justice Department came to Las Vegas to interview several prominent business and political figures in what appears to be a wide-ranging and deadly-serious criminal probe.

-Ian

Vanderbilt

Well…That was…

Huh.

—Jason

McCarthyism

Jon Chait caught this from James Gavin over at The Corner:

McCarthy is an ethnically identifiable Irish Catholic name, yet it describes despicable political behavior that transcends ethnic and religious backgrounds. No other American ethnic, religious, or racial group has been so stigmatized for so long, with so little public outcry, by a word that is acceptable in polite society.

This is followed by a lot whinging and handwringing about how, for example, “Rosenbergism” never became a political slur and etc., but there’s not much more to it than that.  Chait reads this as conservative P.C., and I suppose it is, but what it really feels like is a rehash of the defense that tried to posit “neocon” as a codeword for “Jew.”  And, of course, it utterly misses the point.  You could probably interview a thousand Americans and not a single one of them would have received “McCarthyism” for anything else than what it is: A term used to describe the deployment of state power for the pursuit of insanely paranoid and ruinous political vendettas.  And, of course, there’s absolutely no evidence presented to suggest that anyone outside of James Gavin reads the term as any kind of ethnic slur.

I’m not sure why conservatives—always so wary of the excesses of big government!—have invested themselves so heavily in the rehabilitation of a creep and bully like Joe McCarthy, but of all their efforts this one seems to me to be the most embarrassing by a stretch.

—Jason

Down To 7

Uh-oh. Maybe he should suspend his campaign.

A new Rasmussen Reports survey in Arizona finds Sen. John McCain (R) leading primary challenger J.D. Hayworth by just seven points, 48% to 41%.

For those of you that don’t know Mr. Hayworth, you should check him out here. Good luck with that, Arizona.

-Ian

Some One Needs Hugs And Squeezes

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

“How’s it been? Like a living hell.”

— Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), in an interview with The Hill, describing the intense pressure from outside groups and individuals over abortion provisions in the health care reform bill.

-Ian

Sick Pence

Mike Pence is an embarrassing clown.

Actually believing this garbage would require him also to have never heard of returns on investments, which means he’s just being cute and playing voters for suckers.

—Jason

Game On

And here we go.

Seventy-two hours.

—Jason

Wanker of the Day

Fred Barnes.

I’m constantly amazed that these idiots have settled on the “passage of HCR will poison the comity in Washington” argument.  Seriously, who do they think they’re kidding?

—Jason

“An Affront to God”

These people are fucking insane.

[Rep. STEVE] KING: They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God. […]

[GLENN] BECK: You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a — this is an affront to God.

I keep hearing all this yammering about taking away “our liberty” and such, but I never hear any explanation as to what that means exactly.  In this context, it appears, managing the actuarial practices of enormous private health insurance providers and eliminating the “pre-existing conditions” travesty that is essentially those companies’ method of managing outlays by sentencing expensive customers to death is somehow an “affront to God” and an assault on the freedom of American citizens.

—Jason