Where have you been Tea Party?

How the Republican Party Could Blow It - The Daily Beast:

If the Tea Partiers are as angry at Republican fiscal irresponsibility as Democratic fiscal irresponsibility, how come the movement only sprung up after Barack Obama?s election? Where were these guys in 2004, after George W. Bush launched off-budget wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hiked education spending, forced through a costly prescription [not to mention unfunded] drug benefit, and won reelection because of the unprecedented enthusiasm of the GOP's conservative base?

I have to admit, I think that the larger Tea Party movement, while not exactly being an "astroturf" movement, does have some suspiciously odd timing. Yes, there are many "Tea Partiers" whom I know had issues with Bush's spending, but they still voted for him in 2004.

The biggest issue I see is that as soon as Obama was elected, Fox News went from defense to offense, immediately doing everything they could to lay the deficits and increased debt squarely at the feet of a new administration. Unfortunately, they were quite successful convincing their followers (they're not just viewers anymore) that President Obama was the reason that the debt had increased more than 1000% since Reagan's inauguration. 

Mr. Beinart is correct I think, the Tea Party (at least the ones I know) are focused on returning the GOP to it's Goldwater-era dedication to libertarianism, and that scares the establishment Reagan/Bush Republicans to death. The one thing that is missing is the social libertarian streak that Goldwater had, unfortunately the movement we have today is the bastard child of Goldwater's fiscal libertarianism and George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism". It's the small, limited government that still gets to tell you what to do, who to love and what you can/cannot do with your own body. 

Sideshow politics

The Loud, Cartoonish Blood Sport That?s Engorged MSNBC, Exhausted CNN?and Is Making Our Body Politic Delirious -- New York Magazine:

The game may be destroying American politics - but it's the only game in town, and CNN, thus far, is out of it.

That line right there pretty much sums up all seven pages of this article. CNN is losing ratings because they haven't taken that stand, at least not overtly. They've long been accused of being a bastion of the great "liberal media", what with their cadre of high-flying leftist orators like Wolf Blitzer and the silver-tongued Anderson Cooper, what a pair of firebrands.

MSNBC has taken the liberal mantra away, Fox has a monopoly on the conservative title, all that's left is for CNN to do what it's always done, stay in the news business. I think Elliot Spitzer (yeah, that Elliot Spitzer) said it best:

Being a passionate centrist is always a bit harder than a raving lunatic on each side,

The Most Important Event in 12 years

Well, it's official. We are on the precipice looking over into a world full of promise, everything is different. We have the lame duck and on this, the most important night politically speaking since 1994, the big story is...Britney Spears filed for divorce. Yep, you heard me, Britney and K-Fed just couldn't make it work. After two years, and two kids (and several dozen nannies I imagine) the irreconcilable differences have just become too much for Britney. In other news, and believe me this is way less important, it looks as if the Democratic party has taken control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the Republican Revolution of 1994. Now I now what you're thinking, who cares right? Britney is divorcing K-Fed, how could any of us be thinking about politics? Well, I suppose for those of us in a little place I like to call the real world, and I believe I speak for most of us, who gives even the tiniest rats ass about some celebrity divorcing her husband? Well, apparently CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC and just about every other national news source feels that it is important enough to be in constant (and I do mean constant) rotation on the news ticker. Right beside oil prices falling a full $1 to $58.93 a barrel (which is really good for all of our wallets), which received only one space to Britney's 3. It's been a long time since I watched election returns closely, to be honest, it's been a long time since I felt like there was even the slightest possibility of change in our government, and I wanted to be able to witness it first hand (or at least third hand on TV). So to be honest I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the ticker for the first two hours, but then, during a lull between talking heads projecting victories for democrats in races that had 15% of precincts reporting, I glanced down, and there it was and yet we wonder why our society is so obsessed with Hollywood. Could it possibly be because our the media is obsessed with Hollywood? Could it be that Americans feel so disenfranchised that on a night where the political landscape in America shifted noticeably to the left that Americans really care more about the private lives of a pop star who hasn't released an album in nearly five years (that is a complete and utter guess in that I truly have absolutely no idea when Britney Spears' last album came out). Maybe it's just me, but perhaps the reason that American's can't grow out of their prepubescent interest in Tiger Beat stardom is because the media won't let them. Now, I suppose that it may be just a bit presumptuous of me to tell anyone what is and is not news, it may even be a little bit arrogant and even pretentious, but it's late and I don't care about anything Britney Spears does and more importantly, neither should anyone else. Maybe there is some truth to the statement that there are no dumb people just dumb media. Yet, these news outlets wouldn't be carrying the story if they thought no one cared, would they? They have to know that there are celebrity obsessed automatons somewhere just thirsting for more information on the lives of people who they will never see in person, let alone meet. I missed the Daily Show tonight, but I really hope that John Stewart just skewered the hell out of this. In other really important news (and I'm being serious now), it looks like South Dakota's ballot referendum (Referred Law 6) on abortion is going down to defeat. This may be the best news of the night. This referendum, if upheld, would have created the most stringent abortion laws in the country and was a direct assault on Roe v. Wade. I am glad to see that even in a blood red state like South Dakota (home to my buddy Dan and the Creepy Sleepy Show) common sense prevailed over the "hot as the fires of hell" rhetoric coming from the religious right within the state. Good job SoDak, I'm proud of you. Now as for my home state, well, that remains to be seen, but at least Jim "I want to give all of your money away to any corporation I can find" Nussle got smoked in his bid for governor and it gets even better. The seat which Nussle (a Republican) vacated in order to get his ass handed to him on a silver platter is going to be filled by a Democrat named Bruce Braley, who (according to the Republican National Campaign Committee) is supported by groups who wanted to negotiate with the Taliban and just may be a Communist. You gotta love irony, especially when it happens to someone who truly and utterly deserves to catch some bad karma.

