November 8th, 2006
Colbert, last night. If you can, go watch the video (Midterm Midtacular part 7). Otherwise, here’s a partial transcript:
I guess I’m going to have to call this thing for the Democrats. [Sarcastic] Wooo! People have spoken! Apparently they’re tired of freedom. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. I thought this country would last longer than 230 years. That’s it, folks. America’s over. At this point we might as well just give it back to the god damn Indians. Let’s see how they deal with foreign enemies bent on their destruction. Here’s your cake, terrorists! [Gestures toward "Congratulations Terrorists" cake.] There you go! Enjoy! [Samples frosting.] Mmmmm! Tastes like surrender! Jimmy, you might as well get those subtitles going. [Arabic subtitles appear.] There you go. Get used to these. You know what? We should probably throw a burqa over Meg while we’re at it. [Cut to intern Meg wearing black burqa.]
You know what really gets me here? You know what really gets me? Democrats didn’t even win this thing, the Republicans lost it. They ran away from the president. “Hey, the ship’s in trouble! Let’s drown the captain!” We were this close to Jesus coming back! And you Republicans who turned your back on the president are going to wander in the desert for the next two years. Literally. Someone’s going to have to replace those troops in Iraq. And don’t think you’re off the hook, voters! You’re the ones who made this bed. Now you’re the ones who are going to have to move over so a gay couple can sleep in it.
Tomorrow you’re all gonna wake up in a brave new world. A world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax-and-spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, and everybody’s high! [fake toke] Wooooo! [fake toke]
You know what? I’ve had it! You people don’t deserve a Republican majority! Screw this! I quit! [Gets up and walks out] See ya, suckers! [Crowd boos] No! Too late! It’s too late! [Exits stage]
Brilliant stuff. Although I’m a little disappointed that he didn’t work abortion and guns in there somewhere.
Next-best quote: “The Democrats have only been in power for a few minutes, and they’ve already got us stuck in this unwinnable war!”
Categories: Humor, Politics, Satire |
16 Comments
November 8th, 2006
- Are some people finally going to stop calling it the “Incumbent Protection Act?” Because from where I sit, it looks like it did a piss-poor job of protecting incumbents (or, at least, the ones with R’s by their names…)
- Best comment (so far), from liberal commenter Raven at The Evangelical Outpost:
I wish I could gloat, but the Republicans have basically driven us off a cliff and now, with the car hurtling down toward the rocks, you’ve slid over, handed us the wheel, and said, “OK, you drive.”Let’s see how we do.
But as we move forward, I hope that you finally get it out of your heads that Democrats are bad people. We’re your neighbors, we’re 50 percent of the country. The only difference between us and you is that we want the terrorists to win. Other than that, we’re exactly the same.
- Speaking of evangelicals, what does this say about their influence in American politics? Is it waning? Merely dormant? As Kevin pointed out, they’ve pretty much beat the gay-bashing thing into the ground, and even though it passed most places, it wasn’t by the margins we saw in 2004, and it seems unlikely to last more than a few more years. The stem-cell research initiative passed in Missouri, recently a very pro-life state. Abortion bans went down in flames. My impression is that if not for strong evangelical support, the GOP would have had its ass handed to it even worse.
- Still on the topic of evangelicals, Jeff at The Dawn Treader seems to be taking things surprisingly well. Rather than responding with anger, he did so mostly with introspection. And although I disagree with him about most stuff, I think that can only be a good thing. Sure he uses “liberal” as if it’s a dirty word a couple of times, but after my gloomy/bitter reactions in 2004, I’m more than willing to cut him some slack on that.
- I’m really not sure what’s so horrifying about Speaker Pelosi, but Right Blogistan sure is afraid of her. Yeah, she’s got an incredibly annoying laugh, but she doesn’t break into a sweat just walking up to the lectern, and she doesn’t look like she’s one Extra Value Meal away from an extended hospital stay on the taxpayer dime, as is the case with the outgoing speaker…
- Relax, people, we’re not coming after your guns. And even if we were, we’d never get past the filibuster, never mind the veto. Your hands can stay warm and alive.
- Fiscal responsibility is almost certainly going to mean raising taxes. Get over it. You didn’t think $300+ billion wars were free did you? You didn’t really think the supply-side fairy was going to magically save the day, did you?
- The closest thing to a gloat you’ll get from me: To all those LGF-style righties who kept telling us lefties that if we didn’t like it, we should leave, now’s a good time to take your own advice. Try Russia. They’ve got that whole unitary executive thing you seem to like so much. And you won’t have to worry one bit about those nasty, evil minimum wage laws, labor laws, and environmental protections you despise so much… Moderate Republicans and non-asshole conservatives, please disregard this mesage.
