Hurtling Headlong Into the Past

by digby


I'm enjoying all the dispatches from CPAC this year, as always. (They are such sad, wacky, mixed up kidz.) But I am particularly enjoying all the hand wringing about how the Republicans should deal with their minority status.

Perhaps they should listen to one of their own wise spiritual and intellectual leaders on the subject just a few short years ago. I'm sure they'll feel better:

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with [the majority.] Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.” (Grover Norquist, Washington Post, 11/4/2004)



And here's some really good news. Newtie's got his groove back:

We already have more than enough evidence of what this administration thinks of the American people. For instance, Attorney General Eric Holder's speech in which he describes a nation of cowards!

[boooo]

Let me say to Attorney General Holder, I welcome an opportunity to have a dialog with you about cowardice. Anywhere, anytime....!


Yeaaaaah! (No word on whether or not he's willing to have a dialog on race, which is what Holder was talking about. But whatever.)

He's got his old nasty, mendacious, evil leprechaun mojo back and I couldn't be happier. If there's one thing the country is sorely missing is a creepy, neurotic, pseudo-intellectual conservative firebrand like Gingrich out there throwing down the gauntlet. Nobody does it better.


Update: Why do I bother?

Here's the great Charles Pierce:

No. You're idiots and your mothers are embarrassed by every single one of you. It's almost rush hour. Go panhandle outside the Heritage Foundation now. And Accuracy in Media remains one of the most blissfully ironic names in the political lexicon. Once, when writing about John McCain for Esquire, just at the very beginning of the Full Monica, I went to CPAC. (In those days, it should be noted, McCain didn't have three votes in the hall.) What you had there then was what you have there now--the distilled essence of what Krugman was talking about when he mentioned Beavis and Butthead in relationship to the conservative movement the other night. It was at high tide back in '98. They were smug in the knowledge that their political ascendancy was everlasting, because all their congressional idols, superstar columnists, and important radio hosts told them so. Now, the bag of tricks is empty, the country hates them and what few ideas they have, when it thinks of them at all, which is not often, and the "movement" is a slab of rotting meat by the side of the road that even the vultures won't touch, blackening in the sun and drawing flies.

Look at this decaying lump of abject fail. Kids, in every place save his own mind, Newt Gingrich ended up a profound political failure. Rick Santorum lost. Badly. Global-warming denial? At least invite some UFOlogists to really liven things up. Election fraud? From the party of Katherine Harris? Citizen-led reform? In a country that has demonstrated its revulsion toward all you stand for in two consecutive elections, and that's now lining up at almost 60 percent behind a huge big-gubmint stimulus plan that makes Arthur Laffer cry like a child every night? And The Fairness Doctrine--boogedy-boogedy--is not coming back. Squint Scarborough is a no-hoper but, Jesus Christ with a hockey stick, is there anything Tucker Carlson won't do for a buck?

You want to rebuild your "Movement," such as it was? Then get it out of the f**king Phantom Zone. Come to the sad conclusion that it's not 1998 any more, that the country's in actual trouble, and nobody of any substance takes you and your "issues" seriously. You want to rebuild the Republican party? Lose the phone numbers of every one of these clowns. These are people who never learned that a sneer is not logic and that a string of adjectives is not an argument. All that matters is Pissing Off The Liberals. Do that, and they'll adore you. That's how a public Froot Loop like Michelle Bachmann gets a featured speaking role, and that's why any sensible Republicans would look at this gathering and feel the cold, dead hands of Zachary Taylor and the rest of the Whigs settling ominously on their shoulders. FWIW, Sarah Palin declined to attend. Maybe she is the future, after all.



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