Needlenose

Greg Sargent at The Plum Line has a couple of posts today about the boost of rhetorical adrenaline Democrats have gotten from the reflexive apology Rep. Joe Barton (R – Big Oil’s Pocket) issued to BP CEO Tony Hayward yesterday.  Saying that “Dems are determined not to let the Joe Barton story recede into the background, now that he’s retracted his apology,” Sargent notes:

The DNC has rapidly put together a new ad starring Barton that calls on Republicans to “stop apologizing to big oil” and says that if the GOP takes over the House, Barton will be in charge of the probe into the spill as chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

In a follow-up post, Sargent quotes Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), promising this won’t be the end:

“Joe Barton said publicly where the majority of Republicans stand on energy — protecting the big oil companies,” Van Hollen argued, pointing to the fact that the Republican Study Committee, which has over 100 members, has called the BP escrow fund a “shakedown.” … ”This goes way beyond Joe Barton. It’s part of a larger pattern where Republicans in Congress are on the side of big corporate interests.”

…”We’re going to be making the point again and again that Joe Barton’s comments on big oil [show] Republicans in the House stand on the side of big corporate interests against consumers and taxpayers.“

In fact, Roll Call reports that the DNC has begun fundraising to support the new ad, and David Dayen notes in today’s Roundup that individual Democratic candidates are starting to blast their GOP opponents for remarks similar to Barton’s.

This visceral, who’s-on-your-side framing should be familiar to anyone aware of populist Democratic messaging over the years, and it’s a far sight more potent than the emotionally-drained “party of results” versus “party of no” approach that DNC chairman Tim Kaine was threatening promising a couple of months ago.  (A hint, guys: If unemployment is still hovering between 9.5% and 10% come November, don’t expect that “party of results” stuff to have much resonance.)

But however refreshing it is to hear Democrats forthrightly characterizing Republicans as what they are, it’s equally sobering to think of what it took to reach this point — an epic ecological catastrophe, extended so long that the president’s poll numbers began to be dragged downward, pushing his party to find a potential angle of counterattack.  Before that, it was all about mealy-mouthed “bipartisanship,” pragmatism, and attempts at partnering with politicians and interest groups diametrically opposed to the needs and wants of ordinary Americans.

So, unless Democrats are willing to revisit a more effective economic stimulus program, a public option for health insurance, and a host of other issues, it’s hard to see this rhetorical shift as anything but a conversion of convenience, scheduled to expire just after this fall’s elections.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Better not forget the extra foam, barrista, this gun has a hair-trigger!

Regardless of how lame the Obama Administration has been, the recent and upcoming SCOTUS rulings on gun control should be a wake-up call about how wrong the Naderites were about how there is ”no difference between the Democrats and Republicans.’  Shrubya had 8 years to replace retiring liberal and moderate justices with reactionary activists.  The result?  Sometime this summer you are going to wake up one morning in a country where all gun control laws have been abolished.

You can get a preview of things to come by watching the gun nuts parade around with their weapons in our restaurants and national parks.  I bet it won’t be long before we have some dramatic shootout, where one of these unhinged, delusional vigilantes tries to stop an armed robbery and blows away some poor coffee patron.  Or maybe a couple of these loons will shoot at each other, thinking they are stopping a robber!  Hard to guess, but I’m sure it will happen soon, and sure it will be bloody.

Given the current extremists in the court, my guess is that we are one lawsuit away from a similar overturn of Roe v. Wade.

So stop your whining, suck it up and work hard to make Obama successful, now and in his next run – because we are just one Scalia or Thomas heart-attack away from an appointment of a real justice and a non-loony majority.

There seems to be only one means to achieve bi-partisan support for a bill – lard it with pork.  Or make it a pork-only bill, with cash for everybody’s constituents!

Case in point – 5 members of the GOP, hearing the “Woo pig sooie!” siren call of pork-barrell spending, crossed the aisle to vote for the so-called Jobs Bill.

The Repugs used this to good effect in the early post-9/11 days of the Shrubya Preznitcy to bring Democrat pigs to vote on their bills – Remember those bipartisan bamboozles such as the Agribusiness Handout  of 2008, the original Agribusiness Handout of 2003, and perhaps the most odious piece of legislation ever, the Big Energy Handout of 2003?

