"drill here, drill now"

I thought it was "Drill, baby, drill!"

When stupid gets to $100 a barrel, I want the drilling rights to Michael Steele's head.

Down with the Democratic and Obama triumphalism.

Republicans and conservative deserve all the mockery that can be heaped upon them, but if you do not take any notice of the obvious shortcomings of Dems and Obama on many substantive issues, you run the risk of setting yourself up to be like those you mock.

What you're overlooking, Steve, is that those things -did- work for some Republicans. The ones who are still employed. You think they're worried about the health of the -party-?

Ahem. Scoreboard, MFers.

Pennsylvania

Obama 3,276,363 55%
McCain 2,655,885 44%

If the GOP wants to run 2008 again, and again, and again, that's fine with me. They just oughta consider replacing symbols: turn in the elephant on Wile E. Coyote.

And they still think it's 1968 too - with all the ACORN as Weathermen/SDS and culture war stuff.

"Republicans and conservative deserve all the mockery that can be heaped upon them, but if you do not take any notice of the obvious shortcomings of Dems and Obama on many substantive issues, you run the risk of setting yourself up to be like those you mock."

Too late. Hell I'd settle for just an interesting post about right wing talking points at this point never mind a substantive post about current events.

It's as if Steve watches Fox news and reads Drudge all day.

This is how their whole policy machine works. If it sounds good, then it shall be, never mind if it's inaccurate, if it's ineffective, that doesn't matter because it feels like it's right.

Now Steele is the bitter one.

Republicans conflate politics with marketing. Politics is policy and governance. Republicans have decisively proven that they can't do either one of these, but they CAN foment public opinion. At least, they have been able to in the past and think they still can. The problem for them today is that their marketing campaign is a constant re-hash for products that the public knows are crap.

It's called informed consumerism. Even if the R's ever figure it out, it will still be too late for them because they are the products. In order to get better market share in the future, they'll have to become something else. That would mean a completely new cast, with completely new ideas.

I know I said it was the right wing talking points I objected to in Steve's posts, but I'd like to amend that. I just want to bitch. Constantly. About anything Steve writes. Because that's what I do. All I do.

I know I've said it before (and I know I'm not the only one) but it's divide-and-conquer by whittling. It's a single drop of water every minute for thousands of years eroding the bedrock on which it lands. Every time the right makes a new claim against Obama OR re-introduces an old claim, it adds to the narrative of their own making that there's a whole lot wrong with Barack Hussein Obama. Keep talking about debunked talking points, then claim that there must be something to those points if people keep talking about them. Then introduce NEW talking points and add them to the pile. Pretty soon, THEY'RE the points that must mean something because people keep bringing 'em up, whilst the next generation of character attacks begins.

They know there probably won't be one big thing that turns the people off to Obama en masse. After all, if the Clinton still enjoyed a net favorable approval rating after Monicagate, Obama could kick his new puppy for distance and still be loved by the ever-expanding Democratic base. But wth each wave of attacks, they just might whittle away a little bit of the fence sitter who are currently leaning left. All this energy, the screaming, the tea-bagging (heh), the criticizing of the President during international crises (a big no-no just a few months ago during the days of dubya), is all designed not to ratify the base, but to give mods and indies who are currently leaning left reason to pause, and think that maybe Obama ain't all that. Get that momentum on their side, and see if they can catch a wave. Remember, they're not REALLY about populism. 50 percent plus one voter and in the eyes of the right, that's a mandate.

What's really sad/funny/scary-all-at-once is that, as shrill as they are now, it's only going to get worse. It'll get worse if people start agreeing with them, it'll get worse if people DON'T start agreeing with them. They've decided to fight irrelevancy kicking and screaming. This is an awful thing to hope or predict, but I really think, when the teabagging (heh) starts tomorrow, a lot of America is going to see a side to the right they don't like. An ugly side. The real truth about a good chunk of the teabaggers (heh) will come to light tomorrow. Someone's gonna think it's a good idea to light an Obama mannequin in effigy, probably whilst hung from a noose. Someone else will think it funny to Sieg Heil while this is going on. Others will be doing the salute WITHOUT thinking it funny. Someone's gonna be caught on camera shouting "kill him! Kill the n*gger!" And while all of this will be truly awful, it will also hopefully be the one thing that drives anyone with half a brain in his or her head forever away from the right, from Fox News, from everything the GOP currently stands for.

Here's something people seem to be missing: what do the oil companies want to do? Well, the number of drilling rigs operating in the US is down 40% from this time last year. The reason is obvious: oil prices are down, so it's just not profitable to operate them in the marginal fields of the US. But Republicans want to force the oil companies to drill here and now against their better interests. What happened to the free market? Apparently, Republicans are so concerned with with their desire to despoil the environment that they forgot that the oil companies don't actually want to "drill here, drill now." They want to drill somewhere else where they can make money. They'll drill here someday when they can actually turn a profit at it.

With every passing day, Republican political leaders seem better suited for participation in some sort of time capsule project than engaging the American electorate with any kind of timely or common sense policy debate! -Kevo

Slappy Magoo hits it right on the head. From what I've seen on "teh internets" the tea-baggers feel so self-righteously justified, that they will not shy away from ugly, inflammatory, classist, sexist, racist rhetoric. In fact, the more cameras they see, the more "emboldened" they become. I intended to TIVO F*cksnews, and watch with a big bowls of popcorn.

Nice to see Republicans embrace recycling with such gusto.

Well it's not like there are going to be any surprises when we see who turns up for the tea parties--it's going to be the same gangs of bloodthirsty lunatics who turned out for the Sarah Palin rallies. As when the House Republicans were congratulating themselves on their unanimous opposition to economic recovery, the tea parties might make the dead enders feel a little better about themselves, but they're not going to do anything for their overall popularity.

Someone get these guys a calendar. They seem to think it's 2008

Looking to the past is what conservatives do best. Why would we expect anything else from them?

gussie nailed it in post #3. Their actions make perfect sense if you abandon the assumption that they're trying to restore the GOP as a party that can win national elections. Right now it's all about keeping incumbents in office for them, and that demands this sort of foolishness that their base has been trained to respond to.

When stupid gets to $100 a barrel, I want the drilling rights to Michael Steele's head.

That will be a while...we already have eight years of stupid stockpiled. Too bad we can't export it.