Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has issues, of that there is no doubt. The fact that they go beyond the political will come as no surprise. Let’s compare the billet doux she presented to President Obama during that infamous Tantrum on the Tarmac last week (the text of Brewer’s letter is in bold below), in the light of the appeal now published on her PAC’s website (in italics), and no doubt landing with a needy squelch in inboxes around AZ.
Welcome to Arizona!
When I met President Obama this week, I really wasn’t pointing at him. I was telling him, “You have ONE more year!” The President needs to be reminded that he is the President of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC and not a KING lording over state governors.
You’ve arrived in a state at the forefront of America’s recovery—and her future. We were at the brink. We were at the bottom of the list in job creation. Today, we have a balanced budget and we’re in the top 10 for job creation.
I’m proud of that hard-won recovery—the result of many tough decisions, courage and perseverance.
While I wanted to talk to him about jobs, our economy and visiting our border, President Obama criticized my book, Scorpions for Breakfast, and then walked away from me.
My hope is while you are here you will have a chance to see our tremendous results first hand.
We both love this great country, but we fundamentally disagree on how to best make America grow & prosper once again. I’d love an opportunity to share with you how we’ve been able to turn Arizona around with hard choices that turned out to be the right ones.
We deserve results over rhetoric, ...
And, of course, my offer to visit the border—and buy lunch—still stands!
... but this is a President who had the audacity to sue me and Arizona in my efforts to protect our country from illegal immigration!
With respect,
Donate today to Jan PAC and help me stop President Obama in 2012 and others like him who are taking our country down the wrong path.
Now no fingerpointing! It’s not as if the Governor is the first Arizona Tealoon to turn a tidy profit on her untidy relationship with the truth. So the Governor has managed to massage her encounter with the President into sales: “Scorpions for Breakfast,” her hilarious political fabulation-a-clef, has zoomed on Amazon from 343,222 to 7. (Thanks TPM) Shall we deny an author the fruits of the sweat of her tongue?
But now to the news I know Roastafarians have been on tenterhooks waiting for: the winner of the Kaption This Kaptious Kook Contest and the valuable, one-of-a-kind Jan Brewer Souvenir Hospitality Bottle Cap:
U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida rivals even Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Deadbeat Dad, in personal and political assholery. Having been booted out of the Army for a harsh interrogation incident in Iraq, West went on to win a House seat during the 2010 election.
Since then, he has consistently hit every wingnut pleasure center, comparing Democrats to Joseph Goebbels, styling himself a modern-day Harriet Tubman sent to lead African Americans off the liberal plantation and accusing President Obama of playing the race card while speculating that a prospective Democratic opponent “likes running against black guys.” Here’s Rep. West, R-Plantation (honest to god!), last night telling President Obama, Nancy Smash, et al, to “get the hell out of the United States of America.”
The teahadists eat that sort of thing up with a spoon, naturally. But the Florida GOP, which has a supermajority in the state legislature and is headed up by GOP Governor Rick “Voldemort” Scott, has undertaken a project to redraw the state’s districts—after being compelled to do so by votes on a ballot initiative in 2010. And it looks like Mr. West might be headed south.
Who would rob the nation of such a fiery demagogue? Wingnuts can’t pin this one on the Dems, who are pretty much powerless in Florida. But Colonel Mustard has a clue:
One of the rising stars of the Tea Party is about to be sacrificed by the Republican establishment in Florida, led by someone spinning for Mitt Romney.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
It was Will Weatherford in the Conservatory with a wrench! Well, the truth is, West was in some trouble with voters anyway. I don’t live in his district, but from what I understand, voting in a certified loon like West was something of an aberration for that area, and it’s possible they find West’s constant grandstanding a bit embarrassing.
Also, the state GOP had to be prepared to shed a few seats while still stacking the deck in their own favor. So, tough luck, West. The extent to which this develops into a Tea Party-Establishment flap is just warm, rich, savory gravy.
Sarah Palin took to Facebook last night to express shock that fellow Republicans are using dirty tricks on one another in the campaign:
We have witnessed something very disturbing this week. The Republican establishment which fought Ronald Reagan in the 1970s and which continues to fight the grassroots Tea Party movement today has adopted the tactics of the left in using the media and the politics of personal destruction to attack an opponent.
We will look back on this week and realize that something changed… I am in favor of contested primaries and healthy, pointed debate. They help focus candidates and the electorate. I have fought in tough and heated contested primaries myself. But what we have seen in Florida this week is beyond the pale. It was unprecedented in GOP primaries. I’ve seen it before – heck, I lived it before – but not in a GOP primary race.
