President Obama:
In the next hundred days our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner will consider becoming a Democrat. After all we have a lot in common. He is a person of color--although not a color that appears in the natural world.Wanda Sykes:
"Michael for the last time, the Republican Party does not qualify for a bailout. Rush Limbaugh does not count as a troubled asset, I'm sorry."
Rush Limbaugh, one of your big critics. Boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. Yeah. So you're saying I hope America fails. It's like I don't care about people losing their homes, losing their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq. He just wants the country to fail. To me that's treason. He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this sir but I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.
Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails. I hope his kidneys fail. How 'bout that? He needs a good waterboarding. That's what he needs.
Sean Hannity....Sean Hannity said he was going to get waterboarded for charity for our armed forces. He hasn't done it yet I see. You know talking about he can take a waterboarding. Please. Hey okay you might want to get waterboarded by someone you know or trust but let somebody from Pakistan waterboard him, or Keith Olbermann. Let Keith Olbermann waterboard him. He can't take a waterboarding.
I could break Sean Hannity just by giving him a middle seat in coach. Oh I need leg room!!
From Daily Kos' Abbreviated Pundit Round-up:
IF you wanted to pick the moment when the American news business went on suicide watch, it was almost exactly three years ago. That’s when Stephen Colbert, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, delivered a monologue accusing his hosts of being stenographers who had, in essence, let the Bush White House get away with murder (or at least the war in Iraq). To prove the point, the partying journalists in the Washington Hilton ballroom could be seen (courtesy of C-Span) fawning over government potentates — in some cases the very "sources" who had fed all those fictional sightings of Saddam Hussein’s W.M.D.
Colbert’s routine did not kill. The Washington Post reported that it "fell flat." The Times initially did not even mention it. But to the Beltway’s bafflement, Colbert’s riff went viral overnight, ultimately to have a marathon run as the most popular video on iTunes. The cultural disconnect between the journalism establishment and the public it aspires to serve could not have been more vividly dramatized.
See also This Is Why We Need A Blogosphere.
sgw Go Hards
The White House Correspondents Dinner was last night and both President Obama and comedienne Wanda Sykes brought their A game. First President Obama unloaded the clip on friend and foe alike but mostly in a good natured way.Think Progress: Cheney: As a Republican, I choose Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell.
And after he was done Wanda Sykes brought out the heavy artillery and just started dumping. She gave a performance that I am sure had many in the audience squirming and the best part is she didn't give a damn. And she dropped so much heat on Rush Limbaugh I am surprised that Glenn Beck and Michael Steele didn't run out of the room screaming and pulling out their hair over hearing their hero defamed in such a fashion. You could tell however that, but for the cameras, many if not most in attendance probably wanted to give Wanda a standing ovation for saying the things they really want to say but can't because of political correctness. She cut the right wingers long, deep and wide and they will be licking their wounds for some time after this one.
Now one of the best things I have seen from President Obama in the two times in the last year that he has had to do some comedy is that he is very adept at taking wingnut talking points and making fun of himself with them which in turn makes the wingnuts look even more foolish than usual. Starting off the set with the teleprompter bit was the AWESOME. But I am sure there will be conservative clowns crying because he called out FoxNews. In that same manner I am almost certain that there will be Republicans falling all over themselves to "defend Rush Limbaugh's honor" by denouncing Wanda Sykes. In both cases all I can say is WIN! LOL
Last week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the Republican Party is in “deep trouble” because it is “getting smaller” and being led by far right polarizing figures. Specifically, he said that Rush Limbaugh “diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without.” Limbaugh then responded that Powell ought to “close the loop” and leave the Republican Party instead of “claiming” to be interested in reforming it. Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer asked Cheney about the spat. Cheney said that he comes down squarely on the side of Limbaugh:
CHENEY: Well, if I had to choose — in terms of being a Republican — I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. My take on it was that Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican. [...]
SCHIEFFER: And you said you’d take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell?
CHENEY: I would. Politically.
Watch it:
During the Bush administration, of course, Cheney and Powell often sparred over their differences on foreign policy. On the other hand, Cheney has long been a fervent admirer of Rush Limbaugh. In March, Cheney told CNN, “Rush is a good friend. I love him. … I think Rush is a good man and serves a very important purpose.”
UpdateToday on ABC's This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also said, "I don't want to moderate either. I think our policies, the principles of our party, are as viable today as they have been in the past."
Benen: A WHOLE LOT OF COOKS....
About a year before the 2008 presidential election, many on the right decided that what Republicans really needed were membership groups like MoveOn.org. So, groups were formed en masse. Freedom's Watch, the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, The Vanguard, Victory Caucus, some Gingrich outfit, FreedomWorks, Reagan 21, Move America Forward, and a revitalized Citizens For The Republic all said they could duplicate the bottom-up success on the left (with a top-down model).They didn't. None of these groups had any significant impact on the elections, some have since collapsed, and a few struggled to get beyond an initial press release. Republicans' problems have been systemic and overwhelming, and these organizations were irrelevant.
A half-year after the elections, the right has decided what Republicans really need are a series of new organizations committed to rebranding and renewing the struggling party. David Weigel put together a terrific list of the various groups that intended to get the GOP back on track. Weigel's analysis is well worth reading, but here's just the names on the list:
* Rebuild the Party
* The Center for Republican Renewal
* Young Conservatives Coalition
* The Tea Party movement
* Renewing American Leadership
* Resurgent Republic
* The National Council for a New America
Five of the seven have kicked off their efforts since late February. One of the seven, the Republican National Committee's Center for Republican Renewal, has already disbanded. Six of the seven are reportedly making plans and getting organized, but it's still very much unclear what they want to do, what they're going to do, and why anyone should care.
