Okay. I’m going back and re-re-read it. I truly believe you guys have a point. I’ve followed enough of you folks over the last few years to trust your gut.
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If they were caught off guard it was at the poor “strategery” of McConnell’s blatant statement as opposed to the wiser course of simply slow-walking the nomination, as he could easily do. And what exactly should those progressives have done, come out with a pre-emptive statement? Then they would be the do-dos instead of Mitch.
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I like comparing McConnell to the Bundys, though my drawing talents are minimal.
file:///C:/Users/Eric/Documents/mcconnellcartoon.jpg
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Well, as we’ve known all along, IOKIYAR.
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Laws mean nothing to conservatives. Not man’s law. Not God’s law.
Conservatives depend on other people’s obedience to rules and laws they themselves have no intention of following. It’s how they gain advantage.
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Where is there any evidence of any “progressives caught off guard” by this completely predictable response by the GOP? Every Bernie supporter and every Hillary supporter I know, out here in the rural hinterlands heard the Scalia news, and didn’t get past “…found dead in his room” before thinking “Here comes the nomination shitshow!”.
You can’t pay even cursory attention to the news without presuming the worst of GOP behavior.
Nothing but predictable.
labradog
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Ms. Fox may have buried the lede in the seventh paragraph, but the editors likely wrote the ridiculous headline. It would have been more accurate as “Left Caught Totally Off Guard by McConnell’s Unexpected Unforced Error.”
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So is McConnell just a shameless buffoon, or is there some long con strategy?
The two are not mutually exclusive.
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If we were the far right – aka the modern GOP-- we would come up with some full fledged conspiracy theory. Yertle speaks - 30 minutes after Scalia’s death? You bet he knew something about it beforehand! No wonder there was no autopsy.
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Many on the progressive side were extremely circumspect. I certainly was. Very few critical comments. There were instead a huge number of comments about the need to delay, from the right. Chuck Grassley, who is one of the more thoughtful Republicans, is holding his powder dry. Those who purport to support Scalia’s side look foolish at this point. Fools rush in…
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I am one progressive who was not caught off guard, I immediately got with some friends Saturday night, opened the good scotch and toasted our most excellent fortune.
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And they make stuff up…like the obviously PDOOHA precedence he cites
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But she did more than bury the lede. She used slanted language to mischaracterize the responses of people she spoke to. This article is part of the “feckless progressives in disarray” narrative that the right — and some on the left — find so convenient. The narrative was chosen before the article was written. As for the headline, you may be right: Ms. Fox may not be responsible for “totally,” but she does use the phrase “off guard” in her article: indeed, is a central part of her thesis.
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It didn’t catch me off-guard, or the majority of progressives who began stating on the Internet, immediately after Scalia’s death was reported, that this was EXACTLY what the Republicans were going to do. Unlike Super-Duper Journamalism Person Lauren Fox, personal BFF of American Savior Michele Fiore, we are quite aware of the political situation in America that has been happening over the past, oh, 40 FUCKING YEARS!
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I don’t think that
what might be generously called the progressive legal infratructure
is off guard so much as out of power. Nobody sensible is going to get too far when Republicans control any of the three branches, and frankly, the Republican SCOTUS has devolved into just another partisan team player. Justices are openly telegraphing which precedent they’d like to overturn next, while Republican lawyers, lobbyists and legislators openly draft laws and recruit plaintiffs for the expressed purpose of doing exactly that.
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Chuck Grassley is a “more thoughtful Republican”? Could you please send me the name of your dealer. That must be some mighty righteous kush you are inhaling.
And is it just me, but when Grassley speaks, doesn’t he sound like Buffalo Bill in 'Silence of the Lambs"? I keep waiting for him to say, “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
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Beyond Capitol Hill, the amalgam of advocacy and special interest groups that comprise what might be generously called the progressive legal infratructure were even more surprised by how rapidly Scalia’s death had been politicized.
This phrase didn’t really catch my eye at first reading. I can understand your contention with Ms. Fox’s choice of words to describe the progressives’ and left’s legal infrastructure. The better angels on my shoulder tell me the wording wasn’t chosen as any sleight or pot-shots to the legal infrastructure, but because she feels the various legal organizations on the left very likely do not coordinate with each other as the vast majority of those on the ultra-right so obviously do (think FOX Entertainment, Karl Rove, the Bush administration as a whole, the RNC, the Heritage Society, on and on – when they choose an agenda, they all miraculously seem to be reading off the same memo of talking points). (LOL, now where have I heard that before?? Talking Points Memo). Yeah, both sides do it – but the right side seems to be so much more cohesive in their talking points. Personally, however Ms. Fox meant that, I take sort of a pride–however tactically-misguided that might be–in the fact we on the left and progressive side are so much more diverse that it really isn’t often we will coordinate – if the cause is a good one and we’re all in-synch, then all the better. That said, it sure can be detrimental as well, as we learned so painfully back in 2000. That was most certainly a teaching moment for us. I’d like to think we’re a bit better on our game now … but still nowhere near the pretty unison right-wing. That said (again), it does appear the right has been going through some growing pains and that has been to our benefit.
I still think the article is quite a good one in that it brings together a lot of information and puts a timeline on much of it. Because of your concerns, I will be paying closer attention to writing styles of not only Ms. Fox, but all. I will also attempt to be more concise in my own comments.
Thanks to those of you who engage me and others in such a friendly and really very civilized way. I value TPM very much – it’s an oasis among so many cesspools of near pure vitriol and hate.
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You and your better angels are no doubt morally superior to me & mine, but forty years of teaching writing and rhetoric convince me that the choices are intentional. This is the sort of thing that is covered under the heading of “tendentious arguments” in freshman English or Journalism 101.
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Not that I’d like any other justice to die, but I’d love to see what the regressive right would do if Alito, Thomas, or Roberts just fell over dead today!
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