Gay Marriage

The Senate has begun debate on the most important issue before our society today, whether or not it should be legal for two men (or two women) to bind themselves legally in marriage. Wow, when did we stamp out terrorism, erase poverty, solve world hunger, end the genocide, cure Cancer and AIDS and finally resolve the energy crisis? I must have been sleeping through that FOX News special report. I wish someone could give me a rational explanation as to why our legislators are spending my tax money debating over whether or not we should amend the constitution to deprive certain citizens of their rights. The politics of this debate are incredibly transparent, and honestly, I am sickened by this move. It's not like there are American soldiers dying in another country. Nothing else is nearly as important as preventing two homosexuals from calling their relationship a marriage. In fact, let's change the ruling document of our country to make sure that homosexuals can't commit themselves to each other in a legal sense. I tell you, the gays are just ruining this country, I mean what have they ever done for us? This kind of bigotry drives me up a fucking wall. However, the reasons for the debate are even more mind boggling. The President claims that he is putting the amendment forward to take the power out of the hands of "activist judges." However, it's perfectly acceptable, at least to this president (who claims that he doesn't pay attention to the polls) to allow a small section of the voter base and activists like Lloyd Dobson and Pat Robertson influence the legal policies of the United States. But let's examine this in a bit more detail, the argument I have heard most often against institutionalizing gay marriage is that it threatens the sanctity of the marital institution. As of year end 2004 the divorce rate for 1st marriages stood at 43%, while this is is down from the 53% peak seen in 1981, it is still 20% higher than the 22% in 1957. Thus, in an environment where nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, how is it possible that allowing gay couples to marry will "destroy the institution of marriage"? Given that straight folks have been destroying it at a significantly increased rate over the last 50 years, the idea that gays who marry will do any significant harm to the institution is fairly spurious and just flat out ridiculous. I think even the most discerning Bush apologist can see that the timing on this debate, which no one even expects to reach a vote, is simply an attempt at rallying the troops for the midterm elections in November. The President has managed to drop his approval ratings to around 30%, and I am quite sure that the Republicans who are up for re-election are trying to do anything they can to flush out some votes, but the way they are doing it is just pathetic. Praying on the fears and insecurities of the people they represent makes them just as bad as the terrorists they so ardently blame the Democrats for creating. While the Democrats are not much better, in that they use the same type of scare tactics quite often, at least they haven't reverted to a program that would, for all intents and purposes, put segregation back into the legal framework of our country (although they were primarily responsible for it's appearance the first time around.) It's amazing to me that anyone in this country would be in favor of denying citizens rights guaranteed by the constitution because of a discriminating feature of their lives. I seem to remember a period in history where this was done, in fact it was a very long period in history, and I am pretty sure that everyone is fairly happy with the decision to give black Americans the rights they deserved under the constitution. It's not really any different when you think about it, in fact it's even more intrusive, imagine a country where the government tells you who you are and are not allowed to love. Perhaps we should also modify the preamble to the Constitution, maybe this is how it should read: "We, the heterosexual, Christian, conservative people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union of persecution and intolerance, establish injustice, insure domestic control, provide for the common defense of those we deem worthy, promote the general welfare of anyone who agrees with us, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity at the expense of all those who come after, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of straight, Christian America" At least that would be honest...