The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Pandering to Naysayers & Radicals: Democratic Primary Fever

By MuddyPolitics on Sat, 10/29/2011 - 9:55am |

Between applauding the death of uninsured Americans, booing gay soldiers and cheering mass executions in Texas, the Republican presidential primary race has been quite a shock to those who understood “conservatism” to mean “pro-life” and “pro-military.”

Apparently “compassionate conservatism” retired the same year as George W. Bush.

It’s moments like these that have highlighted not only the moral decay of the conservative constituency but also the depths to which Republican presidential primary candidates will dive in order to woo the teabagger demographic.

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Is Rick Santorum ‘the next flavor of the month?’

By MuddyPolitics on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 6:40pm |

Between Rick Perry’s dip in the birther pond and Herman Cain’s smoking advertisement, this has a been a relatively entertaining week in the Republican presidential race.

But not entertaining enough, apparently.

Christian Heinze asks in an article published this morning at TheHill.com, is Rick Santorum “the next flavor of the month?”

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Does Obama Deserve Credit for the Death of Qaddafi?

By MuddyPolitics on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 10:36pm |

When President Obama intervened in Libya in March, 2011, political science professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said, “Republicans would be blind not to see an opening. This is one of the biggest mistakes Obama has made, arguably.”

From CBSNews

As we saw at the time, Republicans weren’t blind.

The political “opening” provided by Obama’s alleged “invasion” of Libya led to harsh criticisms of the president. And while Republicans may have been out of sync in their messaging – some said it was unconstitutional, while others said Obama should have struck earlier and put boots on the ground – they definitely weren’t blind. All Republicans agreed it was wrong, they just couldn’t agree on which aspect of the intervention was most wrong.

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The Democratic Revolution Is Now: the grassroots movement is on the ground and the domestic policy that will define Democrats in 2012 is on the House floor

By MuddyPolitics on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 9:59pm |

The Democratic Party’s hesitance to fully embrace the president’s American Jobs Act isn’t just another example of the ever-powerful role big donors and the corporate lobby play in national politics; it’s a further demonstration that Democrats are scared, lazy and deaf to the American public’s call to end the “Affluent Only” political caste system we live in.

A recent article in The Hill reported that Democrats in the House have been reluctant to co-sponsor the American Jobs Act because it was drafted by the White House, “which should have stream-lined the proposal for floor consideration without official endorsements.”

Obviously, arguing what “should have” happened in the Teapublican-controlled House of Representatives is no more productive than teaching trigonometry to a turtle. But whatever excuses they want to make, the truth is that Democrats hoped to avoid attaching their name to a bill that Republicans have already lambasted as a another “stimulus bill” that “increases taxes on job creators.”

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Has the Herman Cain Bubble Burst?

By MuddyPolitics on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 9:49pm |

You know what they say about living by the sword.

In politics, the same goes for polls.

As Rick Perry realized when the mere prospect of his entrance into the 2012 Republican presidential race made him an automatic frontrunner immediately following the announcement of his candidacy, polls are flattering. In Perry’s case, the polls proved to the pundits and the naysayers that he could be a contender, that he could win the GOP nomination, and that people liked him – or at least that they liked him more than they like the other guy, which, in the GOP primary race, actually meant that they didn’t dislike him as much as they disliked the other guy.

And then the polls suddenly proved the opposite.

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