One other thing we can count on if healthcare reform passes is outrage on America's political Right as they scream that the only thing that should ever come between a doctor and a patient is an insurer's bottom line. It will be particularly fun to watch the Teabaggers, as this would "prove" to them that America has made the transition to full-fledged communism. Indeed, the Teabaggers have descended upon Washington, DC, to express their outrage at such an affront to human decency. Some of their ilk have taken to spitting on Congressmen or calling them faggots or niggers.

If the Teabaggers are stupid enough to actually think that pending healthcare legislation is the work of communists, then I suppose it would be fair to expect to hear them call certain members of Congress commies or reds or some such. But faggot? Nigger? This suggests to me that there is another motivator common among the Teabaggers that lurks just beneath the surface.

Just for fun, here's a collection of Teabaggers' protest signs that perhaps tell us a bit more about what many of them really think (see if you can guess what they're really upset about):

However, I have a couple of issues with his choices of examples of extremists in politics and the media. He cited Alan Grayson as a left-wingnut and Michelle Bachmann as a right-wingnut as examples of wingnuts in politics. He then identified Keith Olbermann as a left-wingnut and Glenn Beck as a right-wingnut in the mainstream media. Avlon is correct that these individuals are some of the loudest mouthpieces for their respective political affiliations, but there is a major difference between these examples of left-wingnuttia and right-wingnuttia. Grayson and Olbermann, for all of their faults, aren't bullshitters. We may or may not agree with their opinions, and that's fine, but they don't make shit up about their political opponents that simply isn't true. (I tried to find examples of Grayson and Olbermann making shit up, but my search was fruitless except for - wait for it... wait for it... a few right-wingnut websites that equate disagreement with themselves with falsehood.) Bachmann and Beck, on the other hand, don't have a goddamned foot in reality.

And, just for fun: At the outset of the interview, I wonder if Avlon inadvertently juxtaposed "unite us" with "divide us" (?).

The President himself has made some missteps and not getting out in front of the Days of Rage of last summer's nonsensical Tea Party protests and Town Hall donnybrooks is something he's still paying for. He lost the narrative and for most politicians that is the end of the story.

So where is the guy who campaigned like a warrior and beat everyone from the Clintons to the McCains and a host of others along the way? Where is that rough and tumble upstart from Chicago? He's back. This week marks the Final March of Reform and the President is doing what he does best: Campaigning. The entire White House apparatus is in campaign mode. Get your fact sheets, talking points (thoughtfully broken down into Twitter-friendly 140 characters or fewer), and marching orders. President Obama minced no words when he told congressional liberals that the chances for reform in our lifetime and his Presidency (and by extension, their own political fortunes) are on the line. If not now? If not us? When and who?

Bossie's money quote:

"The people who were at Woodstock turned into the yuppies of the '80s and the junk bond traders of the '90s and the Wall Street executives of the 2000s," he says. "They went from Woodstock to driving a Jaguar."

Really? The people? All of them? Nobody who attended Woodstock chose a different path in life? I guess I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them did wind up on Wall Street later in life. I'm sure that some of the 10,000 people who were at the Billy Squier concert that I attended in 1984 went on to do great things. No word yet on what a monumental event that turned out to be...

Every generation celebrates itself in some fashion. For years we have been listening to our elders describe themselves as The Greatest Generation (see Tom Brokaw's book entitled The Greatest Generation). People like to tell themselves that they are important. But, as the film's trailer informs us, there are four "turnings" in history. Yes, four (4): The Crisis, The High, The Awakening, and The Unravelling. The trailer reminds us that, "history repeats itself," before devolving into what looks like a promo for Shark Week. Never mind that if one believes that history repeats itself, then it makes no sense to declare the cause of one specific event to be one other specific event because, presumably, events repeat themselves and, thus, there really is no beginning and no end to the cycle. But I digress...

I wonder if Bossie's accusation of "generational narcissism" is really a veiled attack on the larger civil rights movement of the 1960's. I mean, before the moral meltdown of the 1960's, women, blacks, furriners, and homosexuals sure knew their places and all was white, um, I mean right with the world.

And if the name David Bossie strikes a bell, perhaps it is because Bossie is the president of Citizens United, an ultra right-wing organization that, according to its website, "seeks to reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security." (Reassert sovereignty? - I thought we settled that like 230 some odd years ago when we kicked England in the balls.) Bossie and Citizens United released Hillary, The Movie in 2008 and Bossie was the lead investigator in the Clinton / Whitewater investigation in the 1990's.

