Thursday, February 25, 2010

The curmudgeon caucus

Got some links out of an e-list to which I belong and it set me off early this morning ...

Mark Levin to Glenn Beck: "Stop acting like a clown"
Politico - Conservative radio host Mark Levin is criticizing Glenn Beck’s widely publicized CPAC speech this weekend attacking Republicans.

Beck trashed the GOP as being “addicted to spending” during the keynote speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee Saturday and has been a major advocate of the tea party movement, even suggesting the formation of third party of grassroots conservative activists.

But on his show Monday night, Levin called on Beck to “stop dividing us” and suggested he "stop acting like a clown."

The Politico excerpt above comes from here. (Don't miss the Richard Viguerie missive either.) A choice bit from it:

For over three decades, the conservative movement consisted of three legs: (1) limited government/fiscal restraint, (2) national defense, and (3) traditional-values conservatives. However, many of the conservative movement’s leaders became an appendage of the Republican Party. Not so with the Tea Party Movement, which puts principle above loyalty to politicians.

The Tea Party Movement developed independently from the conservative movement, but is a natural ally to the cause of small, limited, constitutional government. The Tea Party has started where the conservative movement once did, as outsiders to the political establishment.

The Tea Party Movement is now the fourth leg of the conservatives’ big table. It not only brings millions of new people to the political process, it also brings more energy, enthusiasm and excitement to politics than we’ve seen in the last 100 years.

I have been working and waiting 50 years for this populist, principled and constitutional groundswell against big government and the quasi-socialistic, crony capitalistic establishment institutions that have been abusing power and trust at the expense of hard-working Americans, their children and their grandchildren.

In just one year, the Tea Party has become the fastest-growing political movement perhaps in history. It is getting bigger by the day, and efforts by the political and media establishment to denigrate it merely fuel it. I expect more defeats in primaries this year than ever in history.

Most big-government incumbents would be well advised to follow Senators Bayh, Dodd and Dorgan and voluntarily retire, or the revitalized conservative movement led by Tea Partiers will enforce retirement this November.

I love Dick Vig. He's been conservo-kooky since waaay back in the day, with Bill Buckley and John Birch and John Calhoun.  But regarding his POV on Republican Party's attempts to co-opt the Tea P, I agree that they are doing so and I disagree that the "movement" is anything but another balky bunch of bigots.  All I see is more of this purity test bullshit splintering an already fractured bunch of lunatics who only vary in their lunacy by tincture*.

*tincture: a chemical solution that has alcohol as the solvent

You Kossacks perhaps noticed Jed Lewison's analysis of Fox trashing the Paulites -- the original t-bags -- and by extension the Tea Party itself because Dr. No won last weekend's CPAC straw poll.

A little historical review: less than ten years ago the corporate media studiously ignored Iraq invasion protests numbering in the millions, in dozens of countries across the world -- before any of us ever heard the words 'Blackwater' and 'Abu Ghraib' -- because THOSE people marching and carrying sings and yelling were dirty fucking hippies.  They LOVE, however, to run video of old, white, conservative Americans screaming, especially when they are screaming at politicians. Since last summer it's been must-show teevee.

But all these TeaBaggers are, and all they will ever be, is a bunch of retirees and a few of their grown children and grandchildren complaining far too loudly about the good old days long gone away. "I want my country back" was "those uppity n-----s ain't never gonna get to vote in OUR town" (substitute "go to OUR colleges/sit in the front of OUR busses/eat at OUR lunch counters") fifty years ago, and "The South shall rise again" and "Hell no I ain't fergettin'"150 years ago. The names and the issues change but it's the same old muttering.

Today's iteration just happens to be John McCain and Jack Cafferty and Ron Paul in a circle-grumble. The curmudgeon caucus. That younger, prettier faces like Sarah Palin and Rick Perry and Tim Pawlenty are all trying to leverage the outrage to their personal advantage is just a display of craven opportunistic pandering.

These people are angry, all right. They're bitching about the tide going out and grousing about the cold weather and arguing with each other about what time the sun will rise tomorrow. Sound and fury signifying nothing. All they really want is low taxes and their guns, to paraphrase Good Time Charlie Wilson. Well who doesn't?

When these chronic bitchers are finally carried screaming and kicking off to assisted living and some younger, less pale people -- of whatever party; Dem, Repub, indy, it doesn't really matter --  get elected, this sad chapter of American history can be mercifully closed. Until my generation's conservatives pick up the torch of their forefathers, anyway.

As part of our planning for the Senate district convention next month, I visited the hosting location yesterday, a high school in Katy -- the heart of John Culbersonland, mind you -- and the brown kids outnumbered the white kids about 4-1 by my admittedly "scientific" (in the conservative definition of the word) observation. I can't wait for those little fuckers to grow up and start voting, though. You know that even the Caucasian kids are appalled at what their parents do and say and who they vote for.

There's some that are indoctrinated and inculcated, certainly.  I read on my 15-year-old nephew's Facebook status earlier this week the ever-popular Al Gore pejorative: "Snowing in Houston? Must be global warming." *slaps forehead*

What really gets my goat, though, is when Democrats are intimidated by all this bluster and cowed into not running for office, even and especially when they are a sure thing. Exhibit A: Beau Biden.

 What a pussy.

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