Lance Henriksen can make it better...

My premise is simple. The inclusion of Lance Henriksen can make even the most unpalatable of projects better. 

It is a corollary to my theory that Kate Beckinsale is the Anointed Bhodisattva of Suck. I posit that Kate is a karmic test for directors. If they can resist the siren call of her sweet looking self, and the hordes of fans that will show up to see her dressed in something skimpy, torn, wet, or otherwise revealing, or the possibility of such an occurrence, then they have an even chance of making a decent film. I have only the Underworld films, Pearl Harbor, The Aviator, or even Van Helsing as my proof.  Directors who had some track record, some success, and blew it by the addition of The Flavor of the Month.  Well, I take that back, Underworld was directed by her boyfriend who had no directing chops under his belt, but damn those were poor films, and I stand by her being a karmic test.  Kate Beckinsale can take even gifted directors down the road for a poor film.  The notable exception being Kenneth Branagh who cast  her in an ingenue role.  He was spared in Much Ado About Nothing, for she had not yet assumed her great role in the Universe's balancing. 

The Universe is perhaps not kind--the Long Dark between solid bodies will kill us all without a shed tear, and with little fanfare with a cast of radiation from a wandering body bursting with light and energy or smash us all and leave the world to the insects and squid to rise as the next species batting for intelligence--but it is fair. In that cosmic fairness, for Kate Beckinsale, we have been gifted with an actor of the likes of Lance Henrikson.


Lance grew to fame in geek circles with his role as Bishop in Aliens. Though, to be fair, he was in The Terminator long before that. And let us not forget Pirhana Two: The Spawning. And Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Right Stuff--you know, little art house stuff. But after Aliens, Lance's career took an odd turn. Not as odd as, say, Tim Thomerson, who gifted New Moon Cinema with scintillating performances like Doll Man, but Lance has made an impressive number of B-Pictures. His IMDB credits are longer than many actors have had lines. Mind you, he hit B-Films in what was a new Golden Age for B-Movies. Near Dark. Pumpkinhead. Excessive Force. Knights. Here was a man who could seamlessly go from calling up a hillbilly vengeance demon, to cop, to secret agent, vampire, to corrupt sheriff, to a blood sucking cyborg, to voicing cartoons, and back to serious roles, and then mainstream television, even voice parts for video games. It didn't matter, since they all paid with coin of the realm, and Lance gots kids to take care of. And a couple of ex-wives too. There are few actors who have had as varied a career as Lance has had. And, I posit, that he is the reverse of Kate Beckinsale.


Now then, let's not get it screwed up that Lance has not been involved in some films and series that did, shall we say, less than well? But, his films have something that a great many of the straight to video crowd didn't have: Lance Henriksen. As a presence on film, he is the sort of actor that demands a certain amount of respect. Much like Keith David. He has a gravitas on screen, that means he can be spitting up what looks like a mix of corn starch and heavy cream, and still, folks are riveted by that gravelly voice, and it gives weight to a film. Even a bad film. Even Pirhana Two: The Spawning.




Or Knights. Here is a film that should have been gawd awful. Kathy Long was a female kick boxing champ. She was known for being a damn determined fighter, if not just a little on the mean side. She was also moderately pretty. Which in the 90s was more than enough. Cyborg had made a ton of cash on video with the Van Dammage. There were a ton of new martial arts movies all over the place, and not a lot of women in leading roles, so I can see the pitch for this film being made, and let's face it, Albert Pyun, directed Cyborg. Nemesis. The above mentioned Dollman. Heck, Kickboxer 2 and 4. He was THE guy to go to make a cheap movie with asskickery. So, Kathy Long is cast as our heroine, a naive girl taught to fight by Kris Kristofferson to battle blood drinking cyborgs. That's right Kris Kristofferson. AND Lance Henrikson. In a cyborg vampire movie.


And it was pure gold. Didn't make a ton of cash, but the movie should have had everything against it, and yet, it is funny, the action isn't bad, Long is a terrible actress, but you didn't watch the movie for her emoting, but to see her touchis in skimpy clothes, and her beat the hell out of guys. And then, out of the blue, you have Kris Kristofferson AND Lance Henrikson having a great time. For those who watched the movie, or plan to, you can see where Kristofferson stole a lot of his character for the Blade movies from this one.


It's a movie that should have been terrible. Just cringe worthy, but somehow, it pulls it out. And I leave that up to Lance, who tore up the screen with equal parts camp, and gravitas. His voice rolls out and you have to smile.