That must be why the Health Care Bill stalled out…insufficient pork!

Come on Dem leadership, grow a pair!  This is what I’m talkin’ about:

And this is just a Canadian!!!

Tip of the ‘Nose to Recruiter Buddy!

Although Obama seems to be having some trouble getting unity among his own party in Congress, there is some good news – 8 Republican Representatives  crossed party lines to vote with the Dems on the recent climate change legislation.

Although I’ve occasionally decried the leadership of Pelosi and Reid, the looming GOP attacks on these 8 Representatives could give Pelosi something to work with in the form of a small group of ‘quislings’ to give the appearance of bi-partisan support to legislation and offset the more disloyal and conservative Democratic Representatives.  Definitely 8 Reps to keep an eye on!

In related and joyful news, Al Franken is now Senator Al Franken, because “he’s good enough, and smart enough, and doggone it, Minnesotans like him!”

What’s the profile of a terrorist likely to strike in America’s heartland?  If you say a swarthy, middle-eastern guy in a turban, you’ve been watching too much Faux News!  How about:

“…a white male in his 50′s or 60′s with grey hair that is balding in the middle. He is about 6’1″ and about 220 pounds and was wearing a white shirt and dark pants.”

Man that sounds just like the profile of an American wrong-winger, and surprisingly like a stereotypical serial killer.

Joining in the ranks of Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh and the Anthrax Letter guy, the suspect of today’s murder of an abortion doctor has been apprehended, identity still unreleased.

Don’t be fooled, folks – these pudgy, aging wrong-wing haters aren’t buying guns because they are afraid Obama and the Dems are going to enact gun control legislation, they are buying guns to terrorize the rest of us!

*Update* Evil has a name, Scott Roeder, and apparently he was pretty open about his extremist wrong-wing views and was: a member of the nasty ‘Freemen’ group, once convicted for making explosives, and  one of those guys who went to various anti-abortion events and said obliquely menacing things in a monotone.

*Update* Cristina Page clearly lays out the case for why this isn’t a random incident, but rather part of a pattern of wrong-wing terror:

During the Clinton era, between 1994-2000 there were 6 abortion providers and clinic staff murdered, and 17 attempted murders of abortion providers. There were 12 bombings or arsons during the Clinton years.

During the Bush administration, not only were there no murders, there were no attempted murders. There was one clinic bombing during the Bush years.

I’ve spent the last 8 years called the Republicans the Repugs.  But the Dumbocrats are also screwed up.  The one thing their devilish counterparts had going for them was party unity.  As wrong as they always were, they worked together like pack animals to destroy America.

Check out the Dumbocrats – on the eve of having a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate – they can’t back their own man in the White House – the stupid jerk-wads won’t close Gitmo.  WTF?

Harry Reid has got to go!

It’s becoming a staple of the early days of any Democratic presidential campaign. Every eight years or so, some long-forgotten former candidate feels the itch for a comeback after a decade or more away from the national stage… and decides that America, once again, needs his leadership.

In 1984, it was George McGovern. In 1992, it was Jerry Brown. In 2004, apparently, it’s Gary Hart‘s turn.

An awkward realization, as Gary Hart remembers he left his “new ideas” in his other jacket.

These blast-from-the-past candidates always choose the same market niche, politically speaking. Renouncing the careful compromises and hedged stands of mainstream contenders, they position themselves as their party’s conscience, speaking truths that no one else dares. And so it is that Hart, who ran as a moderate pragmatist in the 1980s, is now speaking out firmly against the war in Iraq and George Bush’s reward-the-rich tax cuts. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Does he expect to win? Of course not. This script is already written: Hart will garner occasional media attention and the fervent support of some token college students hoping to find their generation’s Eugene McCarthy, finish in fifth place in the New Hampshire primary (as Brown and McGovern did), and go home — happy to have drummed up some future income from speaking engagements, perhaps a book, and any other rewards that come from recasting his image from hapless also-ran to principled elder statesman. Meanwhile, somewhere in Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis is looking ahead to 2008 and musing about the possibilities…