The idea that the social movements of the 1960's are the beginning of the end of a previously more perfect America has become central to modern conservative mythology. Everything is always somebody else's fault. We can't possibly hold the captains of American free market loving capitalism responsible for themselves.

Coming soon to a Tea Party event near you...

This video is close to ten minutes long, but it is worth watching to get a glimpse into some of the thought process that drive the modern conservative movement.

And all of this during Black History Month! (Have you ever noticed that Black History Month is February, the shortest month of the year?)

BTW: Franks seems to await the moment when Rachel Maddow, "wakes up and smells the coffee." Wonder what he meant by that...

Steve Benen seems to agree:

Obama has spent a year following the guidance of military leaders, and Republicans have spent a year breaking with the judgment of the military establishment.

It's a fascinating dynamic. On everything from civilian trials to Gitmo to torture, we have two distinct groups -- GOP leaders, the Cheneys, Limbaugh, and conservative activists on one side; President Obama, Gen. Petraeus, Secretary Gates, Colin Powell, Adm. Mullen, Adm. Blair, and Gen. Jones on the other...McConnell and his Republicans cohorts are reluctant to admit it, and political insiders have been slow to acknowledge it, but what we're witnessing is exceedingly rare -- the Republican establishment openly rejecting the judgment of the military establishment.

Via: The Daily Dish

We even had Jake Tapper today tweeting a quote from John McCain in 2006 that is sure to haunt him now that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has called for repealing Don't As, Don't Tell:
@jaketapper: McCain 06: "the day the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy..."

Well...?

It's been that kind of tough talk I'd been missing as the President strove for bi-partisanship in passing healthcare reform. It didn't come and the Republicans took control of the debate and poisoned the discussion with nonsense like death panels and federal takeovers of health care. I wanted Barack Obama to get tough and call bullshit. He didn't and reform is all but sunk when we've come so close.

The State of the Union address piqued my hopes again though when he called out Republicans for simply opposing and not governing. Now today, in a televised appearance before the House GOP retreat in Baltimore President Obama more forcefully took Republicans to task.

If the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me. I mean, the fact of the matter is that many of you — if you voted with the administration on something — are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own Party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion. Because, what you've been telling your constituents is: this guy's doing all kinds of crazy stuff that is going to destroy America.

That is Barack Obama calling bullshit.

As a bonus slap, President Obama also bashed Republicans for hypocritically staging ribbon cutting events and photo-opps when the stimulus checks (that NONE of them supported) started to arrive in their districts:

And then the last portion of it was infrastructure, which as I've said, a lot of you have gone to appear at ribbon cuttings for the same projects that you voted against. Now I say all this not to re-litigate past, but it's simply to state that the component parts of the stimulus are consistent with what many of you say are important things to do — rebuilding our infrastructure, tax cuts for families and businesses, and making sure that we were providing states and individuals some support when the roof was caving in.

I hope the President treats the Republicans consistent with what they are: an opposition party, not a partner in governing.

UPDATE:
It gets better. Check out how the President responded to Mike Pence's repeating of the cannard that the stimulus plan hasn't worked:

"We had lost 650,000 jobs in December [2008] - I'm assuming your'e not faulting my policies for that," said Obama. "We had lost, it turns out, 700,000 jobs in January, the month I was sworn in - I'm assuming it wasn't my administration policies that accounted for that. We had lost another 650,000 jobs the subsequent month, before any of my policies had gone into effect,t so I'm assuming that wasn't as a consequence of our policies. That doesn't reflect the failure of the Recovery Act."

I haven't had time yet to watch this but it is clearly some must-see TV. I am encouraged.

VIDEO

CNN.com provides a brief summation of what this could mean:

When the White House talks about non-security discretionary spending, it's referring to spending on an array of domestic programs -- everything from agriculture to energy -- that add up to $447 billion of roughly $3.5 trillion in the federal budget. It does not include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Obama's plan to freeze spending would not apply to those or other entitlement programs.

According to CNN, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "Instead of wielding an across-the-board axe, the president will cut programs that are duplicative or that he believes serve no important purpose."

Let's bear in mind that there's a big difference between freezing funding and eliminating funding, and some programs that might be affected recently received between seven and ten percent funding increases. Of course, I need not point out the apparent irony of an Administration that has staked no small amount of political capital on stimulus spending suddenly announcing a spending freeze. But I guess that raises a question. If Gibbs is right (not just spinning) and the freeze targets non-essential and/or duplicative government services, whereas much of the stimulus money targeted much-needed infrastructure projects, then is the freeze not such a big deal, at least with regard to the Administration's overall agenda? – The point being that it is possible to have a stimulus program while paring back outmoded or redundant spending. The stimulus was not intended to be a waste of money, it was intended to be an investment.