And that's how it is with much of his work. Horrible films are made palatable by the inclusion of Lance Henriksen. Even in cameos, like in Aliens3. Or Hellraiser: Hellworld. Or The Mangler 2--yes, Virginia, they made a sequel. Lance makes even terrible films watchable by his presence. He may not be able to turn them into gold, but he can mitigate even a terrible script to palatable. Put him in a video game, and you have legions of geeks smiling when they hear him. He, like Keith David, is a mark of quality, and part of that is his strong presence, and part, the fact that folks know he's put in his dues. He's no shrinking violet or tantrum throwing star, he's a guy who will throw up Karo and be chucked into a set to appear as a torn up android on command. He doesn't have a huge amount of pride to keep him locked in his trailer, she's a trouper, and folks know it. And that shows on screen. God Love him for it too, because his presence has made a ton of films that could have been absolutely horrible, into gems that maybe didn't bring in bank, but they certainly made folks smile.


Lance Henriksen. The Savior of B-Film. I salute thee, sir. I salute thee.

The Patchwork Nation

One thing that has been driving me insane over the last few years is the driving home of this Red State/Blue state "wisdom."  The idea of Real America vs a Faux-America, and the resultant polarization of our politics in the idea that you're "with us" or "against us."

And in that feeling, we have this idea that we are divided nation, who either loves or hates the country depending on what button you push at the polls, or which circle you fill on the ballot.


Dante Chinni and James Gimpel have proposed a new model for looking at the nation, beyond the simple Red State/Blue state idea. After two years, journalist Dante Chinni, and professor of government a the University of Maryland, James Gimpel, PH.D, have worked on The Patchwork Nation project. It has proposed a new way to look at the nation, beyond just the regional work of Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America.  Based more on the work of urban theorist Richard Florida, and journalist Bill Bishop--whose The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded Americans is Tearing Us Apart is a fascinating read when you have the time--they examine the socio-economic and cultural divides that have sprung up in our society, and how communities across the web of counties across the nation more resemble one another than just the rubric of Red State/Blue state polarization would suggest.

For Chinni and Gimpel, they examined all 3,141 counties across this nation. With some statistical analysis of median age, income, ethnic make up, growth, housing, and cultural influence, they created a model that breaks counties down into twelve types.

Boom Towns--384 counties, with 59.3 million people. Wealthy and growing, like Eagle, Colorado. Lavish before the economic downturn, and rapidly growing communities invested heavily in construction and growth.

Campus and Careers--71 counties, with 13.1 million people. Clustered around college campuses and heavily invested in the industries that their universities are sponsoring, and emerging technologies.

Emptying Nests--250 counties, with 12.1 million people. Where Boomers and retirees are settling for their sunset years, sometimes with fixed incomes.

Evangelical Epicenters--468 counties, with 14.1 million people. Full of young families, often poorer than the national average, but with great faith, often in clashes with the other religious tribes in their midst.

Immigration Nation--204 counties, with 20.7 million people. Mostly in the Southwest, with high Hispanic populations, lower than average incomes, and a higher than average poverty.

Industrial Metropolis--41 counties, with 53.9 million people. Bastions of industry, densely packed, younger, more diverse than average, and packed with neighborhoods that are often as different as night and day.

Military Bastions--55 counties, with 8.4 million people. Packed around our nation's military bases, with middle income families of soldiers, and those who service our bases, and deeply tied to the deployments and families of those who are left behind.

Minority Central--364 counties, with 13.5 million people. African American and Native American populations mark these communities, and often lower income and high poverty rates, with often very divided communities where race is concerned.

Monied Burbs--286 counties, 69.1 million people. Higher than average education, higher than average income, and often evenly split between parties, and opportunities for dropping relative wealth here and abroad.

Mormon Outposts--44 counties, 1.7 million people. Mostly in the Mountain West, heavily Mormon, and often rural and sparsely populated.

Service Worker Centers--663 counties, 31 million people. Centers of tourism or mid-sized towns, where employee benefits are often sparse, and folks are often only seasonal.

Tractor Country--311 counties, 2.3 million people. Farming and agribusiness rule these counties' economic base, and often white, rural, and remote.

