Obama Reawakens The Hope of Audacity

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Friday January 29, 2010 · 4:59 PM PST

2010/01/29 · 16:59

How many GOP staffers are looking for new jobs after agreeing to let the cameras roll during Obama’s smackdown at the Republican Retreat Q&A today?

You knew the Republicans would misread the (understandable) public frustration as some type of endorsement of their nihilistic platform. They can't help themselves. And their arrogance and hubris led them to think it would actually be a good idea to bring Obama in front of them to answer questions.

How'd that work for you, GOP?

bullmurph

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Saturday January 16, 2010 · 6:52 AM PST

2010/01/16 · 06:52

Should we protest (and play right into his hands) Limbaugh? Of course not, that will only empower him and augment the sanctimony of his shtick. It’s not often you can call someone a vampire and a whore at the same time, but more than anyone in modern times, Limbaugh is the worst possible combination of everything we despise in humanity.

bullmurph

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Monday November 30, 2009 · 2:54 PM PST

2009/11/30 · 14:54

It is incredibly discouraging to think that Obama feels a "modest" increase in troops will deliver anything approximating positive results. On the practical front, it’s a non-starter; on the political front, it is backwards bordering on masochistic. In sum, this tactical cop-out would signify neither change nor anything that anyone can believe in.

bullmurph

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Tuesday November 24, 2009 · 8:31 AM PST

2009/11/24 · 08:31

Thanks in no small part to the ceaseless controversies it instigates (and the underwhelming ways in which it seeks to extract itself from them) the Catholic church has been assailed from all sides. Any new criticism, therefore, will be neither original nor particularly earth shattering. So what.

So, with so much to mock about the self-satisfied piety of the RCC, why now?

To summarize for those with short-attention spans or quick gag reflexes: in recent weeks the Catholic brain trust has picked public battles with Patrick Kennedy and D.C. area homeless. In the first instance, the smug and odious Bishop Thomas J. Tobin castigated Kennedy over his support of abortion rights. It is, the robe-wearing one whined, "a deliberate an obstinate act of will...(and) unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members". Scandalous? Really? That anyone in a position of authority within the Catholic Church would have the audacity to use the word scandalous tells you all you need know about how truly clueless and shameless they have become.

bullmurph

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Wednesday November 11, 2009 · 8:10 AM PST

2009/11/11 · 08:10

As obstreperously opposed to the death penalty as I remain, it is nevertheless difficult to feel uncomplicated emotions regarding the execution of John Allen Muhammad.

To bastardize Orwell, all serial killers are equal, but some serial killers are more equal than others. (Yes, serial killer. Describing Muhammad simply as "the sniper" seems entirely too anodyne a depiction; there is something clinical, invoking war or a presumptive target. Certainly, there were targets; namely the innocent people who were caught in his crosshairs, but the people chosen were random. This obvious fact augments the horror of what happened, as is often the case with inexplicable acts of violence).

Whether or not Muhammad deserved to die is part of the story, and a question that one might answer based upon an already established point of view regarding capital punishment. But, for me, the ugliness of this particular case is exacerbated by the killer's lack of culpability; his disinclination to even speak about what he did. Remorseless, expressionless, and unmoved, it is his refusal to reach out, or be reached, that will likely make closure that much more difficult for the families and loved ones of his victims.

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Cancel My Subscription: An Open Letter to the Washington Post

bullmurph

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Friday June 19, 2009 · 12:54 PM PDT

2009/06/19 · 12:54

Publishing Krauthammer: That hurts.

Employing Kristol: That really hurts.

Firing Froomkin: That is just embarrassing.

Running a piece from Wolfowitz the next day: Check please.

bullmurph

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Wednesday April 29, 2009 · 1:26 PM PDT

2009/04/29 · 13:26

Oh the humanity!
Obama is slated to give the commencement address at Notre Dame!
Culture warriors, unite!
We can't stop gay marriage, but if we whine loudly enough, we can do God's will by not letting a godless Socialist speak at the same sacred ground that gave us "Touchdown Jesus"!
What we need in these trying times is a paragon of virtue, a man who believes in the sanctity of marriage (What? Obama has never been divorced? Well, he's still a Godless Socialist!), we need a man who can lead by example, a man who leads by example of the biblical teachings he blathers about. We need....Newt Gingrich!

bullmurph

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Wednesday April 08, 2009 · 2:39 PM PDT

2009/04/08 · 14:39

Rush Limbaugh is unfairly maligned!

