Ceterum censeo GOP esse delendam

David Brooks, the man who (uh, more or less) admits to covering for John McCain these past ten long years, is officially off the bus with regard to the bleeding edge (circa 1984) economic and geopolitical thinking of the current GOP:

It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. Not long ago, they led an anti-immigration crusade that drove away Hispanic support. Then, too, they listened to the loudest and angriest voices in their party, oblivious to the complicated anxieties that lurk in most American minds.

Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they’ve taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.

I’ve spoken with several House Republicans over the past few days and most admirably believe in free-market principles. What’s sad is that they still think it’s 1984. They still think the biggest threat comes from socialism and Walter Mondale liberalism. They seem not to have noticed how global capital flows have transformed our political economy.

Every now and then, even a blind pig finds a nut. He then applies lipstick with it. Badly:

What we need in this situation is authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.

Er, okay, David. We'll have some non-regulating regulations out for you by lunch. Nice talking to you.

The real conclusion is reached by Brad DeLong:

This Republican Party needs to be burned, razed to the ground, and the furrows sown with salt...

Yep. Methinks this is the end of the beginning of the end of the current political structure. Whether or not the GOP will be a part of what follows depends heavily on the next few weeks and months.

Why the bile? Why especially now? Perhaps this has something to do with it:

[NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that] leading Republicans who are close to [Newt Gingrich said] he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement [claiming he was in favor of the bailout bill]. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism. And then at the last minute comes out with a statement when the vote is already in place.

[...]

NBC’s Mike Barnicle said he had been told by congressional conservatives that the move was “the opening salvo of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign four years hence.”

Cynicism, thy name be Newt. Where's Ross Perot and some pie-charts when you need him? Let's hope there's a recognizable country left for one of them to run into the ground come 2012.

We ought to route him into Lake Michigan, at least we'll avoid killing innocent people.

Looks like the GOP is taking its own advice. ~60% of them voted against the bailout bill. The Dow promptly closed down 777 points. Tomorrow, it would seem, is when the shit really hits the fan:

...new worries were building inside the nearly $2 trillion world of hedge funds. After years of explosive growth, losses are mounting — and so are concerns that some investors will head for the exits.

....The big worry is that a spate of hurried sales could unleash a vicious circle within the hedge fund industry, with the sales leading to more losses, and those losses leading to more withdrawals, and so on. A big test will come on Tuesday, when many funds are scheduled to accept withdrawal requests for the end of the year.

“Everybody’s watching for redemptions,” said James McKee, director of hedge fund research at Callan Associates, a consulting firm in San Francisco. “And there could be a cascading effect, where redemptions cause other redemptions.”

All over but the crying. It's been a good run. Man on the moon, and all that. Somebody turn the lights out on the way out the door. Krugman notes there's no parking in the White Zone.

I say "Let 'em crash!"

Shorter GOP house membership:

They Bought Their Tickets, They Knew What They Were Getting Into. I Say--Let 'Em Crash!

Seriously, this bunch of idiots prefer decades of economic destruction to sacrificing their (fake) small guvmint "credentials" at the altar of actual necessity? We can argue and re-tune deals until the cows come home, but I think any responsible person realizes "I don't know what it is, but something's got to be did."

Naturally, this all just kabuki nonsense such that Saint John McCain can either:

a) Create distance between himself and everybody else (the Democrat menace has gotten to W! He never was a "real" conservative no-how!) when they pass the current bill over his cold, dead (voting-against-it) hand.
2) Claim victory when some other version of the bill passes that includes his beloved Blue Ribbon Commission. (Did they just say "Blue Ribbon?!?"; then it must be good.)

All of which can hopefully cause the cancellation of the VP debate, because 'Merica's in too much danger to allow a lot of this talkin'.

But Joy Behar knew better

Sometime, in the far future, when they are writing the definitive history of that mysterious entity known as the United States of America, you know, the one that went through this odd, transformative period that no one can really explain, still, even here in the far future; when they are writing that history, they'll come to the point where they write "But Joy Behar knew better." Joy Behar, defender of (whatever's left of) The Republic. She'll be right there by Cicero.

Richard Cohen, of all people, lays it out for us in the WaPo. Check this out:

Last week, one of the co-hosts [of The View], Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."

[...]

"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Read that last line again. And then read it again. And then rub your eyes (but not too hard). And then double check the link above isn't some sort of Russian redirect intended to cleverly sap your accounts and steal the time-share you've got way out in Bermooda. "Actually, they are." See, that wasn't too hard. But our man Cohen ins't going to leave it there and start in with the hacktackular James Carville™ excuses. No sir:

[Continuing directly] McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most.

[...]

[McCain's] opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

[...]

McCain was [...] going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work.

God save Joy Behar. She was The One who could get through to Our Media Elite, the Serious People who run things around here. Too late for the Republic, and all that, but at least we may be spared the final indignity of going down in a blaze of "glory" under a McCain/Palin administration.

This Is Who We Are

Another example of why we fail:

As it happens, Ford, the struggling American car company (in certain ways, probably more centrally "American" to most citizens than even longtime industrial titan GM, nay "The General"), has a new model of the Fiesta coming out that seats five (well, five people the size of Winona Ryder, anyway) and gets 65 mpg. You're saying "wow, they've finally gotten the message and are going to deliver 'Mericans a car that is relatively inexpensive and gas efficient."