The one problem that I've always had with Garreau's Nine Nations, was that Northampton, Massachusetts shares more in common with Durango, Colorado, than it has in common with Boston or even the Cape. Yet, there is a tendency to throw NoHo in the same category as Boston because of the locale. While Mainers share many traits, Portland is a far different place than Skowhegan. And their voting history are far different as well, and the economies and culture are far removed.  The communities of the Finger Lakes are a far different lot than the folks living in New York city, and the breakdown that Chinni and Gimpel have worked out, while some may argue is arbitrary, gives us a wider picture of the forces that work on disparate communities that often share demographics, employment and income figures, and mores. Economics, politics and culture play a role as well. While Presidential elections hinge on the electoral fall of the chips, the Chinni and Gimpel model is a tool that may become increasingly useful to help folks strategize their approaches to elections, and gives us a more complete picture than the simplicity of Real America vs the Fake America that divides and dumbs down the national debate.

Chinni and Gimpel traveled to each county across the country to gather not just data, but to talk to folks in each of these communities. Those anecdotal stories are without irony, and build up a picture of each representation, the people within, and the challenges that they face. While the simplicity of thinking of the country as just Red or Blue makes for easy graphics in the news, it does us a grave disservice, even for those of us who are still invested in Party.  Republicans from Boston are a bit different than Republicans in Nixa, Missouri. While Palin's political base can draw from Evangelicals, it often alienates her from those in the Industrial East. And understanding these differences, and how disparate communities across the nation can share values and mores, as well as similar economic challenges can bring us, as a nation, closer together.

If you haven't looked at the Patchwork Nation project, I urge you to at least peruse it, as a better tool, or at least as a springboard for thinking about the nation less as polar opposites. It is a project that helps bring into focus better the disparate nature of the nation and her communities, as much as Strauss and Howe brought lifecycle influence better into focus with Generations and their cyclical model of generations in this country.

Crossposted to the Motley Moose.

Forgotten Pledges...

From Newest Farkstuff

Been a while since I posted, but given the recent flap with Carl Paladino's speech on the dysfunction of homosexuals, the flap over the "Ground Zero Mosque" and the upcoming upcoming trial of Ahmed Kalfan Ghailani, I thought it was important to remind folks of pledges made some time ago.


Most Americans of an age, started their school days with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. I have no doubt that most American reading this can recite the Pledge from memory, and without really thinking on it too much. Announcements, turn to the flag, find out what's for lunch in the cafeteria, discover that the football team is getting out early for a game, and realizing that means all the cheerleaders will be leaving too. Which was, perhaps good news for some, and heartbreak for others who pined for the lovely ladies with the short skirts and pom poms, or the strapping young men destined for the gridiron later that day.

We have said these words, over and over again. Automatic response, hand over heart, eyes often vaguely glazed. In repetition, we grew familiar, and reflexive. And the words, and the oath lost its power.

There is debate over the place of the Pledge of Allegiance. It's language, its purpose, the use of God and the separation of church and state, but that debate can be set aside for a moment, when you have to ponder how often folks in power, as of late, have forgotten the promises made, and that we made daily.

For all the jingoist patriotism that has been bandied about in the last election, and now as we hear condemnations against so much, and this particular Administration, I thought it wise to bring up the Pledge. Especially for the brand of patriots who want Americans to regain their pride, to resist the siren call of Socialism, the homosexual agenda, the rising threat of Islam and Sharia law in this nation.

These fair weather patriots have forgotten their basic and oft repeated oath.

I Pledge allegiance
To the Flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation
Under God
IndivisibleWith Liberty and Justice for all

You will note, that in that pledge and promise, that we have sworn, over and over again, thousands of times over the course of our lives, that our nation is a Republic, that we've sworn our loyalty and faith to that system of governance. Not just to one party, but to the nation as a whole. One nation. Not simply "Real America" and the heck with those faux Americans who live in the original Thirteen Colonies, with their fancy book learning and where the history is kept. To not contemplate the division and secession of parts because we don't like what our neighbors are doing. That we are united as a nation. Single and indivisible. Not Red states vs Blue states. Not just America until the gub'mint does something to piss me off.

You will note, the last portion. "With liberty and justice for all."  That part is more telling. More important. That is the promise of our nation. Liberty and justice for all. Not just Christians. Not just citizens. Not just straight people. Not just those with money in the bank, or property. But all.

It is a shame that so many have forgotten their oaths.  That so many seem to think that the Fourteenth Amendment is inapplicable today.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I have bolded the important parts of Section One. The parts that folks who've sworn their allegiance to the Republic, and the basis of our law and citizenship.

