Political Junkie Gossip

Christopher Buckley, son of the Conservative Icon and recently departed William F. Buckley, has been fired (officially, he "resigned") by the National Review, an Iconic Conservative Magazine which his father founded. The reason for all the hullabaloo? He endorsed Barack Obama for President on his blog.

See Buckley's explanation for what happened here, where he compares his experience to that of his colleague, "the lovely Kathleen Parker," who as Readers well know, has been rendered a pariah by the Right for pointing out Palin's ridiculousness. Entitled "Sorry Dad I Was Fired," the online article is a must read for those interested in the currently caustic state of the GOP.

Opines Buckley:

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

So, to paraphrase a real conservative, Ronald Reagan: I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.

Meanwhile, on his Townhall blog, Matt Lewis quips:

Buckley's farewell column also (intentionally, in my estimation) confuses George W. Bush Republicanism with conservatism.

His father was a truly great man, so this one stings. All I can say is this is unfortunate, but I think NR is justified in their decision.

Now they should oust Parker, as well ...

Fighting over the meaning of Reagan's Legacy, fighting over the meaning of Conservatism. Struggles of Epic proportions, over the concepts of dissent and even independent thinking.

Heh. Folowing the GOP dynamic at this moment is like watching a Cockroach War, folks.

*****BREAKING NEWS UPDATE (HEH)*****

Matt Lewis just posted a follow-up to Buckley's resignation.

Read this line, Chums, and read it well:

Christopher Buckley's departure from National Review serves to highlight the emerging chasm between traditional mainstream conservatives (my definition would include men like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh as well-known examples of this) -- and the conservative intelligentsia.

Yay. It is nice to see the phrase "men like Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh."

And then there's this gem:

If Buckley believes John McCain isn't conservative enough, that is a legitimate and honorable position to take. However, there are many options available to him, short of endorsing a socialist.

Oh. But you've got to read the whole thing because really the possibilites are endless. You wouldn't, for example, want to go on with your day without this rattling around in your brain:

I would prefer a dumb conservative to a smart liberal (in fact, I would prefer a stupid liberal to a smart liberal).

Welcome to Crazytown. The problems with the Bush Admin are that it was too liberal. Obama is a socialist. "Intelligentsia" is the most horrid pejorative of them all.

The Opposite of a Salute

Via the AP. Wag of the Finger

Los Angeles police are looking for a man who beat up a 16-year-old girl at a McDonald's counter after she complained about him cutting in line.

Tip of the Hat to the New Nader Ad; Or, First and Foremost, Harrogate is "In the Tank" for Progressive Politics

He damned sure aint talking to a parrot in this one. Great use of music, too. And nothing in this Ad is untrue. Indeed, the truth may be hard to take for Progressive Democrats (those that are left) to take.



Ouch. Is it any wonder that The Nader is now polling at a Staggering 10% among Ohioans????? 10% of Independents in the State of Ohio. Just think about that for a moment.

Keep ignoring these issue at thy peril, Obama. Actually. Unfortunately. It is at all our Peril.

OMFG. Or, One Man and His Parrot Take on the Empire

The recent Nader Ad. Harrogate just noticed that Andrew Sullivan also has this up on his blog but--SURPRISE--all Sully has to say about it is, it's "weird." So no Tip of the Hat for Andrew "Reagan Was Awesome But Gays Should Have Rights" Sullivan.

But, friends. Here is the unvarnished crux of the matter. Nader continues to make noise on his web site and in Ads and in his fundraising, about the "Media Blackout" on his candidacy.

Honesty demands first of all that we acknowledge that there has been a Media Blackout on his campaign. Reality would dictate that as close as this election is, the fact of his candidacy (and Barr's, for that matter) would be getting serious play.

Harrogate has made arguments in the past that this is also an issue of respect. 6% of the electorate nationally is a lot, and Nader's power in swing states looks to be huge.

But there is something else. Harrogate calls it the People Like To Pretend To Be Surprised factor. During the 2000 campaign Nader was also blacked out by the corporate media. But then, after the cataclysm known as Election Day 2000, media pundits couldn't get enough, talking about Nader. They went on and on about how he torpedoed Gore in New Hampshire, for example.

So here's a prediction that really shouldn't be necessary. Right now Nader doesn't exist as far as Barack Obama and the corporate media are concerned. But following election day, if Obama loses in a squeaker. And Nader carries between 4-6% in places like New Hampshire and Michigan, and McCain has won those states.

Then people on television will talk a lot about Nader.

Really, how stupid is that? Why not address the issue now when something can perhaps be done about it?

So here ye go, Readers. One very Assy McGeee kind of man, and his parrot, take on the corporate media behemoth. Ignore this at thy peril.

The Hagel Talk Still Won't Go Away

Well, given the proximity of the convention, Obama's text message announcement of his Veep pick ought to be coming in any day. Speaking of: Have any Board Members signed up to get the text message as soon as he sends it?

Whatever the case may be, until that hallowed moment descends upon us like golden raindrops from above, the Hagel talk follows Tim Gunn's advice, and carries on.

