Stories like this are why, despite my anger at Obama's duplicity with the "moderates" in ruining the HCR bill, I am not screaming "KILL THE BILL!"

"Kill the bill" leads to turning the entire government back over to these idiots.

I won't lift a finger to actively help the President at this point, but I'm not going to openly wish for a GOP majority.

is it treasonous for me to wish the obama admin WOULD be this strong-armed? hell, it's only 44,000 americans dying every year.

but it got me thinking: might there be a base or two we could threaten to close in connecticut?

The thing is, this kind of thing sinks down into the public consciousness. It doesn't have to be true. The public doesn't really look at the facts of each allegation, they are uneasy about all the noise, and the volume of it has resonance. That's what is turning them against the Dems.

The GOP knows what it's doing. And they don't care whether they are proved wrong or not, because that follow-up isn't as loud as the original accusation. And the Dems are completely incompetent in managing their message. You can't just keep being reactive, you need to keep up your own steady stream of noise. Laughing and snickering at preposterous allegations and waiting a day or two to deny them isn't working. The Dems have yet to develop a comprehensive media management strategy, and it's killing them.

Sanity has run aground for our friends on the Right!

You use dumb as a descriptor, but a more apropos "d" word is dangerous! Any bad thing could happen when such a willingness to distort, lie, and fabricate reporting, and just plain old hate others becomes the accepted political discourse.

What a shameful foolish person this Michael Goldfarb seems to be! -Kevo

Perhaps at some point in the near future Obama will realize that this quest for bipartisanship is a fool's errand. There is no interest on the other side for fairness and honest dialogue; thus, they do not deserve to be continually given the benefit of the doubt.

There is no doubt. Let's hope the next three years will not be like the first one with respect to this. They are used to playing hardball. Take it to them.

Lying, McCarthyite sludge who hate our country and will do everything in their power to bring it down - that is the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Is it irresponsible to say that? It is irresponsible not to.

The rethugnicans are just following their tried and true playbook.

1) Somebody creates a rumor.
2) Rushbo, Insanity, et. al. repeat it.
3) The corporate media has endless discussion of the 'he said - he said' variety.
4) The base of the rethug party knows that it must be true.
5) A large percentage of 'independent' voters become convinced that there 'must be something there'.

This process was honed and fine-tuned during the 1990's and has worked successfully time after time. The dumbocraps have never found the stones or a methodology to fight this process. Why should the rethugnicans change their game plan when it works so well?

Hold that thought

Wait. Someone accused the Administration of playing hard ball? With a straight face?

God, if only the Obama administration would use strong-arm tactics like this. A single-payer system could be in operation by now if it did.

1 - this goldfarb guy is just a "A-team nihilist" wannabe. He is insane and immoral enough, but just too stoopid and infantile to carry the weight of the heavy-duty nihilist's production of quality bright shiny stuff.

Goldfarb has a history, you can casey stengel it with The Google.

2 - i'd love for someone to drag these guys out an a national-international stage with President Hopey-Changey taken 'em on.

At least two at a time. Obama could destroy Corn-fed Nelson and joey Lieberman in 10 minutes "on the merits" and on their piggy lies and ignorance.

Unfortunately, Hopey Changey aint interested in that work, that fight, nor does he seem to see the urgency for a country quite that decent any time soon.

"The Senate Armed Forces Committee, apparently, should operate as a fact-checker for right-wing blogs."

Why would they need a fact-checker, Steve? They don't need no steenkin' facts! GOPers don't do facts. Facts and logic only get in their way.

Dear GOP:

I will save you the trouble of crafting a strongly worded letter: Why don't you go f*ck yourself!

Here are the Senators. Usual bunch of nuts. I'm ashamed of mine-Isakson. He taught my kids sunday school class. I'm firing off a letter to him ASAP.
John Ensign of Nevada, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, John Thune of South Dakota, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Kit Bond of Missouri, Michael Enzi of Wyoming, George LeMieux of Florida, Pat Roberts of Kansas, David Vitter of Louisiana, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississipi, John Cornyn of Texas, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Bob Bennett of Utah, Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Why the fuck isn't he doing this sort of thing?

Yes, if Republicans take over it will be horrible. People have to made hard choices, and I agree with a lot of what the outraged are saying here - but if we don't pull together on Election Day it will be regretted. There must be *other ways* to pick and influence better Democrats.

