Login HereIn my gleeful mocking of Erick Erickson's masterpiece of stupid on the Chambliss-Martin runoff yesterday, I missed this even more absurd take from WSJ wingnut James Taranto.
Chambliss's victory assures the GOP of at least 41 Senate seats. It also lays to rest one of the nastiest McCarthyite smears of recent times: the repeated assertion by Democrats and the media that former senator Max Cleland's patriotism is in question.
Cleland was seeking a second term in 2002 when Chambliss ran against him. Chambliss criticized Cleland's voting record--specifically, his repeated votes against the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security. Cleland and fellow Democrats objected to provisions in the law that gave the new department more flexibility vis-à-vis union work rules. Chambliss accused Cleland of cravenly pandering to special interests.
No he didn't. He said that Cleland was a lying coward who didn't want to defend the country from the scary Arabs that wanted to kill us.
Had Martin prevailed, there's little doubt his fellow Democrats would have claimed vindication for their McCarthyite effort to smear Cleland as a man whose patriotism is in question. Chambliss's win therefore should be seen as a victory for civility and decency in politics.
Yes, because Chambliss ran such a civil, decent campaign as we all know.
But let's stipulate for the sake of argument that Chambliss wasn't calling Cleland a big cowardly terror-enabling girl and, in fact, simply accusing Cleland of "cravenly pandering to special interests."
Would someone who truly loves his country endanger it by "cravenly" putting "special interests" over its security?
Yeah, probably not.
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Oh for fucks sake!!!!
Hello BT
Good grief.
Another home run for BT
Shorter Taranto: Chambliss’ retaining his seat in a blood-red state proves he didn’t say all those things he said about Max Cleland.
This guy failed Logic 101, didn’t he?
Somewhere in an English graveyard, George Orwell is turning green with envy.
Understatement of the year. Unless not allowing unions to organize at all (e.g., TSA) is just “flexibility.”
Would that we could “lay to rest” this arch revisionism. The neocons leave a trail of detritus about as big as a buffalo heard in 1800, a track hundreds of yards wide and so many miles long you’d have needed an airplane to see it from end to end. At least what the bison left fertilized the Great Plains. The neocons’ leavings are too toxic to recycle.
I understand why the neocons’ retainers write this garbage and why Rupert Murdoch, inventor, owner and manipulator of Foxy News, prints it. Why would anyone pollute themselves reading it, except of course, to practice their Art of War, framed by Don Corleone and others as “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”?
Wow. You’d think the only newsworthy stories were Saxby, the Big 3 and, oh, yeah, Prop 8.
Anyone wonder why the number of commenters is going down?
Sorry. Bye.
and Sarah’s still wearing those jackets she “gave back” to the party.
Chambliss is most representative of reprehensible GA.
The calling into question of the patriotism of Max Cleland by Chambliss is a foregone conclusion. No revionist tendancy GOP hack will ever change that. What chambliss did was reprehensible and that’s that.
That the majority of Georgians that voted for Chambliss are still predominantly white, small “c” christian followers of false prophets as well as racists, is also a foregone conclusion.
I personally (as a Democrat) see it as a gift horse.
Everytime this Palinista Palanese speaking senator speaks; its like free amunition for the Democrats.
It’s the gift that keeps on giving; very similar to the antics of Sarah Palin, Chambliss’s new found hand in hand commrade.
The two of them will insure at least for the next few years a very colorful if not the outright embarrassing GOP exposure of the race baiting bigotry entrenched in the base of the GOP; those loveable dependable christians.
I am convienced that the relative ineffectiveness of Chambliss will serve the Obama Administration best by his own self destructive rhetoric.
Chambliss represents an exact polarized view that what the American Voter has mandated with this last landslide Obama victory.
Let the chips fall where they may, because from Chambliss side, they sure will be flying.