You will note, that Section One doesn't say, "Any persons but the homos" or "Any person but dirty Muslims" or "Any citizen" even. But simply "any persons."  Equal protection of the law. Equal. Not just a little bit, but equal. As in the same protection of the law.

We have repeatedly sworn to uphold the Republic. Using the flag as symbol of that Republic, we have sworn to uphold her promise of liberty and justice for all, and it is a shame that so many who claim to love this land, this nation, have forgotten their oath. To uphold liberty and justice for all, and then tirelessly work to limit the rights of homosexuals, who should have equal access and protection under the law to marry and live their lives with dignity, to be the same as all others. To try to demonize and limit the rights of Muslims to practice their faith, to build and prosper within the communities that they live in.  To cry and wail on the right to a speedy trial, and work to limit and even deny folks the right to a trial.

It is a shame that so many, who claim to love their country, have forgotten their oaths, and we are damned by this lack of faith, and this lack of vigilance to to uphold the ideals of our nation, that we have so often sworn to.

I ask that maybe it's time to remind folks what they pledged to do, over and over again, and to remind them of what it means to be Americans, and what we hold most dear and precious. Because it seems that a lot of folks have forgotten that oath, and our values.

Crossposted to The Motley Moose. 

A Positive Side Effect

One positive side effect of the recent financial debacle, and the drying up of credit, is that America may get back to a something we've not done in a while: exercise fiscal restraint.

With the easy credit markets, and many financial institutions and businesses living essentially in their overdraft protection, constantly servicing debt, as opposed to paying down principle, and taking out loan after loan to fuel expansion for the sake of, on paper, to "grow" while only spiraling further and further into new conditions of debt. While old loans are refinanced, the principle and the level of debt continues to weigh companies down. While conditions improve in the short term, many firms both small and large have been carrying what George Cloony's "Ryan Bingham" called his "backpack" and those backpacks being chock full of obligations that created decision trees that were predicated on carrying debt with them, and only looking for resolutions that kept them solvent, and what many called a "discipline of debt."

Now, we are faced with a "discipline of cash." Oddly enough, living within our means, and making decisions based on what we actually earn, and to think twice about our decisions about the long term consequences of spending. Instant gratification that our "easy credit" markets created led to decisions that were based on the assumption that we could just "roll over" our debt and come out without consequence.

And that led us far from the fiscal restraint and good fiscal decision making that created that boom in the first place. Credit, and easy access to it, made our businesses agile and quick to adapt to new markets.  Likewise though, we are now adjusting to a new reality where cash is king, and your business will grow only when you can afford to do so, not when you can "afford" a new loan, and hope to keep it serviced.  Call it restraint or austerity, but it means a firmer foundation for our businesses, and our investments. Or at least for a majority of the small businesses and the lesser sized companies.

The largest customers, they are still looking for new conquests. But from a economists' standpoint, the give and take, and relative lack of growth can be seen as a positive thing: stability for our markets. People living within their means, and only incrementally growing makes for a lousy return for speculative investments, but it is that very stability that can make for long term investments based on sound and thoughtful business practice.

It does go against the "Boom-Bust" cycle that the American economy was slaved to for most of its existence. Which wiped out many a fortune until finally measures were taken to enact protections that many firms have been fighting against, and looking for a lookey-loo around for some time.

It does mean that growth will be slower for some time for many. It means less opportunity to grow hard and fast, but living within one's means brings a stability that encourages confidence, and public confidence means a less rambunctious and less radical investment schemes.

Cross-posted to The Motley Moose

Kangbashi--Ghost Town

The Kangbashi district of Ordos City in Inner Mongolia illustrates the exact reason that the US has little to fear from China's saber economic saber rattling.

While the US housing and banking markets are recovering, with the Chinese holding a fair amount of US debt, and many fearing the day when the Chinese start demanding bills come due, we have to remember the symbiosis that our markets and the Chinese now exist in.

Ordos City was established to be prefecture seat, and a highlight of the economic boom that the Chinese have lashed themselves to. Inner Mongolia bloomed with a thoroughly modern city, created from scratch. The Kangbashi District is its jewel, with high rises, daring architecture, and lavish infrastructural amenities that rival many Western cities, it is also damn near empty and unused.  Of the 1.3 million or so residents of the city, most are the workers actually building this marvel in the Mongolian desert. 

