The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Jeff Goldstein Isn’t Ready to Don His Saffron Robe and Chant, ‘Hare Mitt-nu’

Posted on | April 21, 2012 | 31 Comments

“Mother, do not wonder that my loyalty is growing weak. . . . I am sick and tired of the disaster and the fools that bring disaster upon us.”
– letter from a soldier in the 79th New York Infantry, 1863

Seedubya today was cracking cynical jests on Twitter, whence I derived the headline joke. Speaking of headlines and jokes . . .

Rick Perry endorses David Dewhurst
for Hutchison’s Senate seat

Not a joke, but quite laughable: Alleged populist sides with GOP Establishment against Tea Party-backed dynamo Ted Cruz?

Jeff Goldstein — who has been on a tear lately, as Mike Hendrix notes — decided there were some bridges that badly needed burning:

Crazy how all that online support that started out with Perry (and was simultaneously very vocal in its attacks on Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Santorum, et al.,) seems now to have solidified behind Romney.
I mean, who would have thought it, right? These people go to TEA Party conferences! On stipends! And are given speaking roles. To stand up for conservative principles.
So they have to be conservatives, no? I mean, they are our conservative leaders, if you judge by their online influence.

It’s almost as if certain people were peddling their asses like cell-block punks trying to hustle up the price of a carton of Newports.

NTTAWWT, just don’t kid yourself that the rest of us can’t see what you’re doing. Maybe this will all work out just like you’ve planned it, and on Nov. 7 you’ll be accepting congratulations on the key role you played in Romney’s glorious triumph.

My hunch — and hey, maybe it’s only a hunch — is that this is as tragic a miscalculation as your ride on the Rick Perry bandwagon turned out to be, and all you’ll get is a sore ass, with no Newports to show for it.

Coalition politics in a two-party system requires each of us to decide which compromises we will accept and on what terms, so I try not to be too judgmental or intolerant about such things. What genuinely annoys me is irresponsible incompetence in politics of the sort that permits people to advocate bad policies and strategies which fail, and yet those who bring about such predictable failures — “the fools that bring disaster” — suffer no loss of influence as a result.

Demoralization spreads in the ranks as the troops begin to realize the “leaders” are members of a sort of Old Boys Club, and that their leadership status has nothing to do with actual merit, except in terms of their superior ability to curry favor with fellow club members.

After a while of watching this, you start noticing little things:

Oh, that’s sweet. Even as @NewtGingrich campaign was drowning in debt, it found $12k to pay daughter’s company.

Little things like that you notice, and you remember when Newt was also peddling his ass. But now what’s he got to show for it?

A sore ass. And no Newports.

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Category: Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Protein Wisdom, Rick Perry

Comments

  • DarthLevin

    But… but… isn’t the whole point of this election to *punish* Obama??!?

  • http://powip.com vermontaigne

    Newports? You raaaaacist!

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    No, no, no…Kools would be racist.

  • Quartermaster

    Menthol Kools people. I can’t believe the naivete here.

  • Rube

     Q: Why did @BarackObama rub the dog’s belly?
    A: To work in the spices. #ObamaEatsDogs

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    In the end, we all have a choice to make.  It’s a binary switch, an either/or, there are no “third ways” or alternatives and you cannot vote “present” because that in itself aids one side.

    For some of us, it’s an easy choice.   Others may find it too traumatic for their delicate psyches to endure, and we hope they seek the help they need.

  • newrouter

     with a baby named “fail”

  • AnonymousDrivel

    I think this is the GOP’s last chance. Follow the lead of the Tea Party or go Whig-lite. The nation cannot and will not sustain the current trajectory whichever RINO or Progressive is at the helm. A) The numbers do not lie and B) history repeats and it has repeatedly ended in collapse from within.

    Conservatives tried to warn those out of state that Perry was not the savior they projected onto him. I wonder if the latest iteration of Establishmentism (the anti-Cruz campaign) will get memory-holed like so much before? Rhetorical, of course.

    This election is the line in the sand if we haven’t crossed it already and it goes beyond just the Presidential slot.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    Oh come on now, just grab a tambourine and repeat the Hare Mitt-Nu mantra, it will feel good. Just start off with a relaxing round of Rock-A-Bye Ricky.

