“McCarthy mocked Biden’s age and mental acuity in public, while privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations — a contradiction that left a deep impression on the White House” https://t.co/w5RfmQpYYx
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) October 4, 2023
15 thoughts on “Noted without comment”
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More evidence that McCarthy cannot be trusted on any level. Not only a liar. Someone with no moral backbone and zero sense of right and wrong.
personally, i'd be more concered with mccarthy and the gop destroying the country than calling biden old. being a lying dick is just standard republican behavior.
Right, but that’s you as an outsider. It’s really hard to work with someone up close and personal day in and day out who lies to your face and/or talks shit about you to others. It’s definitely not someone I’d want in my office working next to me. Even if they’re good at their job (which by all accounts McCarthy wasn’t), it’s just very antisocial to have a coworker who spreads rumors about you.
From Politico:
“The White House now has just 44 days to avert a November government shutdown and secure critical aid for Ukraine — and no earthly idea who will lead the House GOP.”
There is no obstacle to averting a shutdown and securing aid for Ukraine, except one — a renegade group of GOPers in the House, and the craven GOP leaders who cater to them.
The White House, the Senate, all D’s (and most R’s) in the House want a budget deal and Ukraine aid. So where does the problem reside? With the White House, says Politico.
Fair enough. There are challenges for the WH. But political media needs to start reporting GOP dysfunction and sabotage for what it is — a threat to our country. When does media start demanding accountability from Republicans? When damage is done, why is it always Democrats’ job to fix it? Why is the finger pointed at Democrats and not Republicans? No wonder the R’s are willing to take the country over the cliff. They know the D’s will get the blame. That’s the way the media sees it and reports it.
We could use more reporting like this:
“Republicans in the House now have just 44 days to avert a November government shutdown and secure critical aid for Ukraine — and no earthly idea on whom the party will choose to be the new Speaker.”
Your correction is right on. +10!
There's a reason Charles Pierce frequently refers to Politico as "Tiger Beat on the Potomac".
Also, amen to what you wrote.
The media is “conservative” on fiscal stuff, “liberal” on social stuff, in other words, weirdly occupying that quadrant of ideology which is mostly vacant.
A lot of rich gay white men fall into this category.
Except that they aren't liberal on social issues in general, just the only one that applies directly to themselves.
The "media" just wants eyeballs. In general, they want TFG back so bad it is embarrassing.
This is the quadrant of big-city rich people, aka elites, who don't care about culture wars as long as they get their tax cuts.
The wingnut trick is to keep their rallies and parades just at the entertaining edge of inspiring a riot without going quite over the edge, and if they can't keep getting close enough to the edge they risk being boring, but the edge is never quite clear so they have to play it safe, which risks putting them on the spot when the crowd wants to be sold on something, which is then why so often the default is idiot belligerence.
It's like using half your ass to be an asshole and then throwing the other half up in the air like a bouquet at a wedding and seeing what the crowd does with it and thinking you can get it back if you need it.
And what does he privately think of Trump? Complete the picture.
Don't be rude.
I seem to remember that McCarthy let slip publicly once or twice back in May that he found Biden sharp and on top of things. It wasn't just a private opinion, so Politico needs to do better that that, just on the public record.
And it wasn't a case of the White House "never fully trusting" McCarthy either, I'd bet dollars to donuts. "Fully?" Nobody trusted the guy for a second. And he gave everybody good reason for that. His shiftiness is what saved the debt ceiling and shutdown situations from becoming total disasters for the country, so there's that. It isn't nothing, but it gave no basis for anyone to move forward with him. That's the duplicity highlighted in the headline.
What comes now for most of the Rs is extreme pressure on the welded joint between party identification and having a record they can run on next year that isn't all about mayhem, destruction, and nihilism. They deserve every sleepless second of this next period. But the country doesn't deserve having to suffer through their identity crisis, nor does Ukraine.
They have turned over the controls to our entire national edifice to a small group of nut cases, some of whom really do want to destroy most of what's been built up since 1876 and others who just don't give a shit about anything or anybody beyond their own beautiful minds.
What's it worth to the relatively normie gop members to maintain their party identification with these destroyers? That's the focal question.