Well, she might want to ask her former running mate about that. But of course she knows about it—McCain hired the same damn people to train Palin to serve as his lip-sticked pit bull in 2008. She goes on:
I question whether the GOP establishment would ever employ the same harsh tactics they used on Newt against Obama. I didn’t see it in 2008. Many of these same characters sat on their thumbs in ‘08 and let Obama escape unvetted.
Hahaha! Yeah, no one encouraged hordes of deluded, racist nitwits to claim Barack Obama was the Kenyan-born, communist, granny-unplugging love child of Bernadette Dorn and Malcolm X, Mrs. Death Panels Lady. Jeebus, these people are beyond shameless.
Threatened. She says she felt threatened. Well! Having one of them gently touch her elbow while she was wagging her finger in his face would naturally elicit a visceral reaction like that. She was surrounded by them, after all. And of course they all defend each other; what do you expect?
Oh! Surrounded by politicians. What did you think she meant?
Caption Contest Update: I’ll keep it open until Sunday morning. That gives you two weekend nights to drunk-compete for that Jan Brewer Souvenir Hospitality Bottlecap, lovingly, or hastily and lovingly, crafted by me. Bueno suerte!
President Obama got pretty high marks on his SOTU speech from what I’ve read. My dog thought it was a snooze-fest, however:
Or maybe she was dreaming about cavorting on the White House lawn with Bo. (Yes, it IS creepy how her eyes are half open when she sleeps. What is she, Gandalf?)
Now who would ever believe Jan Brewer could treat the President uncordially? The Governor wanted a meeting with the President. He told her that her fabulous description (“fabulous” as in “confabulated”) of the last one they had, as portrayed in her searing expose of why Jan Brewer is as awesome as Jan Brewer, Scorpions For Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border, was, well, not very cordial, and then this thing up here happened. Afterwards, she added to her luster as a wordsmith by calling the President “thin-skinned,” and explained wagging her finger in the President’s face thusly: “I will say that a picture is what it is.” Thankee, Governor!
The RightOSphere is naturally outraged that the President apparently walked away from the Governor while she was in mid-sentence. I say she’s lucky she can still reach the middle letters on her laptop. Any old hoo, it’s a caption contest waiting to happen. Winner gets a souvenir Jan Brewer Hospitality Bottle Cap.
The Corner’s Andrew Cline is predictably displeased with the President’s SOTU: Teamwork? “We can do this?” Who’s this “We” he’s talking about? Not the Founders’ idea of “We!” No, says Andrew, heading off trouble by seizing hold of the National Motto and throttling it:” . E pluribus unum is not Latin for, “Hey, bro, let’s invest in some infrastructure together.” It’s that Collectivism rearing its ugly head, bro!
Where’s the Liberty, that individualistic type Liberty, which, you know, only applies to We The People one by one. You know the President hates Liberty, because in his speech, he only mentioned it once, while “By contrast, Ronald Reagan in his 1982 SOTU said the word four times.”
That’s 400% more Liberty than Obama! And also, soaring rhetoricwise, “We’ve got each other’s backs” does not come up to Andrew’s standards. Reagan’s speech had a Sacred Flame, 400% more Liberty, and cribbed off Abraham Lincoln. And nobody had anybody’s backs, bro.
President Obama will address income inequality (ouch, Mitt!), outsourcing (ouch, Mitt) and Congressional obstructionism, and outline an economic blueprint to which Mitch Daniels will then respond using his new, GOP-issued oligarch-friendly talking points.
Streaming.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Drinking games are just not as much fun since excerpts of both the speech and response are in pre-release, but here’s one anyway.
May be semi-live-blogged by yr. semi-live Mrs. Polly, but feel free to take the reins from my bloodless fingers.
The Romney PACs bought up scads of TV time here in Florida during the playoff games yesterday to let GOP primary voters know what a scuzzbucket Gingrich is. They had an interesting spin: that the president is behind the Gingrich surge and that Newt is pals with Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore and Freddie Mac.
Will it work? I have no idea. A year ago, I would have said Gingrich had a lock on it since it’s a closed primary and the state’s GOP voters were dumb and crazy enough to nominate and elect obvious crook Rick Scott on a “reform” ticket. But with Scott’s approval ratings now in chlamydia territory, maybe they’ve learned their lesson? Hahahaha, of course not! Anyway, here’s an electoral map:
I’m thinking Gingrich will take the “MIGHT AS WELL BE ALABAMA” territory. It looks big, but much of it is sparsely populated. Romney will likely take “WINTER HOME OF THE 1%” territory, because the folks there identify with the paltry $375K speaking fees and believe a 15% tax rate on hardworking investments is just.