The Ordos Museum is an impressive structure, a marvel of the new style of Chinese public buildings, designed to wow the rest of the world, as well as impress and instill pride in the residents and their countrymen. It is also rarely visited, save by those who are putting the finishing touches on the structure, and to take photos for promotions to try to lure folks to the Mongolian desert. 

The real estate bubble in the West was devastating.  The housing bubble here in the US was dotted with developments that were bought to be flipped, and fueled by rampant speculation. We were, however, amateurs to the scale that the Chinese have invested in their own real estate bubble. While neighborhoods were fabricated for growing cities, the Chinese were betting on creating whole cities whole cloth, and it is this very reason that, while the amount of US debt in Chinese hands is a matter of some concern, we have little to fear from the Chinese rattling economic sabers. While indeed they own a fair amount of our debt, they need that interest at this point just to survive, and we exist now in a form of economic symbiosis that neither the US nor China can even think about extricating ourselves from any time soon. 

The boundless optimism that dominated the last several years, with dreams of nothing but wealth spiraling upwards wasn't just a Western conceit.  While there may have been the clucking of tongues at the waste and recklessness of US regulatory bodies with our own investment in financial fictions, at the same time, our economic partners were using the wealth that they were skimming from our loan structures, and their own investments in ways that were both impressive, and in their own way, filled with as much hubris and and fiscal hallucination. 

While there are economists who are worried what the real estate bubble in China looks like, with such a huge investment by the Chinese government into what amounts to ghost towns, it only illustrates that the Chinese are going to need our interest payments for some time, and while there may be hardliners who may think about trying to squeeze a bit, ultimately, our interests and the Chinese are interlinked.  Our debt, and the servicing of that debt, may be the only thing that can save the Chinese from economic implosion. 

Crossposted to The Motley Moose

Why Does Liz Cheney Hate America So Much?

There has been a fair amount of push to derail the Justice Department from doing their job. And one of the culprits of this idiocy has been Liz Cheney. Her latest efforts to keep her father's involvement in less than savory practices during the last Administration has come from a web based attack on our own Justice Department.


Keep America Safe is ironically named, because its rasison d'etre is to keep American justice from playing out. By targeting attorneys doing pro bono work and providing the legal counsel that is every accused's right in this country, she condemns not only these attorneys, but our entire system of justice. 


I am hardly the only Republican who thinks her witchhunt is a bad idea. I join Ted Olson, Bush's own Solicitor General, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, David Rivkin, Lee Casey, and even Kenneth Starr.


"I of course think it’s entirely appropriate for members of the legal profession to have provided legal services to detainees. It is a part of the responsibility of lawyers and in the finest tradition of the profession to represent unpopular persons who are caught up in the criminal justice system or even in the military justice system. I think that people who do so, do so honorably.” 


“But I also think that some of the people being highly critical now of the criticism of the lawyers in the Justice Department, have been completely silent when it came to attacks — vicious attacks — on lawyers in the Department of Justice and the Defense Department who were providing legal assistance and advice to the United States of America during the last administration in connection with the attacks on the United States by terrorists.


“So lawyers should be encouraged to provide legal advice conscientiously to their clients. And that goes for people in the Bush administration and the Obama administration." 


Mind you, Liz Cheney is hardly alone in this effort, and her partner in all this, Bill Kristol, has long been an opponent of reason, or justice. Sadly, Bill Kristol has best been summed up in his career as of late by Jon Stewart: "Oh Bill Kristol, are you EVER right?"


Inherent to our justice system is the right to counsel. Even the worst has the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. That is how our system of justice works, it is that assumption that is the cornerstone of our courts. While the public, and those in the military, and even our own agents may know and have witnessed folks doing horrible things, even the worst get their day in court.  At least, that is the promise that we have made to ourselves.  That we will apply justice fairly and evenly, and that the attacks on attorneys who are providing defense for those accused is very much in keeping with the tradition of our courts. Even going back to our Revolutionary days, when John Adams defending British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. 


What bothers me about this idiocy, isn't that Liz and Kristol and the rest of her band of insincere asshats think that folks are guilty--they may very well be--but that they wish to interfere with the justice process, and short circuit it. 


