Here is the transcript from The Political Animal:
Rachel Maddow "The unseemly cheering on the right for America losing its Olympic bid I think is going to be the taste that lingers a long time after this failure," Rachel said. "Certainly the president tried to get something and he didn't get it, and people who hate the president feel like that's a cause for celebration. But to see, for example, the Weekly Standard post 'Chicago loses, Chicago loses, cheers erupt at Weekly Standard headquarters' I think says a lot more about the Weekly Standard, it says a lot more about the right right now than it does about this loss."
Noting the larger context, Rachel added, "In 2012, London got the Olympics after Blair tried for them; in 2014, Russian got them -- Russia got them after Putin tried for them; and in 2016 all four finalists had their head of government or head of state to make the argument. Obama did nothing unreasonable. And it would've been a shock if Chicago won. For them to be cheering America's loss here on the right I think is sort of disgusting."
David Brooks largely agreed, at least to the extent that the president's efforts were entirely reasonable. "He took a risk for his country," Brooks said. "He put the country ahead of his own personal prestige. He lost one. I actually don't mind it. I think, I think he was all right on this."
E.J. Dionne added, "John McCain's slogan was 'country first,' and in this case it was 'Obama hatred first' on the right, not the country."
2 comments:
The right wing is positively giddy that the United States will not be hosting the Olympics. Seriously, has it dawned on you yet how utterly despicable these people are? I was just wonderin'.
The main goal of the GOP these days is to insure that President Obama's administration is a complete and utter failure. They want to see as many Americans as possible suffer in the next three years, thus, ensuring that they will be able to seize control of the executive branch in 2013. If the president succeeds in making life better for his countrymen and women, they fail. It's as simple as that. Mitch McConnell, to his credit, always looks quite uncomfortable when he is forced to justify policies as atrocious as those being put forward these days by that hideous party. But Cantor always has a serene, angelic smile on his face whenever he is forced to defend the morally indefensible - sort of like last week, at a Town Hall meeting when he told a woman whose mortally ill relative had been left bankrupt by her medical bills that she should rely on charity. He seemed so content with himself. Quite strange really.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Tom, you have it exactly right.
This is classic terrorist tactics translated into politics and Public relations. The function of terrorist activities is to delegitimize the government and convince the public to let them take over because they promise better results.
It worked for them when Clinton was elected. They did exactly the same things with bomb-thrower Newt Gingrich providing the language used to characterize the Clinton Administration and the Democrats.
With the election of Obama and the total self-destruction of the Bush/Cheney administration, the Republicans have no other possible strategy.
I see it as being very much like the WW II German's counterattack during the Battle of the Bulge. Both events were a last, desperate attempt by the losing side to change the course of the overall battle.
If Congress passes an adequate health care bill, then the Republicans will have used up much of their last remaining resources for nothing. The greatest of those resources currently is the favorable attention the mainstream media has been providing to the Republicans. The misstep from the insurance industry (AHIP) in putting out the easily discredited health care report early this week has released what seems to me to be a flood of anti-insurance publicity.
Whether that can be built on by the Democrats, I don't know. But the fact is, the Republicans are the minority party and are rapidly committing self-destruction. How much longer this is going to last is not clear right now, but my bet is that it is getting more and more likely that the Democrats are going to start rolling forward on health care and the Republican resistance will cease to be effective. It may be soon, and it may still take a while. It's unpredictable when, but the likelihood of health care success is getting greater. When the end comes, it will be a surprise to everyone. The tough slogging political battle will be going forward slowly and then all of a sudden one side or the other is going to collapse.
Passage of the health care bill will mark the collapse of the Republican Party as a national power. So expect to see them do their "nasty trapped rat" simulation. They have to. They have nothing else they can do. It's last-ditch desperation time for the national Republican Party.
We'll know the outcome before January 2010.
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