Friday, March 8, 2013

Haw!



Image gratefully lifted from Instapundit.

Whatever one may think about Rand Paul's filibuster, the response by McCain and Graham was...sadly predictable.

Update: McCain doubles down.

Senators McCain and Graham are excellent examples of what’s wrong with the Republican Party. These guys are like tacky yard ornaments – plastic trolls or pink flamingos – hopelessly out of date, in appalling taste and a disgrace to the neighborhood. They don’t realize that the political ground has shifted under their feet, that they’re up against a smart, well-organized, technologically-advanced and strongly ideological Democrat Party that isn’t interested in compromise, but is extremely interested in destroying the GOP. It would be bad enough if these generally useless politicos were mere benchwarmers, but they continue to thrust themselves forward as leaders, beguiled by their own egos into thinking that they are genuine stars, and that up-and-comers like Paul and Cruz are just green, know-nothing kids down in the Single-A league.

I don’t really know how these two manage to stay in office, unless, as is probable, it’s simply due to the magic of incumbency. In McCain’s case, I can also see how a significant demographic helps him: there are a lot of retirees in his state, and there’s a certain type of old geezer who no doubt sees a bit of himself in McCain’s impatient, self-centered and cranky personality (and notes the similarity approvingly). Lindsay Graham’s continuing success is harder to pin down, especially since he falls into that small but uniformly awful class of male politician whose physiognomy vaguely resembles that of Eleanor Roosevelt (Jimmy Carter is the paradigm in this category). Still, there he is, year after year, no end to his career in sight.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the TV show, Psych. On a recent episode, one of the main characters (Sean Spencer, played by James Roday) referred to someone as “a lame-chop slathered with fail sauce”. This expression rather admirably sums up my opinion of these two leading lights dim bulbs of the GOP establishment.

16 comments:

Old Tanker said...

I can't wait for McCain to retire.....

missred said...

These old guys are getting truly as toxic as the libs

bruce said...

McCain sounds a bit like our Malcolm Fraser - regarded as arch-conservative when young, now imagines (fantasizes) that in his 'maturity' he 'can see both sides', but the other side he sees is the 1960's one from his youth, long replaced by career labor-thugs.

bruce said...

Paco, your 3 above paragraphs on McCain are the clearest and most informative thing I've read on him, makes it all clear now.

Paco said...

Thanks, Bruce. The man is transparently an egotistical crank.

Yojimbo said...


This "old geezer" here in Arizona voted Libertarian in that Senate race, thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

Deborah said ... Sadly, it is a sure bet that uninformed voters will keep sending the dim twins back to DC. Name recognition is easier than paying attention. TMC vs DC.

Paco said...

YoJ: Dude, read what I wrote: a certain type of old geezer. Not all, er, seasoned citizens.

JeffS said...

You're an old geezer, Yojimbo? No way!

Larry Sheldon said...

ITYM These old guys are as truly toxic as the rest of the libs.

bruce said...

Hey, I consider myself an Old Geezer, and so do the local urchins. But Paco's on to something, a certain type from our age peers who see themselves straddling 'extremes' and dispensing mostly anti-conservative 'wisdom' which is little more than Ed Sullivan patronising the Mamas and Papas as 'the voice of the young people'.

RebeccaH said...

Hey, I like pink plastic flamingos. Especially when a prankster puts 50 of them in your yard (makes me laugh).

But I take your point about McCain and Graham, especially McCain. I think it's time for him to retire and shut the hell up. It's one thing to be a cranky old geezer (I should know), but it's quite another when your geezerdom affects the whole nation.

Paco said...

Bruce: You put me in mind of a bizarre interview Ed Sullivan once had with Fidel Castro, in which he referred to Castro's guerrillas as "these youngsters".

Anonymous said...

McCain & Graham have been assimilated by the Government-Borg and are now part of the hive-mind collective. Do not pay attention to the human-like husks that remain.

Deadman said...

Sen. Graham presented a silly graph which asserted that Al Qaeda caused the deaths of 2,958 Americans. We may reasonably question whence Sen. Graham derived his figure of 2,958. Could it be a coincidence that the number is nineteen fewer than the official number of victims of the 9/11 attacks?
The deaths caused by those 9/11 attacks (if we discount—as the senator clearly does—those who died later) officially numbered 2,977 victims of whom 372 were foreign nationals.
I suspect that some moron in Sen. Graham’s office subtracted 19 from 2,977, in order to discount the nineteen hijackers (though, of course, they had not been numbered among the 2,977 official victims), and failed to understand that 372 foreign nationals weren’t Americans.
It was in the early hours of the morning, here, 10,000 miles away, that I watched with a wild surmise the bizarre duologue of McCain and Graham wherein, as far as I could gather, asking Obama whether he’d kill US citizens was a question so silly as not to deserve an answer, and a C-in-C would never kill US citizens but if he did could be prosecuted.
Seeing that Lord Obama could turn alleged Republicans simply by buying them a mess of “Path Valley Farms Stuffed Heirloom Vegetable Medley” at Plume, I wrote this little ditty for senior senators:

   Here’s the new deal: Kneel for a meal.
   Hear senators squeal: “Beneath his seal
   we tried the veal. He is so real,
   full of such zeal, we can’t conceal
   his great appeal! (Some hope that he’ll
   nobly reveal his thews of steel
   in deshabille.) That’s how we feel,
   all must now wheel. We gladly kneel!”

Paco said...

Now, that there's real poetry, is what that is.