Walsh wasn’t willing to tell you the truth!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

This is how tribes get dumb: It took a lot of work to make The Other Tribe as dumb and crazy as it often is at this point.

Sean and Rush have been at it for decades. In this morning’s column, Paul Krugman recalls a few highights:
KRUGMAN (9/20/13): Some pundits insist, even now, that this is somehow Mr. Obama’s fault. Why can’t he sit down with Mr. Boehner the way Ronald Reagan used to sit down with Tip O’Neill? But O’Neill didn’t lead a party whose base demanded that he shut down the government unless Reagan revoked his tax cuts, and O’Neill didn’t face a caucus prepared to depose him as speaker at the first hint of compromise.

No, this story is all about the G.O.P. First came the southern strategy, in which the Republican elite cynically exploited racial backlash to promote economic goals, mainly low taxes for rich people and deregulation. Over time, this gradually morphed into what we might call the crazy strategy, in which the elite turned to exploiting the paranoia that has always been a factor in American politics—Hillary killed Vince Foster! Obama was born in Kenya! Death panels!—to promote the same goals.
We hate to kill a good buzz, but Hillary Clinton didn’t play a role in the death of Vince Foster. But Limbaugh was tickling those keys all the way back in 1994.

For a review of that ugly behavior, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/23/13. Many voters didn’t know that they were getting played about the Clintons’ long list of murders.

Making red voters believe crazy things has been an industry for decades. Only now is a comparable industry springing up for blue voters.

Making voters crazy can be a very good business! It should be a major embarrassment to see the Joan Walshes and the Salons take part in this developing gong show.

But little by little, bit by bit, that’s what the Walshes are doing. In today’s post about Ted Cruz, Walsh isn’t honest enough to tell you the truth straight out:
WALSH (9/20/13): Rep. Paul Ryan told Politico in an interview, not via Twitter, that hostility to Cruz and other Senate GOP extremists is “pretty palpable in our conference, I would say.”…On CNN, Rep. Peter King accused Cruz of “carrying out a fraud with the people” with his Obamacare crusade and told him to “be quiet.”

Anonymously, House GOP aides got more nasty: One suggested, perhaps facetiously, to the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim that Cruz might be “the leader of a secret cabal of leftists that are seeking control of the conservative movement. Their aim is to force the party to take on suicidal missions to destroy the movement from within.”
Perhaps facetiously? Joan didn’t want to lie. But she wasn’t honest enough to tell you the simple truth, which we described in our previous post.

Did Walsh think that statement might have come from a GOP aide who had simply gotten nasty? From an aide who wasn’t being facetious? Of course she didn’t think that! She was treating blue readers like fools, playing along with some ranking colleagues. Red voters have been played this way for several decades now.

This is a pitiful minor point. Here's our advice:

Watch this new business grow!

17 comments:

  1. Cruz's C.V. indicates he's a very smart guy. Yesterday he showed a glimmer of wit even a left-of-center guy like me had to savor.

    With deft delivery, he said, "I've always respected and admired the courage of anonymous congressional aides."

    Good one. Had to laugh with the nut/hack/demagogue this time.

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  2. OMB (Back to Mind Reading Again)

    "Of course she didn't think that" says BOB of Joan Walsh.

    BOB goes on to suggest Joan's behavior is cynicial. "Business, strictly business" as the Don used to say.(Or was it Gilligan?)

    But wouldn't that imply Joan might be “the leader of a secret cabal of profiteers that are seeking control of the liberal tribe. Their aim is to force the party to take on suicidal viewpoints to divide the unification of the 99%.”

    KZ (An Overlord Unafraid to Point out Other Overlords at Work)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You told him to leave and he left.

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    2. That would make either you or me Matt. And it would mean one of us is talking to ourself. I know where I am. Where did you go, Matt?

      KZ

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    3. Thurston: Oh Gilligan.
      Gilligan: Oh hi Mr. and Mrs. Howell.
      Lovey: Is there something wrong Gilligan?
      Thurston: Yes yes my boy. You seem like you're in another world.
      Gilligan: Mr. Howell don't say that, I want to stay here in this world.
      Thurston: Permission granted. HAH!
      Lovey: Thurston you're so democratic.
      Thurston: Lovey, Lovey. Watch your language.

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  3. That secret cabal thing sure lines up nicely with the typical right wing paranoiac conspiracy theory. Nothing is ever the fault of the policies they pursue , it's always a conspiracy usually cooked up by those dastardly liberals who otherwise couldn't pour P out of a boot if you wrote the instructions on the heel.Wonder how the Cruzer is going to take this?

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  4. "Only now is a comparable industry springing up for blue voters."

    Oh, stop, you're killing me! This shit has been happening for blue voters since at least the days of Walter Duranty and Lincoln Steffens.

    Honesty compels us to admit both tribes do this because they're, you know, tribal. By definition the Other is evil and We are good. The only way of surviving is warfare, in which the ends always justify the means.

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    Replies
    1. Bob apparently thinks history began when he started taking notice, but bat-crap crazy radio pundits have also been around at least since Father Coughlin.

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  5. Yes indeed, some evil unseen hand has put Rush in charge of keeping "red" voters dumb, and Joan in charge of keeping "blue" voters dumb. And it's worked perfectly because there are only, ever, two kinds of voters.

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    Replies
    1. Is this "evil unseen" hand the same hand as "the invisible hand of the market" or could it be they are a pair since both lack visibility? I ask because usually, sentient critters with things we call hands are born with two of them. So it is possible one is the left hand and the other the right hand. I wonder which is which?

      KZ

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  6. joan walsh, no offense intended, is known by .000000000000000000000001% of the public limbought is. other than that, and the fact that walsh didnt say cruz was a serial killer, this column is not ridiculous.

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    Replies
    1. how are the maggots holding up in the unrelenting face of climate change?

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    2. Walsh didn't say Cruz was a serial killer, but Bob indicated she is running a stable of New Stalinists over at Salon. We can't be sure. But I would keep an eye out for the forced collectivization of those maggots you are farming. If I were you.

      KZ (Friend of the Fat Kulak)

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    3. that column slipped my mind. i really did think at the time that he might have been preparing another hair brained theme, this time devoting column after column to comparing dems or liberals to stalin in various pejorative ways. after the zombie theory i dont put anything past him.

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