    Rock A Bye Ricky
    Primary Loss
    When The Votes Counted
    Mitt Will Be Boss
    No Brokered Convention
    No Floor Fight To Call
    Then Down Will Go Ricky
    Have A Hanky Y’all

     As for Perry, he’s just decided its in his long term best interests to mend fences as opposed to burning bridges. He wants to be next in line, dammit.

  • Adobe_Walls

    @rsmccain:disqus 
    Your War between the States quote is very apt for it was not the officers but the rank and file that grasped the imperative to entrench and build barricades in front of them. Like their leaders then, ours now have no clue that we are fighting a very different war than they suppose. Like theirs, ours now prefer to think that they’ve been schooled for  their positions of authority and are therefore competent as long as that whiskey ration keeps coming all must be well with the army.

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    Kools only come in menthol! (Full flavor or Mild).

    Get with the program! LOL!

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    Hey Pagan, I’m glad you’re at peace and zen and all that.  But one little bit of advice (because I love ya bro): when they hand out the Dixie cups, don’t drink it.
    Just a little PSA…because I care.

  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

     How can we punish someone just for “being a nice guy who’s in over his head?” when his big programs just need “fixing” with “smarter government?”

    The only folks going to be punished this fall are the American people and the conservative movement.

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    You guys are killing me with this.  

    At least you didn’t bum Virginia Slims from your mom.  

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    If you want to go third party, do what you need to do.  I still think we have to get rid of Barack Obama, and then get more conservatives in Congress and local and state government and watch Romney for any unacceptable deviation.  

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/this-is-lot-worse-than-eating-dog-jon.html  

    I see this and I think we have to get Barack Obama out of office.  That is job one right now.  

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     I must have shrunk about two foot, because I get the feeling I should know what you’re talking about but it still went over my head.

  • CPAguy

     Johnson, 2012!

  • Rube

     Perry thinks the Establishment Republicans will be around in four years, po boy, he just threw away
    Texas for a two time loss.  It’s our gain to know now.

    Geepers Stacy, you’ve been right all along.

       If I had a dog I’d look just
       like the one Obama ate.

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    Heh…my mama smokes cigars (no really, she does…used to be Marlboros, before that Lucky Strikes; now she says she just wants to cut to the chase because the world’s gone crazy anyway).

  • Pathfinder’s wife

    That’s ok…cigarette?

  • SDN

    There’s always a third choice, Adjoran; fortunately the Founders didn’t listen to Tories like you.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     A lot of people weren’t satisfied with General Washington’s leadership during the AR, many of them would have preferred handing command of the Continental Army over to other generals, such as General Lee, Robert E. Lee’s grandfather. So there were “third party” factions even then. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed then as well. There might have been better generals, such as Lee, in some regards, but none of them had Washington’s overall gifts, and who knows what disaster might have unfolded had Washington been removed from his leadership position. Even if we had still won, it might have changed our entire subsequent history, and not necessarily for the better. For all we know, Lee or some others might have had no compunctions about taking a throne as king of a new American constitutional monarchy. Washington, despite his considerable opposition, managed to prevail, so we’ll never know.

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady
  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    No thanks, I’m trying to quit. It constricts blood flow.

  • Tennwriter

    You went there.

    You dared to compare Mittens to George ‘the indispensable man’ Washington, Father of our Country, etc., etc..

    Swords at sunrise, sir. Bring your second.  :)

  • http://www.granitegrok.com Mike Rogers

    Reminds me of the old schoolboy joke about the Rhinosaurus: RINO meaning money, SoreAss , how he got it.
    And then we have Mittens, whose name spells RMoney.

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

     Not the men, just the situation. Of course, Rick Santorum isn’t exactly another Henry “Lighthorse” Lee himself, let alone another Ronald Reagan.

    And what kind of gentleman challenges a man to a duel and doesn’t offer him his choice of weapons?

  • RichFader

     Perry wants to be next in line? That’s nice for him. Maybe he should have made a better run this time.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    It’s fragging time!

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Thank God for Jeff Goldstein.

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