None of the groups seem interested in dragging the party away from the far-right cliff; none have a credible policy agenda; and none have come up with a way to convince party members that their initiative has any practical value.
Getting committed partisans together to consider engineering a GOP comeback makes sense. But if these outfits have any impact at all over the next couple of years, it will be a big surprise.
Hamsher: Is Evan Bayh Ripe To Pull A Reverse Specter?
Ryan Nees, writing in Indiana's Howey Politics, looks at Bayh's tack to the right and says "there's a future for Evan Bayh" in a "radicalized shell" of the Republican party:
What bizarre timing for the final break, it would seem, given that the Democratic Party’s popularity is at its highest point in Bayh’s political career, and Indiana, after all, voted in 2008 for the Democratic candidate for President, the first time since 1964. Yet this also makes sense, as Bayh has come to recognize that his future in the Barack Obama-dominated Democratic Party is dim: he was passed over for vice president, never emerged as a Claire McCaskill-like confidant, and became an irrelevant bridge to a sinking Clintonian ship when Obama deftly neutralized Hillary Clinton’s internal opposition by making her secretary of state.
Bayh’s reaction has been to position himself as the most obstructionist Democrat in Congress, just in case Obama’s popular presidency goes south. Bayh’s installed himself leader of a “Blue Dog” caucus in the Senate of 16 moderate Democrats, who meet regularly with the implicit purpose of putting the et tu brakes on Obama’s legislative agenda; or as Bayh put it in the Washington Post, “Many independents voted for President Obama and the contours of his change agenda, but they will not rubber-stamp it.”
In March, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell gleefully read one of Bayh’s anti-Obama screeds from the Wall Street Journal into the Congressional Record, suggesting as Bayh did that Obama “jeopardized [his] credibility” on the deficit with the proposed omnibus budget. Last week, Bayh was one of only three Democrats to vote no. “If you’re going to get to 60 votes in the Senate, you’re going to need the vast majority of this group. We can be the fulcrum upon which policy will balance,” Bayh threatened last month.
So this is as good a time for Bayh as any other to bolt, for him and for the Republican Party. It needs to retool to the realities of a realigning electorate, and Bayh could be a perfect GOP response to what may end up being a presidency of liberal overreach (think a former Democrat as a “New Republican”). And he needs a new party to entertain his ego, which is surely becoming exhausting to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
As Specter finds his “political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Bayh might ask himself the same question. He could follow the Pennsylvanian’s lead, and be just as politically self-serving in his answer. Why not become that new voice of the Republican Party? The door might not even hit him on the way out.
Bayh's popularity continues to be strong in Indiana,. With a 74% approval rating and an $11 million war chest (much of it left over from his Presidential bid) the Republicans probably won't try to field anyone against him in 2010.
But Obama's Indiana victory indicates that Bayh and the state may moving in the opposite political direction. And I'll just note that although it's anecdotal, the kind of persistent local progressive discontent coming out of Indiana about Bayh is the kind of thing we look for when we're assessing whether a candidate would be vulnerable to a primary challenge.
Joe Lieberman had a 68% approval rating in Connectibut in August 2005. Obviously, that didn't tell the whole story.
Benen: IGNORANCE IS EXPENSIVE....
Kathleen Parker as a worthwhile column today on Francis Collins, the physician-geneticist who led the Human Genome Project for the National Institutes of Health. Apparently, Collins is also an evangelical Christian who was home-schooled until sixth grade.
In addition to his work in science, Collins, Parker explained, devotes quite a bit of time to explaining to those who share his faith that there's nothing incompatible about religion and modern biology. To that end, Collins has created the BioLogos Foundation as part of a larger effort to "raise the level of discourse about science and faith, and to help fundamentalists -- both in science and religion -- see that the two can coexist."
Parker said Collins can "advance an alternative to the extreme views that tend to dominate the debate." I'm not sure which "extremes" she's referring to -- accepting modern biology without a supernatural explanation hardly seems "extreme" -- but Collins' efforts seem worthwhile, especially given the woeful state of the public's scientific understanding.
Having earned a PhD and a medical degree, Collins is nonetheless a scientist with little patience for those who insist that evolution is just a theory that one may take or leave. Most human genes, he points out, are similar to genes in other mammals, "which indicates a common ancestry."
Even so, a Gallup Poll found last year that 44 percent of Americans believe God created human beings in their present form within the past 10,000 years.
"You can't arrive at that conclusion without throwing out all the evidence of the sciences," says Collins.
The problem of not believing in evolution as one might not believe in, say, goblins or flying pigs has repercussions beyond the obvious -- that the United States will continue to fall behind other nations in science education.
The point about falling behind other nations is probably one of the key parts of the larger issue, at least for me. At first blush, if millions of Americans choose to be wrong about science, it doesn't seem especially consequential.
But I think Collins is right about the national interests here. The country just can't afford confusion on a grand scale about scientific basics. The competitive advantage the United States used to enjoy is vanishing, and an anti-science push comes with too high a burden for the country.
The country needs to start taking science seriously again -- our economy depends on it -- and ignorance costs far too much. If Francis Collins can help turn some people around who reject biology for religious reasons, he's a welcome addition to the discourse.
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