The Pogues doing Cole Porter. That is mad cool

If we could reduce the cash profit in politic campaigns with, for instance, public finance and free TV time, we might be surprised at the wisdom and respectfulness of a broadly informed public. I doubt there’s much hope for such reforms. A fellow can dream, though, and hope for fewer tips on etiquette while the ice caps melt.

I remember when cmapaigns were largely staffed by volunteers and by people who took time off from their “real jobs” to join a capaign at greatly reduced salary.

Now, professional campign managers are noticably more interested in their condidates fundraising than his message, and in the ability of that candidate to srpinboard that consultant on to nest bigger and better and more lucrative race.

The ridiculously large aounts of cash being raised and spent have created a new industry. There are schools you can go to , jobs fair type events every year organized by Campaigns & Elections magazine. This industry exists for itself now, now because people are comitted to given candidate

Mary Matalin and James Carville? The two who were all about partisanship and vitriol for decades suddenly start talking about non-partisan moneybagging?

Hmmm! Could it be that suddenly the curtain is being swept away from the door and people realize the little game that they’ve played for years…that the corporate power game was one in which “apparent” conflict generated funding for the entrenched elites…but actually produced the same end results. Now that they’ve been caught they are trying to say…”hold on, now we have to act like we’re a different pole-cat, otherwise we’ll lose the system that makes professional grifters and charlatan lobbyists and consultants have a reason to exist.”

So cool I almost just wanted to post it without further comment!

I hope you are right about the curtain! It’ll close again, though, if we don’t grab hold and keep it open.

…”hold on, now we have to act like we’re a different pole-cat, otherwise we’ll lose the system that makes professional grifters and charlatan lobbyists and consultants have a reason to exist.”

Sounds plausible

YOU ARE DEAD ON WITH THAT ANALYSIS

the corporate power game was one in which “apparent” conflict generated funding for the entrenched elites…but actually produced the same end results.

Sums it up. Well said.

HOW THE HELL CAN THESE TWO {CARVILLE AND MATLIN} COHABITATE WHEN MATLIN IS SUCH A RIGHT WING FRINGE COHORT OF CHENEY AND THE LIKE?THESE TWO REMIND ME OF ALL THE SO-CALLED REALITY SHOWS WITH THEIR MADE UP DRAMA AND CONFLICT.

[modnote: inside voice, please]

I know ‘em both, and I’ve never figured that out.

Really cool vid.

As I have said on other threads: “Their first priority is to take care of each other.”

I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many times I’ve watched. Also, I miss Kirsty MacColl, whose friends and family are still seeking justice for her tragic death. Many people have covered “Miss Otis,” none as well as her.

“It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
-The Great Gatsby

Okay, that is pure perfect. Thanks.

It makes me sick that those who promulgated this political toxicity are playing dumb, not acknowledging their roles in it.

This reminds me of the MOD squad, the Merchants of Death in the film “Thank You for Smoking,” where they treat people’s lives as pawns in a game they are paid to play.

I don’t know if these people believe their own lies or are sociopaths or both. Ultimately the only thing that matters is the life and death results of their behavior. Their ability to distance themselves from these results shall not be permitted.

- Tom

My daughter worked in DC for a PR firm doing some political and lobbying work. She quit. She told us later that it didn’t matter which side, everyone saw their issues as tools for their own advancement.

You’re quite welcome. I always marvel at people (like Fitzgerald) who possess that sort of deftness with language (you are pretty deft as well, Mr. Smith). In my own case it seems that even the simplest statements are too often misconstrued.

Well there you go — maybe some of the right-wingery on the Matlin side is for show, a mile wide and inch deep for career reasons.

As for Carville, I always assumed he probably wasn’t the dating kind nor the kind who would normally cause women’s heads to turn, had his head buried in politics (pre-1992) to the exclusion of everything else, and suddenly found himself a potential mate who liked politics and who also didn’t work in his campaign office.

Whatever. Some couples, probably a small minority, are able to somehow to sublimate the politics (C-M supposedly have a rule about not talking politics at home) in order to make the whole thing work. I could never discipline myself like that, and knowing my strong political feelings always manage to weed out the RW women within 15 minutes or so of the first meeting regardless of how attractive they are.

It’s more that they are blinded by the culture they entered/help create. What seems dastardly from the outside, seems like normal limits on possibility to them. The fact that this rationalizing feeds their status and wealth makes it all the more irresistible to them.

Glenn, this is brilliant and cathartic. I think I may print out and keep a copy in my purse so when I am revisited by the horror of another fresh hell, I will reread and be reminded at least I am not alone in my horror. I just did a diary about Peter Galbraith who became an early celeb by being a loyal Dem who wanted a war with Iraq as much as the neocons and offering himself up for “bipartisan” pressure. Now his covert investment may give him from a Kurdish oil field $100 million. Wow. Talk about your long range planning, with so many dead and so much destruction. But make sure you get yours.

