Newsflash for Wingnuts

Some of the right wing is going nuts over a multi-lingual version of America the Beautiful in Coke’s Super Bowl ad.  I guess they don’t get the whole melting pot thing.

In addition to the non-English lyrics, the folks are Breitbart are outraged that the ad showed a gay family.  Newflash for Breitbart and all wingnuts:  Katharine Lee Bates, who wrote America the Beautiful, was a lesbian.

The biggest Super Bowl ad outrage was that poor MSNBC staffer who got fired for tweeting about the Cheerios ad that “maybe” the right wing would hate the ad because it featured a bi-racial family.  Losing your job for telling the truth?

Rush Reassures

Rush Limbaugh says we don’t have to worry that President Obama will be impeached.

Not because he doesn’t deserve to be, but because “the American people are not going to tolerate the first black president being removed from office.”

Yes, Rush, we loves us those Kenyan Muslim Socialists.

Quote of the Day

“We’re watching the end of right-wing conservative talk radio.  The genre is dying among ratings and dying among advertisers … Rush is at the end of his career. His constituency is all wearing Depends. And he’s getting himself into trouble he doesn’t need.

“Sandra Fluke was simply the lightning that struck and hit an old building that collapsed.  She didn’t do it. She helped to bring it down at the end, but it was falling apart on its own.”

Jerry Del Colliano, publisher of Inside Music Media, which focuses on radio.

Luntz Speaks the Truth, Thinking He’s Off the Record

GOP evil genius Frank Luntz spoke to a student group at the University of Pennsylvania.  He offered some fluff, making jokes about Nancy Pelosi and face lifts.  When asked about political polarization, he became more serious and replied he had something to say, but not on the record.  So the student reporter from the college newspaper turned off his recording device.  But another student started to record on his iPhone with Luntz, who I guess never heard about Mitt’s 47% video, unaware.  Luntz, feeling a little too comfortable and confident, then blithely went off on right-wing talk radio:

“And they get great ratings, and they drive the message, and it’s really problematic.  … And so that is a lot of what’s driving it.  If you take — Marco Rubio’s getting his ass kicked. … He’s getting destroyed.  By Mark Levin, by Rush Limbaugh, and a few others.  He’s trying to find a legitimate, long-term effective solution to immigration that isn’t the traditional Republican approach, and talk radio is killing him.”

And now talk radio will kill Luntz.

For more, see “Secret Tape:  Top GOP Consultant Luntz Calls Limbaugh ‘Problematic,'” David Corn, Mother Jones

The Best Article in a Decade

Wherever you live on the political spectrum, you absolutely must, must read Bruce Bartlett’s truly amazing article, “Revenge of the Reality-Based Community,” in The American Conservative.

He talks about the censorship that the right, especially Rupert Murdoch, has tried to impose on him and about how this former supply-sider has come to agree with Paul Krugman on how to deal with the Great Recession.

A little background if you don’t know Bartlett.  He worked for Congressman Jack Kemp, for Heritage, in the second-term Reagan White House, at Treasury under Bush 41, for Cato, and wrote for all the top-line conservative publications.

Some excepts:

“My book, Impostor:  How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, was published in February 2006.  I had been summarily fired by the think tank I worked for back in October 2005.  Although the book was then only in manuscript, my boss falsely claimed that it was already costing the organization contributions.  He never detailed, nor has anyone, any factual or analytical error in the book.

“Among the interesting reactions to my book is that I was banned from Fox News.  My publicist was told that orders had come down from on high that it was to receive no publicity whatsoever, not even attacks.  Whoever gave that order was smart; attacks from the right would have sold books.  Being ignored was poison for sales.

“I later learned that the order to ignore me extended throughout Rupert Murdoch’s empire.  For example, I stopped being quoted in the Wall Street Journal.  Awhile back a reported who left the Journal confirmed to me that the paper had given her orders not to mention me.  Other dissident conservatives, such as David Frum and Andrew Sullivan, have told me that they are banned from Fox as well.  More epistemic closure.

“Annoyingly, however, I found myself joined at the hip to Paul Krugman, whose analysis [of the economic meltdown] was identical to my own.  I had previously viewed Krugman as an intellectual enemy and attacked him rather colorfully in an old column that he still remembers.