"They hate us for our freedoms!" is a common tirade for our War On Terror. The problem being, when we short circuit our system of justice for short term gain, we lose any hint of a moral or ethical high ground, and it only proves that terrorists can cow the greatest nation on Earth. When we pull back from the principles that this nation is founded upon to tuck our tails between our legs out of fear--or worse, out of expediency--we only give those enemies ammunition for their cause. 


Moreover, that Liz Cheney's involvement is a thinly veiled attempt to shield her own father's possible malfeasance and to throw folks off the trail to track down how badly our own legal and ethical standards were skewed in the capture of many of our detainees is not lost. The raft of appearances to shed investigations and introspection at the policies that have ballooned Gitmo, and other holding facilities, and often without the process of law place the Cheneys and their supporters at the AEI on not only the wrong side of the law and history, but against the very foundations of our rule of law. 


Liz: why do you hate America so much?


Crossposted to The Motley Moose

Conflation is not causation

Let's just get this out of the way: Jonah Goldberg is a fatuous, disingenuous ass that wouldn't know decent scholarship if it came up and punched him in the face. And decent scholars should be doing that for the idiocy that he has poured into his pean to appease those who don't like the current trend that sections of the GOP are taking, Liberal Fascism.

I pop the pic up early, to just get that out of the way. Whether or not the current NeoCons like it or not, their policies have a certain ring. By using a tool like Goldberg, and conflating ideologies and political systems that were long in opposition to one another, our beamish boy tries to swing a semantical bat to knock Fascism and Communism, and Socialism all into the same vat. Revisionism is nothing entirely new, and the push to cast Nixon as a Fallen Hero, or Reagan as a fiscal Conservative is just part of the push to try to lionize the past, and ignore the fallout of failed policies, while demonizing opposition who just plain pantsed you in the last election.

Thinking people would, you might assume, take inventory after a loss like the last one. Losing the House and Senate should have been a wake up call, but instead, it was a signal to turn up the Wing Nut Brigade to higher decibels and damn the torpedoes, it was straight ahead. And McCain's campaign foundered on those rocks. Rather than take that as a sign, that perhaps a change in policy might be in order, the GOP leadership has instead invested in simply revising the past and "changing the tone" again.

By investing in revisionists to recast the past in a new light, and simply excise the parts that might be embarrassing--like supporting Saddam in his fight against Iran, forgetting the USA's part in toppling the democratically elected government in Iran in the 50s, which set the stage for the rise of Fundamentalist Islamic Statists, or Reagan's profligate spending--and write a new "narrative."

For the record, I really hate the new term "narrative" at least in the context of public relations. It does show how removed folks are from reality in that they figure that they can simply spin a tale out of cherry picked facts, and ignore those that simply are inconvenient. The revisionists are looking to recast their tired and trite ideas that failed, and poison the waters for those who oppose them. The push to turn "Progressive" into a conflation with "Liberal Commie Scum" and likewise to push the idea that Commie-Pinko Scum are actually Fascists too, is a trite attempt to turn charges away from themselves--and after support of US PATRIOT and other attacks on personal liberties it's ironic to try to level the fascist bar against others.

Worse, you have an incestuous circle of folks who pat one another on the back for "exposing" this insidious plot to plant ideas into our youth and culture. Beck exposes the horrible plot to weave Progressive/Liberal/Fascist lies into music. You have Krauthammer pounding away at his own disingenuous drum, and Kristol and Goldberg hitting their own notes to try turn the ship of state from its disastrous course away from shooting people up across the world, and getting our economy back on track. And what bothers me about all this, is that it is an attempt to turn the GOP, and the country, away from saner voices.

The conflation to paint Progressives and Moderate voices of the GOP into monsters, and the gross revisionist plays at rewriting history, even only years ago to ignore inconvenient facts, is desperation in the face of failures, and rather than admit that the Neoconservative policies have failed both our security and our economy, they are doubling down on stoopid, and hoping that the American public is dumb enough to fall for it. And that right there shows the lack of respect that these tools have for the American people. That they have to resort to semantic slight of hand, and gross revisionism to work their way out of a corner, as opposed to simply letting the weight of their ideas carry the day, shows that they're out of gas. Out of ideas. Out of anything looking like intellectual integrity.

When Beck and others who try to paint Progressives as Liberal/Commie/Fascists who come for your liberty and your freedoms, this is who they fear. The following is their real boogeyman, because he represents all that the GOP can be, and should be, and idiots like themselves are too cowardly and intellectually bankrupt to strive for any longer...

Crossposted to The Motley Moose