I love ratfood’s Gatsby quote. And Rachel M. once said, what an ethical freakshow of a universe we are living in.

It is the hypocrisy that really is the tipping point to nausea. The vile amoral things they do. and how they go after those challenging them by trying to do the right and empathetic thing. Almost like PhDs in evil. Not clumsy opportunists. But champions of evil. The narcissism like a fine wine over so many years has advanced to its own cultivated (very rancid) flavor.

I don’t know if you have seen the movie, In the Loop. It is a political comedy/satire and it is frenzied and at the end it is like a paper cut of enlightenment, but then you know how a papercut can start to STING and that is what the theme of this brilliant gem does or did for me. All the gamesmen running around trying to exert ego and will, and the forest that they are about to burn down, other people’s forests or children of the rank and file foresters is NEVER addressed. Just the political machinery of gamesmanship. And lying is just a tool. You play games with the truth but ultimately, if that doesn’t work at the 11th hour, like waging the Iraq War, tell a whopper like WMDs and faked intell to WIN your ego goal. The lie goes through and horror to other people unleashed.

Mary Matalin can bite my shiny metal Democratic ass

I wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire

I’ve figured it out. Neither of them hold any principle.

Who attended this magnificent get-together? Any idea?

Never forget there are more of us than there are of them.

Mark McKinnon was there. And Steve Schmidt. I think more are listed in the story linked above.

As we all know, their behavior is not normal. They’ve just normalized their dysfunctional behavior. Because this has been tolerated and rewarded in our society, it goes on.

Let the healthy shaming begin.

- Tom

Wouldn’t hurt to combine that shaming with some assaults on their wallets, either.

Ive had enough of Carville also.He is no friend of Obamas and that Cajun vernacular has lost its usefulness.

When the world ends, the last living things will be consultants, lobbyists, and cockroaches. Mary and James get along so well because neither of them has a true belief system.
Hi, Glenn.

The cockroaches will outlast them, barely, because to my knowledge cockroaches aren’t cannibalistic.

They’ve just normalized their dysfunctional behavior. Because this has been tolerated and rewarded in our society, it goes on.

This is a wonderful summation of it all. The normalization of what should be indefensible.

I cant bare to watch the TV when I see Mary Matlin giving her critique on anything Obama.Im running out of places to flip to though and now Im beginning to see a slant to the right on CSPAN.How do the rest of you feel?

Wow! Eons ago, when at a music summer school in England, Annie Ross sang that very song on my 16th birthday. I got v e r y drunk. Very happy (distant) memory.

As for Matahari and her cohort ……. fuck ‘em.

Now that’s a very sweet 16th birthday!

NPR too.

The dollars duo of Matalin and Carville have given up any semblance of relevancy. They seem to keep showing up as experts on something when they really have little to add. One knows exactly what Matalin will say long before she begins her scripted commentary. No surprises from her ever. James, on the other hand, is more difficult to predict, and seems a bit more honest and informed than his wife.

Angry as some of us can get at the characters, it’s important, I think, to keep our eyes on the ugly system that lets them flourish. Real campaign reform could make angels of many who have given into to the temptations of Babel.

Im sure theyll fill Dobbs slot with a true LIBERAL like Lawrence ODonnell or Amy Goodman but that could never be because CNN is trying to be the new Fake News Channel.

It’s interesting that Mary said “everyone came to play.”
I think she gave a clue that it really is a game for them and a lucrative one at that. Consultants indulge in the oldest profession.

I cant believe I dont have my telly on watching football.Im just so afraid if I see David Gregorys face it will cause me to take my own life.

Thanks, Glenn for outing this just-business crowd. And lots of great insight and reporting from everyone in this thread too.

I am so sick of being made sick by all this inhumane crap churned out by people making money.

I was going to be really, really ugly but I will just leave it at this: fuck. em. all.

OT or maybe not … you all will probably want to check out Fareed Zakaria (repeated later on CNN I think) today. He has clips from his upcoming HBO special on Mumbai. Including tapes of calls between the terrorists and their HANDLERS while terrorists are killing and dying. Very strong stuff. And there is more: young men (boys?) are being SOLD into terrorism like girls are sold into prostitution (that is a connection I am making, Fareed did not say that). Turns out there is quite a business model operating with these terrorists …

I’m gonna catch that CNN piece. Thanks so much.

You are very welcome, Glenn. I believe it is an unprecendented insight into the dynamics of terrorism. And very shocking. It is like the handler has hypnotic control over the terrorists over the phone. Fareed comments the ringleaders are not the ones who are dying. Indeed. I know the insights this reporting provides are key to figuring out what to do about all of this … but it is very disturbing information.

Was it Axelrod who worked for 6 presidential candidates?