“For the record, no one has been more correct in his analysis and prescriptions for the economy’s problems than Paul Krugman.  The blind hatred for him on the right simply pushed me further away from my old allies and comrades.

“The final line for me to cross in complete alienation from the right was my recognition that Obama is not a leftist.  In fact, he’s barely a liberal — and only because the political spectrum has moved so far to the right that moderate Republicans from the past are now considered hardcore leftists by right-wing standards today.  Viewed in historical context, I see Obama as actually being on the center-right.

“At this point, I lost every last friend I had on the right.  Some have been known to pass me in silence at the supermarket or even to cross the street when they see me coming.  People who were as close to me as brothers and sisters have disowned me.

“So here we are, post-election 2012.  All the stupidity and closed-mindedness that right-wingers have displayed over the last 10 years has come back to haunt them.

“The economy continues to conform to textbook Keynesianism.  We still need more aggregate demand, and the Republican idea that tax cuts for the rich will save us becomes more ridiculous by the day.

“At least a few conservatives now recognize that Republicans suffer for epistemic closure.  They were genuinely shocked at Romney’s loss because they ignored every poll not produced by a right-wing pollster such as Rasmussen or approved by right-wing pundits such as the perpetually wrong Dick Morris.  Living in the Fox News cocoon, most Republicans had no clue that they were losing or that their ideas were both stupid and politically unpopular.

“I’ve paid a heavy price, both personal and financial, for my evolution from comfortably within the Republican Party and conservative movement to a less than comfortable position somewhere on the center-left.  Honest to God, I am not a liberal or a Democrat.  But these days, they are the only people who will listen to me.  When Republicans and conservatives once again start asking my opinion, I will know they are on the road to recovery.”  Emphasis added.

I haven’t had Bartlett’s distinguished career, but his story, especially over the past four years, is my story ideologically and philosophically.

 

Mitt Made Millions From Aborted Fetuses

Of all the companies for Bain to invest in!  David Corn has a piece up at Mother Jones* about Mitt’s investment in a medical waste company, Stericycle, that disposes of aborted fetuses.

Corn says that Bain earlier argued that Mitt was not involved in the investment, but documents he’s now obtained show that’s not true:

“The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to do with deal.  The matter never became a campaign issue [during the primary].  But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission — and obtained by Mother Jones — list Romney as an active participant in the investment.  And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners.  The documents — one of which was signed by Romney —  also contradict the official account of Romney’s exit from Bain.

“The Stericycle deal — the abortion connection aside — is relevant because of questions regarding the timing of Romney’s departure from the private equity firm he founded.  Responding to a recent Washington Post story reporting that Bain-acquired companies outsourced jobs, the Romney campaign insisted that Romney exited Bain in February 1999, a month or more before Bain took over two of the companies named in the Post‘s article.  The SEC documents undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999.”

Talk about blood money!  Lying and dead fetuses — this will help Mitt with a right wing that already doesn’t trust him.  Yeah, I know they’re not voting for the Kenyan Muslim Communist, but some of them will stay home.

* “Romney Invested in Medical-Wasate Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show”

Mitt Reaches Out to Conservative Media

Mitt and Ann Romney spent two hours meeting with conservative reporters, columnists, and bloggers in Washington on Wednesday at the private Capital Hill Club.  Oddly, the meeting with more than 60 writers, plus some who phoned in, from usual suspects like RedState, Powerline, Townhall, Daily Caller, National Review, Human Events, and American Spectator, was first reported by The Huffington Post rather than by any of the attendees.  RNC Chair Reince Preibus was also there.

One participant described the meeting as an “olive branch” to members of the right-wing media.

This was a smart move by Mittens to get his ducks in a row.  It never hurts to stroke some influential egos.

Everything in Moderation

We think of this country as founded on the principles of the 18th century Enlightenment.  But really, we go back to the 4th century B. C., to Aristotle’s Golden Mean.  Our motto could just as easily be “Everything in moderation” as “In God We Trust” or “E Pluribus Unum.”

We saw this last night when the anti-union law in Ohio didn’t just lose, it lost by 22 points, and when the “personhood” amendment in Mississippi didn’t just lose, it lost by 16 points.  The right-wing extremists in this country are their own worst enemies because they always go too far.  They reject small victories and end up with big losses, thank God.

Besides the Golden Mean, they should study another Greek concept — hubris.