Sarah Palin is the real deal!

The "feminnist establishment" is more intolerant than the religious right!

Obama is underwhelming!

The Titanic is a great film!

Sexual Personae is a literary masterpiece!

No one could possibly say these things. No one could possibly think these things. Right? Wrong.

bullmurph

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Thursday April 02, 2009 · 3:20 PM PDT

2009/04/02 · 15:20

Glenn Beck is an empty suit with an empty mind, offering regurgitated jeremiads and faux populism to a genuinely distressed viewership looking for answers but disinclined to trust the dirty Socialists currently in power. His histrionics, about as genuine as A-Rod’s apologies, are comprised of two primary objectives: to position himself as a voice of reason in these troubling times, and to use a time of crisis as the impetus for his own existence. If Beck was capable of experiencing even an infinitesimal measure of shame, he would combust quicker than a drummer from Spinal Tap.

bullmurph

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Sunday March 29, 2009 · 4:36 PM PDT

2009/03/29 · 16:36

Despite the well-documented populist rage, albeit a white collar rage, that we’re reading about (in mostly staid reports inside mostly staid mainstream publications), most of the ire, directed outward, dissolves in the ether. Put another way, is it pretty much impossible to rage against the machine when you are plugged into the machine? Hardcore bloggers would bristle at the suggestion that their concerted efforts to absorb and disseminate information and affect change can ultimately be shrugged off as inaction. Certainly, they could correctly point to the recent election to illustrate the ways in which online organization paid undeniable dividends in terms of galvanizing and directing energy for a common cause. There are millions of other minor examples that one could accurately invoke. Nevertheless, where the Internet has radically democratized, and advanced the retrieval and dispersal of information, and it obviously serves as a powerful organizing tool, does it not, by its nature, necessarily mute and muffle a more unmitigated, more human response?

bullmurph

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Sunday March 22, 2009 · 9:55 AM PDT

2009/03/22 · 09:55

I’ve considered myself relatively (remotely?) in the loop, just in terms of keeping abreast of the seemingly daily revelations about how outrageous and, let’s stop mincing words and tiptoing around the truth, criminal the so-called masters of the universe have acted in bringing down our entire economy. Most people know that these scumbags shit money because they eat it all day, but very few of us had any idea that we all had skin in this poker game they were playing with the national piggy bank. I’ve read virtually everything I can to try to get a handle on the situation (above and beyond the whys and wherefores, but just the simple how the hell did we get here? and where the hell do we go from here?), and even reading a little is enough to make one sick. The aftershock of this meltdown is a psychic jet-lag that won’t pass anytime soon. Therefore, it is going to be imperative for us to seek out reliable sources of information and arm ourselves with the truth, because when the sytem shits itself we all have skidmarks in our shorts. Where we are right now is the proverbial car wreck you can’t help but look at. Only this car wreck involves each and every one of our cars, except that none of us were driving them at the time. Hence the proliferating public outrage.

bullmurph

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Tuesday March 17, 2009 · 1:26 PM PDT

2009/03/17 · 13:26

Richard Cohen's lame and unbelievably solipsistic rationalization is that he too was hoodwinked by AIG. Instead of offering up a tardy mea culpa, Cohen doubles down under the pretense that, hey, if he was taken in by his own greed and myopia, how could he be accused of being...greedy and myopic? Not to mention derelict in his ostensible duties as a journalist. What he doesn't seem to get is that in his self-serving justification, he is proving that it's impossible for a writer in bed with the very system he is supposed to police to...police it. Cohen, of course, is the ultimate inside-the-beltway insider, and every time he attempts to armor his delicate integrity, he betrays how invested he is in the status quo.

RSS

Obama Reawakens The Hope of Audacity

Rush Limbaugh: Don’t Hate The Player, Hate The Game

Message To Obama: This Is This

The Catholic Church is Decadent and Depraved

There’s Just A Meanness In This World: Some Thoughts on the Execution of John Allen Muhammad

Cancel My Subscription: An Open Letter to the Washington Post

A Convenient Untruth: The Illimitable “Christian” Hypocrisy

Camille Paglia Needs an Enema

Glenn Beck is A Half-Assed Howard Beale or, The Crocodile Tears of a Clown

Taking It To The Streets?

You Using the Whole Fist, Wall Street?

Richard Cohen is a Clown, Redux