- Even if Planned Parenthood and NARAL had all their wildest dreams come true, you still won’t have to have an abortion if you don’t want one, nor will you have to perform an abortion if you don’t want to.
- While we’re on such subjects, you won’t have to gay marry, either.
- Memo to newly-elected Democrats: Please don’t screw this up.
Categories: Bloggin, Politics |
9 Comments
November 8th, 2006
I made a concerted effort not to pay attention to the news yesterday, and have been in meetings all morning today, so I haven’t really seen the news. Did I miss anything important?
Categories: Bloggin, Politics |
5 Comments
November 8th, 2006
Interesting. Does Bush nominate Liebermann, thus giving the Senate back to the GOP (At least temporarily: Collins has to be feeling the blue breeze at her back and she is up for re-election in 2008. If Lieberman does take it, then I bet the GOP governor of CT appoints Nancy Johnson, formerly of the House GOP caucus, now unemployed, to the seat). I doubt Joe would want it, now, though. He is in the majority, he will get to stay in the majority most likely (the 2008 Senate playing field is as tilted in favor of the Dems as this years was in favor of the GOP), and the DefSec job is going to be an ugly one for the foreseeable future.
This is an obvious move to appear bi-partisan. “See, I am letting Rumsfeld go — I can listen to the people.” The key, though, is whether or not he changes his actual policy towards Iraq. I wouldn’t hold my breath. He will appoint someone hopefully more competent than Rumsfeld to “stay the course”. Still, competency does matter and there are things that a more competent SecDef can do to mitigate the damage to our troops and the institutions of the Armed Services, so Rumsfeld’s resignation is an unambiguously good thing. Just don’t believe that it is anything other than a politically cosmetic move until Bush proves that he is willing to change course in Iraq.
Categories: Iraq, Politics |
18 Comments
November 8th, 2006
Good things happen. It hasn’t felt like that in years, at least on the political side, but change is possible. The way things are does not have to be the way things will always be. This is not a conservative nation. Pro-choicers won Senate seats in MO, MT, and OH. Stem cell research won in MO, an abortion ban lost in SD, and an anti-gay marriage question went down to defeat in AZ. Moderate to liberal parts of the country soundly rejected the conservative GOP tonight and all of their advantages — friendly media, incumbency, and gerrymandering — couldn’t stop the regional realignment from playing out. This is a good start.
- This was a blowout. The GOP didn’t take a single Governorship, House seat, or Senate seat in which they ran against a Democratic incumbent. In the House and the Senate, they didn’t take a single Democratic open seat (not sure about the Governorships). The House is now more democratic than it was Republican after the 1994 “revolution”. The South — the heart of the GOP power structure — is now in the minority in the House. We now control most governorship and are on the verge of controlling most state legislatures. We crushed them.
- The progressive movement took a big step towards prominence. The 50 state strategy put seats in play that would never have been in play before; organizations like MoveOn were effective at motivating people and in their GOTV efforts; the netroots were able to help drive the agenda (Lamont’s primary victory over Liebermann pushed Iraq to the national forefront, and that helped Democrats), push stories (like the robo-call story and the corruption issues for Republicans) and fund progressive candidates that then went out and won The additions of Sanders, Brown, and Tester(most likely) have pushed the Senate farther left than it has been since probably 1994.
- The GOP is on its way to becoming little more than a regional party. I need to look at House numbers to be sure, but it appears that the GOP effectively ceased to exist in the Northeast, took big hits in the Midwest and west. The only place they did well was the Old Confederacy.
- Barring something dramatic in the recounts, it looks as if they Dems managed to take the Senate as well as the House. Incredible.
- This is not a conservative House Caucus. It is a continuation of the post-Civil Rights re-alignment, which means that many of the people elected tonight are in districts where the compromises are between the left and the center, not the right and the far right.
- It looks as if VA and, to a lesser extent, Kentucky, are following Maryland down the path to becoming more Northern and less Southern.
- The country is moving in the right direction on the issues of gay equality, even if its not there. While the anti-gay marriage forces won, they did not win handily outside of the South as they had two years ago and the actually, for the first time, lost on the gay marriage amendment question.
- We need new election procedures. There was an intolerable amount of broken machines, long lines, and id/registration hassles. Since these seemed to affect both parties, I am finally hopeful that we can make some progress on these issues. Our election process is broken and it needs to be fixed.
Categories: Politics |
10 Comments