Except that you'd be wrong. Only selling that car in Europe. You see, it runs on diesel. Ford doesn't think it can sell enough of the engines (they put the break-even number at 350,000/yr) to warrant building an engine plant (in Mexico, natch); the dollar is just too much of a banana republic currency to merit the importation of the engines/cars from England where they're made.

All quite sensible. Except that Ford is going to go out of business (at least as we know it today) with this model. Time to bet the company, gentlemen. You are not going to be in a better position to do so next week or next year. As the article notes, VW and Mercedes are investing heavily in clean diesel, as is Nissan. They'll be first to market in the US, and it is they that will reap the rewards. Create your market. Engage in risk. Figure out a way to sell those 350,000 motors. Otherwise you'll be a division of Tata motors before you know it.

It seems clear now that it will take the utter obliteration of the US auto industry to save the US auto industry. And, in the not-too-distant future, Silicon Valley will be more associated with cars than Detroit. That's where people are taking the chances, after all.

The Lies of Sarah Palin

I told the Congress to take their bridge and shove it!
This one is a flat out lie and lately even conservative stalwarts such as the Wall Street Journal are willing to soft-pedal around to tell you that:

"She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere."

For it before she was against it, perhaps?


I got rid of the governor’s chef! Boy, do my kids ever miss her!
But Palin actually just reassigned the chef, and only because her kids left the scene for the summer. Still unclear is whether or not Palin brought the chef back to the governors mansion post-summer vacation.
What she did do is take a per diem for living at home. Michael Luo of the New York Times tells us:

The $60-a-day allowance is available for state employees when traveling on official state business to cover meals and other sundry expenses [...] Ms. Palin’s per diems, which included some charges for partial days, totaled $17,059, from Dec. 4, 2006, when she took office, through June 30, 2008, the most recent data available, according to Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office. Ms. Palin’s salary is $125,000 a year.

I sold (former Alaska governor) Frank Murkowski's jet on eBay!
This one is by far the closest to the truth, and yet still manages to bend the facts. The plane was indeed listed on eBay at her behest (having been a major issue in the campaign for governor, dispatching the plane was one of her first actions in office):

"But the jet's eBay listing did not prove effective, and the state never got its asking price. Instead, in 2007, the state turned to an aircraft broker, Turbo North Aviation. The jet was purchased that year by businessman Larry Reynolds, the owner of a sporting goods store and marine supply store in Valdez. Reynolds paid $2.1-million."

So it's at least true that Palin (or, more accurately, the state of Alaska) put the plane up for sale on eBay, but it didn't sell on eBay. But McCain still likes to take this minor fabrication and turn it into a full-on lie by taking it an extra mile:

"You know what I enjoyed the most, she took the luxury jet bought by her predecessor and sold it on eBay," he said. "And made a profit."

Except that none of that happened. As we know, the plane, valued at ~2.7 million dollars in fact sold for $2.1M and didn't sell on eBay.

How is it that Al Gore can be savaged over the Love Canal based entirely on an immediately corrected misquotation while McCain, Palin, and any other member of the GOP can spew patent fabrications, repeatedly, in public, and raise nary an eyebrow? Must be that liberal media acting up again.

In Aid of A,B,C

The lipstick on a pig thing is indeed the greatest issue facing the country since John McCain spent several years as a guest of The Red Menace.

But it's worth noting that there's another scandal of phenomenal proportions out there, just waiting to give us its money:

Palin's [gubernatorial] office requested $2 million in federal monies to study crab mating habits; $494,900 for the recreational halibut harvest and $3.2 million for seal genetics research.

Those requests for the study of wildlife genetics and mating habits seems pretty antithetical to the long-standig views of Palin's running mate, John McCain.

"We're not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana," McCain said earlier this year, referring to a request from Montana for federal money to study the endangered grizzly bear. "I don't know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money."

My stars, she wanted to study crab fucking? How old were those crabs? Were they instructed on how to use crab condoms? Were there any crab abortions planned as part of the research? And, won't somebody please think of the seal DNA!?! This is before we get to her tacit approval of dread science and knowledge. Jesus, shouldn't she be in some kind of jail cell right now awaiting verdict?

Of course, we'll hear about none of this. Why? Well, fortunately Joe Scarborough told us why in this little moment in which the truth slipped out:

MATTHEWS: Now, [the lipstick on a pig flap will] die, as we said, it'll jump the shark. Two days ago, no, we're all talking about -- you're waving the tabloids around, come on. Two days from now -- I want to ask you, what will we talk about two days from now?

SCARBOROUGH: Whatever the McCain campaign wants us to talk about, because the McCain campaign is assertive.

To quote Steve Benen:

As far as I can tell, the story has to a) have video; b) be exceedingly simple and easy to summarize in a few seconds; and c) be good for John McCain.

Millions of dollars for seal DNA and crab fucking clearly have A and B, but not enough C. Back to porcine cosmetics, then.

Why not try this on for size: John McCain must hate Israel since he wants to de-fund our support to it. Sarah Palin quotes an anti-Semite in her speeches; she must hate Israel even more (and that's rather charitably assuming she's aware of its existence). AIPAC much? They were never that into politics anyway. But they probably just realize that this one only has A and lacks B or C. Lets face it, Israel's just too boring and complicated for the media. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the McCain campaign decides to talk about.