"spun out of control"

Former JAG Swift on RW attacks: "This crank up of fear prevents the system from working, and it's been going on now since President Obama took office. This constant quackery on things that are very routine .... is spun out of control and it makes it impossible to do your job."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

mistermix: The Lose-Lose

Speaking of Larison, he asks a good question:

One wonders where Republican hawks can possibly go from here. They have almost three more years of an Obama Presidency to endure, and already they have gone mad with alarmism, hysterics and overreaction to fairly ho-hum policy decisions. Obama needs a credible, sane opposition to keep him in check and challenge him when he is actually wrong. Right now, he doesn’t have that, and all of us will suffer for it. His own party will not hold him accountable, because a President’s party never does, but in any contest between an erring Obama and a mad GOP the latter will keep losing.

My answer: Republicans (not just hawks) are going nowhere until November 6, 2012. They will continue the same noisemaking and hysteria until Obama wins a second term. They’ve convinced themselves that every minor loss on his part is their gain, despite any evidence to the contrary. As long as Democrats lose a seat or two in the 2010 election, nothing’s going to change.

Until the 2012 election, every time one of their their anti-Obama talking points is featured in the “on the other hand” portion of the nightly news, they’ll congratulate themselves on winning the day. Every downward blip of Obama’s approval rating will be celebrated, and any upward movement will be explained away.

So, batten down the hatches and get ready for a thousand more days of Newtonian bullshit:

So let’s go back to Gingrich’s original sentence. “One of the things in the health bill is 16,000 additional IRS agents,” he said. First, that’s not a “thing in the health bill.” It’s an extrapolation from a CBO report. Second, the word “is” is wrong, as even the original GOP spin only used the word “may.” Third, the number 16,000 is wrong. Fourth, the word “agents” is wrong. But if the statement gets no credit for truth, it’s at least efficient: Not just anyone could pack four falsehoods into 13 words. But Gingrich, now, he’s a professional.

John Cole: Nuclear Weapons, Fuck Yeah!

To illustrate how complete the slide has been for “thinking” conservatism and how completely devoid of ideas they are on the foreign affairs front (something Daniel Larison is constantly pointing out), the Republicans have come out in favor of more nuclear weapons. Presumably, because Obama signed a treaty lowering our nuclear count and also released new guidances for the use of nuclear weapons. You know- loyal opposition:

President Barack Obama on Thursday made clear he was not going to take advice from Republican Sarah Palin when it comes to decisions about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, has not been shy about criticizing Obama’s policies and this week weighed in on his revamped nuclear strategy, saying it was like a child in a playground who says ‘punch me in the face, I’m not going to retaliate.’

“I really have no response to that. The last I checked, Sarah Palin is not much of an expert on nuclear issues,” Obama said in an interview with ABC News.

Pressed further on Republican criticism that his strategy restricts the use of nuclear weapons too much, Obama added:

“What I would say to them is, is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I’m probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin.”

These guys really are going to follow Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Glenn Beck into oblivion.

Here's the video:

Weekly National Journal Bloggers' poll:

As Congress prepares to take up another far-reaching reform plan, this one overhauling the financial services industry, bipartisanship is sure to linger as a political subplot.

But to what end? In this week's NationalJournal.com Bloggers Poll, about two-thirds of respondents on both the left and right doubt it's in their corresponding parties' best interests to cross the aisle.