This is about more than health reform and we have to see it in that context. This is about a cynical nihilist attempt to break this presidency before it has had a chance to do what we elected it to do by a landslide vote. It is an attempt to destroy a majority's morale, to break a president's foreign policy autonomy, to prevent engagement in the Middle East peace process, to stop action on climate change, to restore torture, to increase tensions with the Muslim world, to launch a war on Iran. We cannot delude ourselves that if Obama fails, this is not the alternative. It is.

Barack Obama is talking a good game and we'll see if he's up to the task, but what are you going to do?

UPDATE:
Sullivan is still at it, encouraging everyone (including the President) to get mad and fight back.

He must not just rally the House Dems, he must rally the country. He must bring us back in. And we must back him up. This is not just about a centrist comprehensive health reform bill. It is about defeating an entire brand of cowardly, cynical, spin cycle bullshit that has brought this country down and promoting an adult and reasonable discourse that grapples with our problems.

Remember, this is coming from a conservative who is disgusted with where the American conservative movement has gone.

But there's a bigger, practical problem with ideology in that it doesn't account for the realities of governing. In my ideal world we would have single-payer universal healthcare for all American citizens. It makes the most financial sense and also fits with my moral beliefs. But it's not politically viable today, so my options are to cling to a pipe dream or accept incremental steps that are imperfect but get us closer to the ideal. As a pragmatic idealist, I chose the latter.

"Why must some Americans boycott G.M. and throw INNOCENT people, such as myself, out on the street trying to find another job in this economy? Did I do something wrong," said Michigan tea partier and ex-GM employee Joan Fabiano. "Would you like to see yourself out of a job if your company's leadership made the errors and you had NOTHING to do with it?"

No, of course not, Joan, which is why I supported the bailouts in the first place. We faced a financial crisis that required massive action that only the Federal government was equipped to take. That's a reality Fabiano had to face. The problem with this sort of flexible ideological stance is that those realizations usually only happen when it affects your personal situation. That's childish and selfish and why I can only offer sympathy, not support, to these dopes.

A few minutes after I saw Rick Sanchez run the Giuliani clip, Sanchez shared with his viewers a statement from a Giuliani that clarified and corrected the former mayor's misstatement. At first, that might seem to be the appropriate response from Team Giuliani. After all, Giuliani certainly wouldn't be the first public figure to misspeak on camera. I think then-Candidate Obama, after a hectic day on the campaign trail, once said that the USA had 58 states.

However, I wonder if there isn't something else going on here. The only people who are going to see or hear Giuliani's correction are those of us who pay close attention to politics. I wonder if Giuliani deliberately made the misstatement, knowing that the bulk of Good Morining America's viewers might not going to think about his statement enough to think something was wrong with it, much less look for a retraction or correction. If enough right-wing mouthpieces issue enough history-rewriting statements often enough, eventually people will begin to believe it. This sort of thing is standard fare for FOX News and other conservative misinformation outlets.

1. Ambush? That's nonsense. The deference already afforded to government officials by the media in order to secure access to said officials is bordering on pandering. The role of the media is to be a check on power so I don't have a problem with tough questions for any politician, especially those relating to abuse of power as Ensign of which Ensign has been accused.

2. Speaking of deference...what is up with the set-up? How many ways can Sanchez tickle Ensign's ass before he finally asks the tough question? Ensign has always tried to be a "stand-up guy?" Explain that to his wife and the dude who is married to his girlfriend. Oh that's right, you can't because Ensign and his parents paid them off.

3. Sanchez, upon hearing multiple times that his subject would NOT answer the questions, should have said, "So, you're refusing to address these issues, Senator? Is that how you'd like this reported?" Never, ever accept the dodge, "I have already answered these questions..."

4. And what mouse is in Ensign's pocket since he's clear that "we" will be cleared of all charges. He is the only one facing ethics charges.

As ThinkProgress reports today, radio host Mike Gallagher said,"There should be a separate line to scrutinize anybody with the name Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed." (Note: Those are some of the most common names in the world.)

