SmartRemarks

Even as Dick Armey’s dick army continues to do the disruptive dirty work of its corporate-funded organizers (an onion Rachel Maddow has ably peeled for public view), even as its footsoldiers continue to spout fear-drenched talk-radio-esque bullshit about euthanasia, baby killing, and the evil plans of that Fascist Socialist Muslim Negro in the White House (who’s really from Kenya, you know!), even as they’re devoutly convinced they speak for Real America notwithstanding the fact that most real Americans are repulsed and embarrassed by what they see these people doing (and oh, yeah, disagree with them on the issues, too)…

… some folks at the top of the Establishment, those who understand the real interests at stake here (hint: it’s not the footsoldiers) and who are actually capable of making calm, methodical arguments (i.e., they don’t think whoever shouts loudest wins), are showing their hand just a little too boldly.

Case study: Fortune Magazine editor-at-large Shawn Tully’s recent pieces attacking what he dismissively terms “Obamacare.” Just as the right-wing culture warriors are perpetually projecting onto the left their own penchants for intolerance and bullying, likewise class war in America is almost always a top-down phenomenon, even as its practitioners try to cast it as the exact opposite. And Tully’s offerings on this subject demonstrate that phenomenon writ large, in glowing red letters.

Note that I acknowledged his writing only as calm and methodical. I didn’t say it was logically sound. Let’s delve into the details…

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Tags: class war, health care, insurance, McCain, Rachel Maddow, Shawn Tully

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Obama’s address tonight may well have been the first presidential speech I’ve ever seen that genuinely lived up to the full meaning of the word “presidential.” The first time in my life we’ve had real, effective leadership in Washington. So this is what it looks and sounds like!

It’s sincerely heartening these days, of course, just to hear a presidential speech delivered in complete, grammatical sentences, shorn of angry fearmongering and brazen paralogia. But Obama had to achieve far more than that. He had a tightrope to walk, having to avoid being too doom-n-gloomy (and thereby get accused of talking down the economy) but also avoid making unrealistically rosy promises (and thereby get accused of empty politicking). The times we are in are indeed, as he phrased it, “difficult and perilous,” yet he had to make clear that they are not insurmountably so.

He pulled it off.

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Tags: Bill Kristol, economy, education, energy, financial crisis, George Lakoff, health care, media, Obama, polling, Rachel Maddow, Republicans, State of the Union

If anyone wonders how (A) a nation can move step-by-step down the path toward fascism, or (B) why the mainstream press in this country is held in such increasingly dismal regard, this week’s cover story in Newsweek provides a searing case study.

Co-authors Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas—both award-winning, Ivy League-educated journalists who move in the highest circles of academia, media, and politics; IOW, the very definition of establishment credibility—have decided that one of the key issues facing the incoming Obama administration, when confronting the boundaries of presidential power, is (as the cover blurb puts it), “What Would Dick [Cheney] Do?”

And Editor-in-Chief Jon Meacham—he who recently resuscitated the meme that “America is a center-right country”—heartily endorses this angle, writing inside the magazine that the cover feature addresses how “the urgent question now is whether President Obama will hew to [the anti-Cheney] dogma or whether, confronted with the realities of office, he will begin to see virtue in the antiterror apparatus Cheney helped Bush create.”

This, in the aftermath of an election that decisively and unequivocally repudiated the disastrous policies of Bush and Cheney—even Bush himself used the word “repudiated” in his semi-self-aware press conference today!—is what our establishment media wants us thinking about.

Where does one begin?

Well, with getting one’s gorge to subside. But after that…

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Tags: Constitution, Dick Cheney, fascism, FISA, George W. Bush, journalism, media, Obama, Rachel Maddow

How could I resist passing this along?

Matt Yglesias: It seems that Barack Obama, like Rachel Maddow and all decent progressives, is a comic book fan. Excellent news for America.

That’s based on the very first item (among many other interesting ones) in the Telegraph piece he links, reporting:

• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

We already knew (or suspected) at least the first part of this, of course. Natural choices for someone his age, who probably first noticed comics in the early ’70s. (Perhaps he ought to take a look at Ex Machina, too, an award-winning comic about a professional politician who happens to be a former super-hero.)

At any rate, clearly Barack understands the cardinal life lesson we learn from Peter Parker:  With great power comes great responsibility.

Among other interesting factoids from the Telegraph, we also learn that Obama won a Grammy award, he speaks Spanish, he bench presses 200 pounds, his home-cooking specialty is chili, he uses a Mac (naturally!), and one of his favorite films (I really do love this guy’s taste) is Casablanca.

(I wasn’t previously aware that Maddow read comics, either, but apparently it’s true, which just makes her even cooler than she already obviously was.)

Tags: Mac, Obama, Rachel Maddow, super-heroes