So, the pr people get it right, rather than a true authentic and genuine blueprint for the renewal of a nation in the hands of a true reforming leader. The promise of one was part of the ultimate game and achievement of the powerbrokers. So take a deep bow, Axelrod. You spun everyone’s brilliant promises into one big fat campaign fog of hope. And Oprah stepped up and helped you out a lot, too. She gets to take an appearances vs. realtiy bow in the name of branding a leader.

Like a bride who is obsessed with the perfect wedding and pulls it off, and the marriage, an afterthought that was unbelievably not a priority. Rude surprise to the groom, maybe, as Obama as bride is to the country as betrayed and naive groom.

Brilliant campaign wedding, Axelrod, et al., with Obama as bride, not so great marriage in this post-honeymoon period for sure.

No, it was Bob Shrum. Axelrod was really an outsider to the in-crowd, a midwestern breath of fresh air, or, someone who could be that.

...we might be surprised at the wisdom and respectfulness of a broadly informed public…

I stuck my one and only kid into public school this year, after private schools since kinder. Granted, it’s a charter school (with an interesting charter – growing food and entrepreneurs) and very high scores – 840 for all the years of its existence – but still public. I did not have good experience with public school in Virginia. In 4th grade they are learning about democracy and Democracy, freedom, citizenship and what you need to do to be a good one. They don costumes and act out parts of history, it’s really crazy good. And he is very engaged, where he wasn’t at all in private school. I have high hopes for him and his cohort.

Cynicism is what the Carville ilk are peddling, a poison that will kill us if we take it as truth. Even the Dem consultants I know are cynical and world weary. Winning is everything anymore, but what comes next? Is cynacism depression wearing a mask? That’s what it feels like to me.

I love reading your posts, Glenn, because you have that deep down river of love, peace and understanding coursing through your veins, which trumps petty, daily bullshit.

Namaste.

Glenn,

Beautiful post, as always.

Too often, “bipartisanship” is just another word for Sophie’s Choice. One side says save two children. The other side says let both die. The bipartisan solution is to save one at the sacrifice of the other. Politics, after all, is the art of compromise, even if the compromise is morally bankrupt.

This isn’t quite right. How about this: There are two children in danger, one side says kill them and 10 more. The other side says – we need to come to an agreement, let’s not save any. They compromise halfway – no one is saved, and 5 more children are killed.

Republicans never give up anything in the name of bipartisanship – which is a club they and conservavdems used against the rest of us. Conservatives of all stripes have learned how to take advantage of the rule of the game, but that’s not the same as believing in the rules (which is irrelevant.)

If we could reduce the cash profit in politic campaigns with, for instance, public finance and free TV time, we might be surprised at the wisdom and respectfulness of a broadly informed public. I doubt there’s much hope for such reforms.

You are right, but I have three thoughts. One is – we can make progress on clean elections at the state level. That is nothing to sneeze at.

The second is that we might be able to improve things at the national level – free air time might be seen as less threatening to the system, but would have a great impact (there are serious diminishing returns to campaign media – and ensuring that a challenger or rogue incumbent can get name recognition and their message out there would largely eliminate the advantages of those with big money, in my opinion.)

Third, a grass roots, face-to-face, volunteer driven campaign (like Cynthia described @2) still works, and if done right, can overcome a big money, media driven campaign. We could make that happen where ever the conditions are ripe – without relying on reform making it through our corrupt system. (In LA, this approach has been driven by a rejuvenated labor movement, to offer one example.)

So don’t just dream – organize!

I’m with you on the solutions. It is doable, and it is more than a dream.

Could it be that they can cohabitate because they’re not that different?
Carville did go to Venezuela after the US coup failed to try unseating Chavez the “electoral” way and that didn’t work. That doesn’t make him any champion of the left by any measure.

He’s a shill and she’s a shrew.

Searching for individual level explanations for common, institutionally driven behavior leads us in the wrong direction. Their behavior is a product of the system – that does not excuse it, but it does help us understand it better. Attacking them, or anyone else in their institutional position, will not change things. Many good people with impeccable left credentials have been ruined by the system – that is what must be dismantled, if we want anything to change.

Thanks, Glenn. Shrum wasn’t even on my radar, such an insider he is, or as so recently an ostrich citizen, I am such an outsider to the power behind the seeming power. Would like to explore further shenanigans of the puppeteers.

That just says it all, doesn’t it?

Fitzgerald started out admiring and envying the rich, then — when he had the chance to see them up close — being appalled by them.

Very important points, concisely put.

But it’s all professional wrestling. When the fight is done, the media maestros walk arm in arm from the tavern, singing self-congratulatory songs about their big-spirited bipartisanship.

Too often, “bipartisanship” is just another word for Sophie’s Choice. One side says save two children. The other side says let both die. The bipartisan solution is to save one at the sacrifice of the other. Politics, after all, is the art of compromise, even if the compromise is morally bankrupt.

Brilliant.
And far, far too true.
Thank you for such insightful analysis.