But radio hosts are paid to incite people and get them worked up. What about those who are responsible for enacting laws and defending our Constitution? Just ask Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who said, "100 percent of the Islamic terrorists are Muslim, and that is our main enemy today. So why we should not be profiling people because of their religion?"

Now, never mind the dopey redundancy of "100 percent of the Islamic terrorists are Muslim," that's like saying 100% of Christian terrorists believe Jesus is our savior--no shit. The question is what percentage of the total Muslim population is represented by the number of known plotters? If you're trying to catch people doing bad things shouldn't you instead focus on patterns of behavior? Would racial profiling have snagged Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols (both white, American born), Jose Padilla (Hispanic, American born), or Richard Reid (English and Jamaican, English born)?

The goal is to stop terrorists, regardless of religious affiliation. Those bombs set by pro-life Christianists are just as deadly as those set by Islamofascists.

But beyond that, this may be the worst time in modern political history to jump ship to the Republican party unless you're coming from the far-right fringe of nutter politics. With Tea Partiers, Birthers and Tenthers purging the existing ranks of actual, loyal Republicans because they don't hew to a strict conservative orthodoxy, do you really think this is the right time to come in as a Yellow Dog? That D after your name doesn't fade fast.

Now, Frum admits early on that the brand is beat up and that the recent reaction on the right has been damaging to conservatism at best, and political suicide at worst. And he's right that simply being the opposition party isn't enough to get back to being the governing party:

The American right that has emerged since 2008, of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, is a movement of cultural protest. But protest is not enough. Americans won't reject even a badly damaged incumbent unless they see a credible alternative.

That's true, just ask John Kerry. The problem is that Frum doesn't lay blame squarely where it belongs: at the feet of neoconservatism itself and its best/worst practitioner, George W. Bush. He tries to pretend that the results of the 2006 and 2008 stompings the GOP took weren't so much a shift in political winds as a minor adjustment and a message to Republicans, who the populace would really rather have in office (despite subsequent drubbings by voters).

...that rejection did not mean they wanted to hand the keys to the car to an unchecked Democratic Party. Americans want balance in their politics.

No, they don't. They want competence in their government. Most Americans are only casually associated with a political party and most of them could barely tell you what their affiliated party's platform is. They don't are about balancing the parties and triangulation and political realignment. That's for dorks like us.

The silliest part of the essay though is when he tries to revise with a list of five bullets what constitutes American conservatism. Problem is that three of the five describe the antithesis of neoconservatism and George W. Bush.

OK, maybe. I think these are more examples of how Ron Reagan and Jack Kemp were practical despite their conservative ideology, but I'll accept this for argument's sake. Just like Nixon establishing the EPA because the facts (like rivers bursting into flames) told him something needed to be done to clean up industry.

Second: They were scientific and details-oriented. They cared about getting the facts right. The reckless disregard of accuracy shown by those who invented the "death panels" charge was utterly alien to them. And they could admit when they were wrong.

If anyone was less concerned with science, disinterested in details and unable to admit wrong than George W. Bush...And let's not forget dopes like Don Rumsfeld, David Addington and Paul Wolfowitz, men who obstructed intelligence to arrive at predetermined ends.

Third: While expressing deep respect for the role of religion in society, they were firmly secular in their approach.

So how do we explain George W. Bush, a man who thought God had literally guided him to invade Iraq?

Fourth: They took for granted that politics demanded intelligence and substantial knowledge. They admired politicians like Sens. Henry Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. That's a far cry from this past year's dismissal of brains.

Again, nearly all accounts of the Bush administration point to the fact that diversity of opinion and facts, regardless of desired outcome, were universally shunned and discouraged. Today's hyperventilating is simply an extension of that.

Fifth: The original neoconservatives felt a deep optimism about the United States. They despised alienated radicals who flung epithets like "fascist" at U.S. institutions and leaders. Now similarly angry talk is being heard from an alienated right. In 1967, Ronald Reagan signed a law forbidding the carrying of loaded guns in public. Today guns are again reappearing at political rallies—and this time there is no Reagan to say no.

Granted. There's a genuine patriotism within all conservative circles but it sometimes manifests itself as pat jingoism and simple xenophobia. But we all get carried away sometimes and heaven knows there are lefties who embrace Marxism a little too comfortably to jive with my ideals of American individual freedoms, but I digress...

Funny thing is that the five bullets Frum mentions better describes the original conservatism, which is at least more intellectually defensible. As a tongue-in-cheek closer Frum asks if they should simply rename the movement "neoneoconservatism," but I think retroneoconservatism is more accurate.