PS: Anyone remember that Landrieu used to brag of how often she voted with GW Bush?

'Member w-a-a-a-a-y back in ... oh, yesterday, I believe it were ... when I said that what you called "the height of cynicism" wasn't even halfway up the Republican's Infinitely Cynical Ladder Of Cynicism™?

Today's little gem still isn't halfway up their ladder, but yesterday's height of cynicism has to use binoculars to glimpse the soles of today's cynicism booties. And just wait for tomorrow! Those zany Republicans ... whatever will they think of next?

(I wish there were some other political party whose members would have spine enough to point this out. Or even Professional Journalists might do, if we could imagine such a thing. But no ... say, is it still too early, in Polite Society, to start drinking?)

...but if we don't pull together on Election Day it will be regretted. -neil b.

It's cute how you still think there is a chance.

2010, record low turnout. The political process has already turned off most of the new voters from 2008, and by the time 2010 rolls around, the progressive base will be long done donating.

Without the money and time from the activists, do you think the Democrats can win? And why should the activists support a party who only pretends to care for a few months every couple of years.

They had their chance and squandered it because, for the most part, they're just as greedy and inept as their counterparts.

The GOP leadership is not concerned with truth, they prefer truthiness. And since their base was convinced Obama was going to ban guns on Day 1, the idea that he'd close the Strategic Air Command in an attempt to impose his government-controlled-health-care-system must sound very "truthy" to them.

It does, sadly, highlight how little the President is actually doing to make the health care reform he promised us into a reality. The saddest part about Goldfarb's fantasy is that it is so far from true.

yeah, I wish Obama was ever this tough with the corporate whore Dems in the Senate. He only gets tough with Dean and real progressives.
Thanks.

Why the fuck isn't he doing this sort of thing?

Because the President doesn't unilaterally decide base closings?

Because the President doesn't unilaterally decide base closings?

But, but, he's Adolf Maosolini! He can do anything he wants to do!

Rep. Bachmann said so!

Perhaps it's because Conservatives are actually more likely to believe a falsehood after it has been refuted.

_http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/14/AR2008091402375_pf.html

Base closures, as noted by others, don't work this way. However, I imagine that stimulus projects are more likely to have discretionary allocations. Seems to me if the GOP wants to cut government spending, the Democrats should oblige and cut stimulus construction from southern states, Nebraska, and yes, Connecticut, etc. Why should DeMint et al. be able to spout his stuff without penalty -- cut from their states, and let them know.

Reminds me of that scene in Wag the Dog where they start the rumor about the nonexistent "B-3 Bomber". Pretty soon everyone is talking about the B3 bomber.

You use the phrase "conservative thinking", but what you describe isn't conservative and certainly isn't thinking. "Republican invective", maybe.

Steve,
To quote the immortal Criswell, "Can you prove that it didn't happen?"

It's too bad the White House didn't take advantage of the occasion to deny that they'd put out a contract on several senators who were standing in the way of the Health Care bill.
:)

Oh, wow -- did you really cite Plan 9 From Outer Space, RZ?? Hilarious! And given the way the Republicans operate, completely dead-on.

So Sen. Pat Roberts wants an immediate investigation of an unsubstantiated rumor promoted by the ninny Goldfarb, though Roberts spent years trying to impede investigations of well documented scandals concerning the Bush administration's abuse of intelligence to promote an invasion of Iraq? Priceless.

Simple, they know Twain was right when he said "a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on."

I have no problem believing our THUG-IN-CHIEF is capable of threatening Nelson over his vote to pass the health care monstrosity...that no one has even seen yet !!

They bribed Landreui ...why won't they threaten Nelson ??

What?!?

Michael "MUST DESTROY PRIVATE BEAUCHAMP" Goldfarb got something he reported ... WRONG???!?!

Surely you must be thinking of another Michael Goldfarb, and not the one who works for William "Dan Quayle's Brain" Kristol.

Heaven forfend.

Maybe you're thinking of Lucianne Goldberg's kid. What was his name again? He wrote a book or something, Librarian Fatuism, I think it was called.

WOW!!! Nice Post!Kind Regards

Thank you!!!! 1000 times!!!

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