Your slip is showing

By Mustang Bobby 

Jon Stewart's pithy question about right-wingers and their obsession with intimate acts with barnyard creatures reminds me that there are some people who have some really creepy things lurking around in their subconscious.

For example, last month Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said he was not in favor of marriage equality because he didn't plan on marrying a man. Okay, fine; no one is asking him to. The question is really about those people who want to.

Now we have another member of the Georgia congressional delegation telling us that he’s not interested in gender transition surgery. Via The Huffington Post:

"I don't want to pay for a sex-change operation," [Rep. Paul] Broun told town hall attendees, presumably referring to a proposal, scrapped by the Obama administration late last month, that would have allowed gender confirmation surgeries to be covered under Medicare and Medicaid. "I'm not interested. I like being a boy."

Yeah. Anyone over the age of twenty-one who refers to himself as a "boy" has a few more issues than what's in the fine print of Obamacare. (FYI, such surgeries are not covered. That's up to your insurance company.)

By the way, the news that Mr. Chambliss is not gay was received with great joy amongst those of us who are.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Comeuppance

By Mustang Bobby

Back during the presidential campaign, I noted that one of the good things that could come out of it if President Obama was re-elected would be that folks like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist were beaten badly enough that they went home crying to their mamas. I was being metaphorical, but in a way it seems to be happening, at least to Mr. Norquist and his anti-tax pledge that held thrall over the Republicans:

Sixteen Republican incumbent Republicans and one incumbent senator who signed the pledge lost re-election, and a total of 56 House members or candidates and 24 senators or candidates lost. As a result, a growing number are abandoning the pledge.

The latest to join the trend is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the better-known sycophants in the party. He was preceded by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), although there is doubt that he is any more likely to break with the pledge than he was in the past when it suited him to say it in order to get on TV.

What may be slowly dawning on these folks is that it might not be such a good idea any more to be bound to a man who dreamed up his no-new-taxes pledge when he was in middle school and who still uses the word "poopyhead" in his conversations.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Hypocrisy; or, why Saxby Chambliss should just STFU

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has some advice for President Barack Obama: show some "humility."

In his health-care reform address tonight, "I think he's gonna have to express some humility based on what we've seen around the country this August and that's not his inclination."

Really? Actually, I find Obama to be a deeply humble man. He's incredibly intelligent, yes, not to mention deeply charismatic, but he also knows that there's a lot he doesn't know, that life is itself a learning process.

Well, he's certainly more humble than, oh, say, Saxby Chambliss, who, you may remember, attacked decorated Vietnam War vet and then-incumbent Max Cleland, a Democrat, for not being tough enough on national security. Yes, Max Cleland, a decorated war hero who lost both legs and an arm. Even Republicans were appalled. John McCain called one of the ads in question "worse than disgraceful" and "reprehensible," while Chuck Hagel called the ads "beyond offensive."

How humble one must be to attack a real American hero like Max Cleland for personal political gain.

Dust to dust

By Capt. Fogg

To day he shall be lifted up and to morrow he shall not be found, because he is returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing.

- 1 Macabees 2:63 -

Freedom's Watch, the organization largely funded by a Las Vegas Casino owner, really cared about watching our freedom, I'm sure. That's why they promoted the "War on Terror" so avidly -- and not just because there's big money to be made by marketing fear and demonizing the innocent and righteous. You know, of course, that Ari Fleischer, formerly a paid liar for George W. Bush, was a board member of the far-right, jingoistic group that now seems to be the latest domino to fall. He may be left no other alternative than to seek honest employment.

Since the Bush economy began to piss away the wealth of our nation, people have had less money to piss away themselves at places like The Sands in Las Vegas, whence cometh most of the funds that kept the lobbying group alive. Freedom's Watch hasn't had the budget to play games with our freedom of late, although they did manage to help Saxby Chambliss this year -- the same Chambliss who ran one of the most reprehensible campaigns in American history in 2002, painting war hero opponent Max Cleland as a coward and associate of Osama bin Laden.

So perhaps deep recessions like this one aren't an entirely bad thing. Like death, it sweeps everything away in time, the good, the bad, and the Republican. It's not that there isn't an endless supply of malice, dishonesty, greed and any other kind of evil you can think of ready to take its place, but I enjoy watching the end of Freedom's Watch. Even if justice rarely prevails in this world, in the end everything dies and the smug smiles of arrogant elitists, power mad sociopaths and Republicans in general will have an end.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Symbols of delusion: Chambliss, Cao, Boehner, and the future of the Republican Party

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yesterday at WaPo's The Fix, Chris Cillizza asked if Republicans are "on the march" and concluded that the recent Republican victories in Georgia (Senate) and Louisiana (House) "give Republicans something to rally around" and "lay the foundation for at least the possibility of a comeback in 2010 and beyond."

Oh... really.

While I do not deny that things can change quickly in politics, and that the GOP could make a comeback within the next few years, I'm not sure that any sort of pre-comeback should be read into what happened in two of the reddest states in the country:

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss held on to his Senate seat in last week's run-off election. No surprise there. He was ahead in the polls leading up to the (first) election and he almost reached the 50% threshold the first time around. The fact that a libertarian was on the ballot, and won about 3%, cost him the outright win. True, he expanded his lead in the run-off, but the Republicans poured far more money and resources into the run-off campaign than the Democrats did, with the likes of Sarah Palin stumping for him. In the end, the incumbent won. So what?

