Bizarrely Contradictory Quote Of The Day
From Michael Steele, supreme nutter, breathtaking in his low-IQ-ness, and, not-so-coincidentally, RNC chairman:
"Today we are declaring an end to the era of Republicans looking backward," he announced. "The era of apologizing for Republicans' mistakes of the past is now officially over," he added. "The era of Republican navel gazing is over. We have turned the corner on regret, recrimination, self-pity and self-doubt. Now is the hour to focus all of our energies on winning the future."
Yet even as he recommended against looking backward, he mentioned Ronald Reagan no fewer than three times. "For me the Republican Party owes its moorings to Edmund Burke, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan," he said. Buckley died last year, Reagan in 2004, and Burke in 1797.
I have to say: watching the Republican implosion -- probably traceable to the choice of Sarah Palin as veep, and continuing on to the entire party becoming apologists for the Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter crowd -- has been bittersweet. It's obviously great that they're no longer in power, look to be absolutely lost in trying to regain it, are blissfully unaware that it is their policies (and not just their personalities) that are responsible for their landslide defeats in the last two elections, and have become the political equivalent of a headless chicken running around in circles.
But I have that strange sensation when your day has gone perfectly; you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop and have something horrible happen to balance things out. Maybe I should stop being so paranoid and enjoy liberals' day in the sun -- it's not going to last forever, you know.
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6 comments:
To me it is also bittersweet because it took 8 years of an utterly disastrous administration/regime to get to this pioint. A high price to pay.
Another point he made in his speech was about how they are going to be a 'loyal' opposition and are going to be 'constructive' in their engagement with Obama. And soon after his speech, a resolution was introduced that would urge the democrats to rename themselves 'socialists'. The republicans have gone from being just evil to evil AND comical.
Steele is a classic example of hard headed ignorance and stupidity. This boneheaded buffoon, tea bag of nonsense is such a gift to the party of Idiots.Steele, Palin and Cheney what a line up.
SG:
Yeah, good point. To be honest, I'm always flummoxed when people ask me the following question:
If you could go back and change the outcome of the 2004 election, would you?
The question is hard because Bush fucking up so badly allowed someone as bold and progressive as Obama to rise. If Kerry had won, he would have governed from the faux-center, been blamed for a defeat in Iraq, not done anything remotely progressive, and been booted out by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin in 08. In a way, those eight years were sort of worth it.
Anon405:
Yeah, the intellectual vapidness of the Republican party is truly a sight to behold.
every wheel turns..
If you had to rank the stupidest things Michael Steele has said, I doubt this would rank in the top twenty. Not that it isn't stupid.
I also wish someone would quiz him on Burke. I wonder if he knows anything about him beyond his criticisms of the French Revolution (or even that).
Anon405: There are many, many things you can call Cheney but stupid isn't one of them.
There is nothing contradictory in that statement. This is just semantics, and Jon Stewart (who tends to produce empty-headed pseudo-analyses at best, and complete rubbish at worst) made the same error in a recent episode of the Daily Show.
It's clear that the speaker meant, by the term 'looking backward', looking regretfully upon past mistakes. He made this clear in a number of ways, which even a cursory look at those two paragraphs will show (for example his use of the words 'self-doubt' and 'apologizing').
Looking back in the literal sense of looking for inspiration from a person who lived in the past, is clearly not what he meant. I can look forward in terms of my planning for the future and my confidence, and simultaneously look backward at the philosophers and sages of the past to help guide my values.
You and Jon Stewart are engaging in a deliberate misinterpretation based on your own partisan biases.
PS - No offense, I still think you're brilliant :D
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