The “PURPLE RAIN” territory is up for grabs. It comprises Midwestern and Northeastern retirees (Villages of the Darned) who seem susceptible to Romney’s comforting Daddy Warbucks mien, but that is balanced by hardcore Teahadists who might break for Gingrich and working folks who think all the choices suck. I’m giving a slight edge to Romney here.
As for the “FUCK FIDEL” territory, if I were an advisor to Gingrich or Romney, I’d tell them to focus their efforts in Miami Dade, making the rounds of Cuban exile-oriented talk radio shows to blast the frail, retired octogenarian Fidel Castro and suck up to Marco Rubio. My feeling is that’s their best bet to move the needle here.
Charles Krauthammer is mad enough to stomp bunnies, a man consumed with the type of bitterness that can only come from being thwarted by putative allies when a cherished goal is in sight. Things were going so well. With an assist from elderly social conservatives in patriot drag,* the GOP had successfully rebranded the economic free fall and debt juggernaut Bush bequeathed to the American people as the consequence of Obama’s “reckless spending, new entitlements and oppressive regulation with higher taxes.”
The GOP’s electoral victories in 2010 put conservative fantasies about tossing old ladies and elderly gents into the maw of the private insurance industry and slashing social programs that serve the poor like Freddy Krueger on a meth binge tantalizingly within reach. And then Gingrich and Perry had to go and fuck everything up.
Heh. I can’t really see any of the other presidents in my life time pulling something like that off, and not only because no other president was badgered for his birth certificate by a pack of lame-brained, racist twits. Clinton could be pretty droll, but still. I give Obama the edge.
First of all, I apologize for assuming that you paid any attention to the speeches given by candidates in the New Hampshire Republican primary last night. Hell, most Americans weren’t watching, and practically none of us pay any attention to your elections, even the ones conducted in countries with which we share a border.
Maybe one in 20 of us could name the leaders of our neighboring countries, and a not-insignificant percentage would respond with a blank stare if asked to name those countries. That’s how we roll. But I am assuming that many of you do follow our elections—perhaps in the same spirit that the driver of a Mini Cooper keeps tabs on the movements of a semi-truck that is fish-tailing wildly in the traffic ahead.
Anyhoo, if you did see the speeches, you may have noted that all the candidates agreed on one thing: America is the greatest country in the history of the planet—nay, the galaxy! Nay, the universe! The candidates didn’t deliver this observation in a perfunctory way to scratch their listeners’ patriot-itch: They asserted it and repeated it and returned to it again and again. And most of all, they compared their own bug-eyed devotion to that notion to the president’s and found his pride in his homeland wanting.
Romney attack-surrogate Chris Christie thrilled his legions of wingnut fans yesterday by sneering the following at a female heckler: “Somethin’s goin’ down tonight, but it ain’t gonna be jobs, Sweetheart!”
Wingnuts love Christie’s Jersey bully-boy antics, and no doubt they relish the stark contrast between his Tony Soprano manner and the gee-whiz, milquetoast demeanor of their unsatisfactory front-runner. But some on the left criticized Christie’s choice of words, suggesting that he was telling the heckler to dig through the folds of flesh below his belt to extract and service Lil’ Smokie, or whatever Mrs. Christie calls it.
But wouldn’t you think a wannabe “political analyst” like Taylor Marsh—a woman who spent much of 2008 screeching about then-candidate Barack Obama’s sexism because he used the word “periodically” in a sentence that also contained the words “Hillary Clinton,” waxing hysterical about the sexism inherent in the now-president’s brushing-off gesture and avidly promoting the lies that Mr. Obama used “99 Problems but a Bitch Ain’t One” as a campaign theme song and flipped off Mrs. Clinton—wouldn’t she object to Mr. Christie’s handling of the female heckler? Nope:
I’m just not seeing the offense. An “offensive oral sex joke”?
This type of judgment about Christie not having any class is what makes Democrats look snooty. It’s about style, actually, with a side of political correctness from those judging him.
Imagine for a moment the ear-splitting snit if President Obama had said something even remotely comparable—ever. I guess it’s only okay if said by a white dude. Jeebus, what a hypocrite.
