David Brooks Admits Defeat, For Now

Got caught by the word 'mazzive', of all things!

Hahahaha.
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[laughing and pointing]
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Complete repudiation and utter disarray is good news for republicans.
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What I find most amusing about Bobo's column, and MS's summary of how it's good for republicans that all their "ideas" and "principles" turned out to be lies when they got into power, is that they talk about new policies and new ideas.
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But they don't have any. Or, at least, they don't write any down for us to read (forestalling more laughing and pointing for a while, it's true).
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One new idea is to concede that blastocysts aren't toddlers, so contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancy should be encouraged. And stem cell research makes a whole lot of sense to subsidize.
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Oops.
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Another new idea is that the US can't afford and doesn't need to be on a war footing anymore.
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Oops.
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It is, I claim, literally impossible to come up with a new idea that is acceptable to a majority of conservatives. And since it turned out that the old ones don't get implemented, they're kinda [that word Joe Scarborough said yesterday]ed.

Can Newt Gingrich even spell "principle"? As for ideas, there are whelks out there that could offer a more appealing conservative agenda!

@jay - You forgot about a little think I like to call "Drill, Baby Drill!" I drink your Saudi Sheik!

They're so narrow minded their scratch pads are only an inch wide.
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Can't discuss diplomacy because then we'd be soft on terror.
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Can't discuss ending the War on Drugs because then we'd be decadent (or something)
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Can't discuss green economies because they'd hurt business.
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Can't discuss global warming because it doesn't exist.
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Can't discuss Pentagon spending because we need strong defense.
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Can't discuss the poor because then we'd be socialist.
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Can't discuss education, because it's not part of the free market.
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Can't discuss healthcare because it would hurt the free market.
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Can't discuss FISA because then we'd be soft on terror.
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And so on, and so on, and so on...

53_3: when you are a member of a cult, and a cult is what the GOP has become IMHO, you can't question the core beliefs of the cult without the risk of being cast out. I'm sure Lincoln Chaffee or Chris Shays who have been tarred with RINO (republican in name only) could valid date that. The so-called big tent is now smaller than a twentieth century phone booth.
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You are correct about the elephant in the room. It's why McCain was so upset in the campaign and the debates that the 2000 GOP playbook yielded different results when he used it in 2008. You could almost hear him scream "this is supposed to work for me. It did for Bush."
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Look at the cast of characters in the GOP. Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

53_3, my point was simply that the republicans just aren't serious people and haven't been for a while.
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Their national electoral success has been the result of trivia (President Clinton's zipper begat "honor and dignity") and fear ( 9-11 so Max Cleland can be turned into Bin Laden.
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The trivia only can work if people don't have real issues they want addressed and fear has a shelf life.
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If the republican answer to Universal Health Care and Minimum Wage is teh Gays! then they are staying where they are until times get better.

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MS: First, all this intraparty squabbling will be history if and when the Democrats start making mistakes.
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Yes, to some small extent. Those mistakes will have to be freakin' huge, 'tho.
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Think back to 2003 or 2005, when Democrats were in dissarray. They were healed less by any new policy paper than by repeated Republican catastrophes.
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lol...So the Dems won in 2006 and 2008 not because their platform was right, it was because the Repubs shot themselves in their footsies.
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Second, there is considerable room for middle ground.
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Between the center-right and the far right? No, not really. The Palin Repubs tend toward absolutism while the McCain Repubs (and a few other moderates) have largely been marginalized. The far right isn't going to move far from where they currently are; they don't have to.
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Even among those in the tradtionalist camp, people like Newt Gingrich and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, there is a considerable hunger for new ideas and policies that will address voter's current concerns, without upsetting the old conservative coalition.
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There are going to be very few new ideas coming out of the right wing that aren't:
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1) The equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig, i.e. changing verbiage to something that sounds more positive, and/or
2) Adaptations of lefty positions, only with a conservative twist: "Abstinence: Safest, Legal-est, and Extremely Rare".
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The real fight to come is over this middle ground.
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The first fight, you mean. The the winners get to take on the rest of the population.