This has been going on for a while. And Hagel as the Dems' VP nominee would be Theater of the Absurd Indeed, sort of an ecstatic mix of Brecht and Mamet and then whoever it was that wrote Legally Blonde 2, all rolled into one.

Harrogate's prediction: No Way in Hell Obama will do it. But even that seems less a product of ideological conviction than because of the sheer hubris it would take.

Obama, Orwell, & the 'O for God's Sake' Category

O For God's Sake. Now, Harrogate thought it mildly amusing when, after the invasion of Iraq, Bush supporters began the "'W' stands for Women" tripe. But then comes this:

George Bush had his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc.

.....Some are even begining to whisper that Obama's running mate is going to be one of the Aggie Yell Leaders.....

"You interlace your hands in a circle, the interlacing being a symbol of different types of people coming together and the circle a symbol of unity," he says.

.....But then maybe this stuff isn't so funny after all.....

"We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm."

As a human being, Harrogate is embarrassed.

Ancient Fart Joke

Reuters reports that researchers have traced the world's oldest recorded joke--a fart joke--back to 1900 B.C.E. It was a saying among the Sumerians, who resided in what is now southern Iraq.

Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap.

It's been quite some time since I've studied the Akkadian language--the successor to ancient Sumerian, beginning around the second millennium B.C.E.--but I think the joke would have sounded something like this in its original tongue (NB: my translation here attempts to represent the text phonetically for my audience at TRS; obviously, it is not an attempt to reconstruct the text as it would have been read by Sumerians, as their cuneiform writing system is impossible to decipher for those who have not studied the language, and also my keyboard does not have the characters necessary to render the text such):

licunim sutatra mu naka shi ni petikkatra tam triali; tu yu mistress no ppfffttt a dkratanum pruni.

The Nader: 6 Percent and Rapidly Rising. But, Should His Voice Be Included in Debates?

He's so . . . well . . . ASSY. And, in so many ways. But yet, even challenging, let alone deconstructing, the real veracity of his actual politics is an enterprise to which our flacid Media are notably unequal. As they do in just about every substantive area, they simply choose to murder through omission.

Earlier this month, John Nichols had an interesting piece on The Nader, as well as other fringe candidates. The article provides an illuminating, if only cursorily so, glimpse at the state of multiparty politics in the United States.

Writes Nichols:

A striking 6 percent of Americans who are likely to vote this fall back an alternative candidate: Independent Ralph Nader. Another 3 percent back Libertarian Bob Barr.

Those are some of the highest percentages in years for independent or third-party candidates. And they matter, especially Nader's 6 percent.

And then there's this:

Will any independent or third-party candidate reach the 10 percent threshold this year? Nader appears to be best positioned to do so. Despite scant media attention, he has polled in the 4 to 6 percent range in several polls. Getting up to 10 percent will be hard. But as Obama softens his positions on civil liberties, political reform, trade policy, presidential accountability and ending the war -- issues on which Nader has long focused -- his prospects improve.

And one does not have to be a Nader supporter to hope, for the sake of democracy, that they improve sufficiently to earn him a place in the Google/YouTube debate and other fall matchups. And if Nader gets in, why not Barr and likely Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney?

The only real quibble that emerges from Nichols' pro-republicanism piece is his assertion that Obama's positions have changed in the recent news cycle. But this is far, far more a reflection of the news cycle itself than of Obama, who has for the most part been pretty damned consistently honest about who and what he is. All pathetic gnashing of teeth in certain quadrants of the blogosphere notwithstanding.

Of Crows, Ice Cream, and Wedding Rings: Jouissance, Assy McGee style

The more Harrogate sees of this blog, the more he likes it. Things keep going the way they're going, somebody's gonna get blogrolled.....

It's Fun When You Discover Something; or, the Virtuosities of Assy McGee

In the first two installments, Readers were acquainted with Assy McGee's engagement with themes related to Rhetorics of Masculinity, State-Sponsored Brutality, and of course Dennis Leary's Lyrical Interrogation of the White Male Suburbanite.

Herein we see another thematic side of Assy McGee--the Sexy Side.

Assy McGee Reprised

Here is another video, movingly entitled "A Salute to Assy (asshole)"



The song, "I'm An Asshole," written and performed by the great Dennis Leary, is truly ingenious. A lyrical snippet:

I use public toilets and I piss on the seat
I walk around in the summer time saying "how about this heat?"

Im an asshole (hes an asshole,what an asshole)
Im an asshole (hes the worlds biggest asshole)

Sometimes I park in handicapped spaces
While handicapped people make handicapped faces

Many excellent comments follow this video on the You Tube Page, by the way. The first one sums up Harrogate's very feelings on the subject:

Assy McGee. I didn't believe it when I first saw the ads, and perhaps I still don't believe. But a cop drama about a talking ass that shoots people is, without a doubt, the pinnacle of human artistic creation in my opinion. Genius. Hilarious. Love this show.

(Harrogate's emphasis, borne out of love for the wording)

A Word on Assy McGee

Sigh. Why the hell didn't someone tell Harrogate about this cartoon? Apparently it has been a'happening since 2006.

There is no way to overstate the significance. Things need to be rethought, once we become cognizant of such a thing. Indeed, one might go so far as to say that Assy McGee changes everything.