Joe Klein: "An impressive performance...they have no weapons to match the cool sanity and reason"

[jefferson_dem]

Sanity
Posted by Joe Klein

The President's press conference happened in the middle of the night here, so I've just been catching up--here's a video of it--and I must say, this was a very impressive performance. And more: it represents a regaining of the initiative after a week of Republican/media chipping away at the stimulus bill. Despite a steady campaign of Republican misinformation about the bill, the President vowed to continue to try to work with them, in the hopes that he'll be able to make some progress in the long term:

<SNIP>

In the end, it is increasingly clear that the Republicans are peddling from an empty pack--they offer the same anti-government bluster that has (not) worked for the past 30 years, offer tax cuts as the only credible stimulus. Any government spending at all is defined as pork--and all too often, the media have gone along with this because it's much easier to report the tirades than look at the substance of the bill (as Michael Grunwald has done, consistently, for Time). The Republican path will likely fail on the stimulus bill--and it will fail even more dramatically over time, for the same reason that John McCain failed so decisively against Barack Obama in the election: it is old, intellectually barren and irrelevant to the needs of the moment. There are other paths Republicans can take--they involve using conservative means to achieve the government activism that the public clearly wants. It will be interesting how long it take for the G.O.P. to figure out those paths. Right now, though, they have no weapons to match the cool sanity and reason displayed last night by the President of the United States.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/10/sanity/

[SpiralHawk]

1. "We do have weapons: spin and propaganda." - Republicon leader Rush 'Draft Dodger' Limbaugh

"We Homelanders have been able to successfully lie and smear propaganda all over America before, and we can succeed again in our desire to have America to fail."

- Rush 'Draft Dodger' Limbaugh (R - Propagandist)

[grannie4peace]

2. i wish we could shut this bastard down for good.

i'm praying he'll meet his maker!!

[nichomachus]

5. There will just be another

Rush didn't spring from nowhere. He's just a buffoon who was picked for this by the right-wingers and promoted to his position because of his willingness to "catapult the propaganda."

Don't forget, he is BFFs with Clarence Thomas.

If Rush goes away, someone will step right in -- and there are already a host of candidates waiting in the wings. I'm think Anthrax Coulter could slide right into his seat and keep the idiots drooling in their cages.

Back in the 1800s, when there used to be insane asylums that were similar to prisons, it was quite fashionable for the well off to go down to the asylum on a Sunday afternoon to look at the "inmates," much as one might go to the zoo.

For a small fee, the guards would rattle the bars on the cells and get some of the more demented people to start howling for the entertainment of the visitors.

This is the function Rush fills in the US today. He gets the demented howling.

[grannie4peace]

7. yeh there is a guy in va that even sounds like him _puke!!!!

[depakid]

9. Trouble is that there are a whole lot of demented people in America

And their persistent howls often drown out sanity all over the airwaves and the papers.

[nichomachus]

11. At last count -- November 4, 2008 -- at least 58,343,671 of 'em.

That's how many voted for McStain and Failin'

[ipfilter]

13. That's a sobering dose of reality. nt.

[GCP]

3. Apparently some are taking their cues from the Taliban

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, made it clear that his party was committed to the low road when he talked about picking up pointers from the Taliban.

I’m not joking. “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” said Mr. Sessions, in an interview with Hotline, which is part of NationalJournal.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/opinion/10herbert.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

10. well that says it all!

the GOP is finished

[BeyondGeography]

4. "Peddling from an empty pack"

and compares the Republican intransigence with that of the Iranians.

Klein is still our friend. Never thought I'd see the day.

[PretzelWarrior]

6. SWEET. called McCain old, intellectually barren and irrelevant to the needs of the moment. AND

compared GOP to the blustering intrancigent Iranians. PERFECT!

[firedupdem]

8. Love it! The rethugs swamped the airwaves with their negativity..

they got a lot of "cable chatter" going and My President swoops in and makes them look like the obstructionist out of touch assholes they truly are!

[glitch]

12. They've been weeding any sign of sanity and reason out of their party since Eisenhower.

They cannot persuade, that is why they had to buy up the media and when even that failed they had to resort to enacting their "ideas" by force, ie Iraq's "new american" economy.

What were watching now are dead men talking.

Good blog, thanks for posting K & R