Louisiana: Disgustingly corrupt Democratic incumbent William Jefferson lost his bid for re-election in the state's 2nd District to Republican challenger Anh Cao on Saturday. In response, House Minority Leader John Boehner wrote that "[t]he Cao victory is a symbol of our future." True, Cao is untraditionally Republican (he will be only the fourth visible minority in the GOP House caucus, joining three Cuban-Americans), and, true, the 2nd District (which includes New Orleans), where Jefferson (the first black to represent Louisiana in Congress since Reconstruction) has been firmly and comfortably ensconced since he first won the seat way back in 1990, is overwhelmingly Democratic, but was it a win for Cao or a loss for Jefferson? Surely the latter much more than the former. Indeed, according to an analysis of the vote reported by the Times-Picayune, "Jefferson's downfall was largely a product of apathy and confusion among black voters." Had black voters turned out as they did on November 4, Jefferson would have won. Some voters may simply have had enough of Jefferson, at long last, but it was the turnout, or lack thereof, that gave the vote to Cao.

So... that's the "symbol" of the GOP's future? Capitalizing on low turnout against a corrupt incumbent? That's not much of a future.

And... Republicans can "rally around" these two wins? Well, they can rally around whatever they want, including their own delusions, but the two wins don't really "lay the foundation" for anything. Will the new Boehner-inspired strategy be for GOP incumbents like Chambliss to hold on to their seats in tight races and run-offs and for upstart no-names like Cao to topple disgustingly corrupt Democratic incumbents in low-turnout run-offs?

That's not much of a strategy, and certainly not much of a winning one. Then again, maybe it's all the Republicans have.

Chambliss wins in Georgia, Coleman maintains lead in Minnesota

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've been busy this evening writing an article that I hope will soon be published -- more on that if and when -- but I just thought I'd post quickly on the Senate races in Georgia and Minnesota.

Georgia: The run-off was held on Tuesday (today until about 45 minutes ago), and Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss defeated Democratic challenger Jim Martin. And it wasn't close. With 99 percent reporting, Chambliss is up 57 to 43. (He won the initial vote last month 50 to 47 -- or, rather, just under 50 to 47. Why the expanded win? Republicans came out en masse for Chambliss, with the likes of Sarah Palin stumping for him, and it may be that they just wanted it more than the Democrats did. Of course, it could also be that incumbents tend to do well in run-offs. And, of course, Georgia is still a solidly Republican state.)

Minnesota: The recount continues... Democratic challenger Al Franken picked up 37 votes in Ramsey County today, when 171 votes were found to have been uncounted "due to a combined machine malfunction and human error," according to the Star Tribune. Still, with 93 percent of votes recounted (and with more than 6,000 ballots challenged), Republican incumbent Norm Coleman leads by 303. (The Franken camp claims Coleman's lead is just 50.) According to Eric Kleefeld at TPM Election Central, the momentum may be swinging back to Coleman. However, Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight says that his "statistical models," which recently projected Franken the eventual winner, "now show Norm Coleman as the favorite to retain his senate seat, although with a high degree of uncertainty and without accounting the effects of potential rejected absentee ballots."

For my previous updates on the Minnesota recount, see here, here, and here. For all our posts on Minnesota, see here.

With the Republican win in Georgia, the Democrats won't make it to 60 seats in the Senate. But as I and many others have pointed out, though, 60 is something of an artificial threshold (given the obsession with the filibuster). Very few votes in the Senate are strict party-line, and the Democrats should be able to pull over one or two, or more, Republicans on any given vote. But, then, the Democrats will also lose votes. Even with 60 senators, they would hardly be guaranteed of having a filibuster-proof majority on any given vote. The point is, whether it's 58 or 59, the Democrats will have a huge majority in the Senate. If they, and Obama, are able to reach out across the aisle to the few moderate Republicans left, they should be able to get stuff done (not least because there's a huge Democratic majority in the House as well).

Hypocrisy, thy name is McCain

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Actually, hypocrisy is a nice name for it. Jon Chait explains:

In another life, John McCain said this about Saxby Chambliss:

I'd never seen anything like that ad. Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible.

McCain is now going to Georgia to campaign for Chambliss.

There's your "maverick" for you.

(For more on the Georgia run-off between Chambliss and Jim Martin, see here.)

Bum knee; or, why the time is now to rid the Senate of Saxby Chambliss

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to HuffPo's James Boyce, Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, as despicable as ever, "has requested that he actually be excused from the December 2nd runoff against Jim Martin and just be declared the winner."

It's the bum knee, you see, the one that got him out of Vietnam.

Chambliss slimed Vietnam vet Max Cleland in '02, and he's up against another Vietnam vet, Jim Martin, this year. He beat Martin last Tuesday, but he didn't quite get to 50 percent, hence the upcoming run-off.

MyDD's Todd Beeton: "I know we've all spent a lot of time and money helping our Senate candidates win this year but we still have more to do. We need to elect Jim Martin to the Senate not only to avenge Max Cleland's defeat 6 years ago, but we need to do it for all Veterans, to make sure they have a real champion in the Senate."

As TNR's Jason Zengerle reported the other day, it looks like Republican "superstars" Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Giuliani will be campaigning for Chambliss ahead of the run-off vote. HuffPo's Sam Stein is reporting that Obama is "sending aides" to Georgia to work for Martin, "one of the earliest tests of the influence he can wield on the political landscape."

I suspect that Chambliss will win, but this is certainly a fight worth having.