53_3 I responded to you but it is in moderation for reasons I cannot decern.
Good thing it was fixed on Monday the 3rd, just as we were told it would be.

PNNTO -- Good thing it was fixed on Monday the 3rd, just as we were told it would be.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Welcome to Swampland where revisionist history is our most important product.

High Sherrifs:
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Here, let me help you:
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Public Function detectPottyMouth( inString As String ) As Boolean
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..Dim bFlag as Boolean
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..if ( ( index( azz, instring ) = 0 ) then
.... bFlag = true
..else
...
...
..end if
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..Set detectPottyMouth - bFlag
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End Function
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Yeah, it's crude, not a lot of thought put in it, but, my point is, if I can do it, so can you!

Off topic
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pourme
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looks like Bill Clinton wasn't calling around for Lieberman after all
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I wonder if Lieberman himself might have put that rumor out.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/11/clintons-deny-pushing-for_n_142982.html

There's an easy two-point plan to getting Republicans elected again, in the Congress/Senate if not the White House:
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1) Ditch the uber-social conservatives. Or at least marginalize them. Their platform is all wedge issues, so it boils down to simply hate politics. This does not promote you as a positive force for America.
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2) Go back to Goldwater and small government, and really mean it. People are really angry at the wanton spending and mas5ive debts incurred by the neocon administration. PayGo, progressive taxes, governmentall efficiency win hearts and minds in New England as well as Oklahoma.
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There, GOP saved. If Dobson complains, tell him that the Almighty is nice, but She's not a registered voter.

You could almost hear him scream "this is supposed to work for me. It did for Bush."

That is indded the biggest news of the campaign. It didn't work.

http://phd9.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-find-this-remarkable.html

Obama currently enjoys a 70/25 favorability rating. In other words, in spite of all the negative campaigning, only 25% of Americans actually drank the Kool-aid. I find that extremely encouraging.

I've just tried to help them, but I think I used the wrong string function. Oh well.
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But really, if they are such high powered programmers and trubbleshooters and all that, all the need to do is look at the code's context. It doesn't even really matter what code it is, either. The fix may be somewhat more complicated than that, but hey, it certainly isn't something that some crack programmer, deep in the bowels of their office, couldn't figure out in an hour or two!
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I think they just don't wanna...

Hanmmerlock -- Forgive me, but why do you even put this stuff out there? Some up and comer may read this blog and act on this lucid strategy. Please they don't need our help. Find a heavy object instead and toss it to them. Like being anti-immigration for example.

53_3: they're probably busy updating resumes and visiting Dice.com to post for jobs.

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53_3: Yeah, it's crude, not a lot of thought put in it, but, my point is, if I can do it, so can you!
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It's WordPress. There's a Comment Moderation box where people enter in those verboten words and the app takes it over from there. Must use some form of Like statement, I'm guessing.

@sgw - Bill doesn't like to be crossed. Lieberman wakes up with horsehead, sez I.

Andy--if an up-and-comer decides to act on that, the Dobson's, Hannity's, and Rush's of the GOP will do the heavy object tossing for me. It's really more of a statement on how simple the solution is for the GOP--and how utterly unable they are to enacting it.
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Like fat guys standing having to decide between a salad bar and a buffet, they just can't help themselves.

PNNTO:
Eventually, when all the other rancid crud at the bottom of the swamp finally surfaces, you reply will probably surface amongst the muck and some of my other posts, too.
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Unless KT is around, and is in saviour-mode...

There's a Comment Moderation box where people enter in those verboten words and the app takes it over from there

Do you suppose that simply including leading and trailing spaces in the string could fix everything.

" a$$ "

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Hammerlock: that's quite a visual. Point taken!

@PaulDirks: The only trouble with the 70/25 favorability rating is that the 25%ers didn't just drink the kool-aid, they bathed, swam and practically OD'ed on it. The 25%ers are a *serious* shade of red. That's troubling.
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Turning the US economy around is going to take at least a year; I hope that BHO can enlist some cool heads among the GOP moderates to keep the wolves at bay while he corrects course.