WataugaWatch

Just what the world's been waiting for ... "a fully conservative translation of the Bible"! The "Conservative Bible Project" intends to flush all that sissy "Do unto others" and "Blessed are the peace-makers" crap for something a little more in line with a militarized, Republicanated, Limbaugh-esque version of The Prince of Peace (which, it turns out, was a freakin' hippy imposter. The real Jesus was apparently a good deal closer in outline to Chuck Norris, or the Taliban).

There's much to admire in this new agenda, the rules that will be guiding this new translation, but here are our favorite marching orders for cleaning up the New Testament:

2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

Jesus was as much a swinging dick as Brigidier General Jack Ripper, say, or Dick Cheney.

And perhaps the best of all, the stuffed cherry on top of this Holy Sundae:

7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Turns out that the passage about the odds of rich men getting their complacent asses into heaven was badly mistranslated, and incidentally, God hates unions.

Labels: conservative movement, religion and politics

Coffee spurted out my nose this morning when I heard Joe Scarborough say, in all seriousness:

Conservatives have always loathed ideology.

Joe wants desperately these days to be an intellectual, and Lesson One appears to be "Rewrite History." We should take up a collection and send this child to camp.

Labels: conservative movement, Joe Scarborough

Bless her heart, Virginia Foxx has found her moment at last.

Fate has dealt the Congresswoman what she’s not had since she entered Congress in 2004 ... something, somebody to be wholeheartedly and unreservably against.

The Republican Party has always been much better at opposition than at governing (need we mention the last eight years?). Being in opposition is easier, and neater, and more exhilarating, and infinitely more theatrical. To point the finger of accusation, to sound the knells of doom, to light the bonfires of outrage ... these are actions so much more satisfying to the frustrated drama queens of the GOP.

Madam Foxx can hardly believe her luck, to grab a florid moment in the national spotlight as the congresswoman who would deny the new president the other half of George W. Bush’s stupid TARP money. How convenient for her that the actual authors of that stupidity are out the door (since they happen to be the standard bearers of her own party). With Bush & Co. gone safely to seed, she can oppose to her spleen’s content.

Does she have an alternate plan? Well, no, not exactly. “Let the market work”? Wouldn’t that have turned out well, if Virginia Foxx and her fellow congressional Republicans had gotten their way to privatize Social Security and pump the money into the same market that hasn’t finished crashing yet? What did Madam Foxx want to do during the recent failure of banks? Stand by and watch?

The sun rising on Obama is also rising on the conservative obstructionists. When Republicans are out of power, there are no evident requirements that they have an actual idea, a plan, a solution. Being in opposition is its own idea. No solutions required. Just John Boehner playing Aunt Pittypat: “Oh my heavens!”

No solutions nor intellectual consistency, either. Recently, Madam Foxx said that she was “philosophically opposed to the federal government operating this way” (handing out money in the financial services bail-out), but she was famously in favor of the United States Congress imposing itself on a private family matter in the Terri Schiavo case. Foxx was an enthusiastic foot-soldier in that unprecedented imposition of federal power, mugging for those C-SPAN cameras in an early foretaste of her theatrical talents.

But apparently, giving out ultimatums in private moral matters is quite different from giving out money to people or institutions who need it.

Madam Foxx has never tired of using her own early childhood poverty as a banner for her character, and apparently no one EVER helped her. She intends to get her revenge for that. So if you’re hurting right now and there’s something government might do to help out, don’t go to The Madam all whiny and stuff, because she’ll gush like an artesian well, NO NO NO NO.

Labels: conservative movement, National Republican Party, Virginia Foxx

Look who came to dinner at George Will's place!

With a whole host of conservative bloviators passing the mashed potatoes: William Kristol, David Brooks, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Peggy Noonan, Rich Lowry, Michael Barone, Paul Gigot, and others yet to be ratted out.

Go to any right-wing website and read the reactions, for example, this one. You'd get the impression that George Will shared Obama's prayer rug.

Reacting to screams of "traitor" on the right, Charles Krauthammer joked: "And I'm here to tell you that, speaking for myself, [Obama] has succeeded. I am brainwashed entirely. I'm in the tank, and I am a believer of hope and change and, above all, audacity."

Rush Limbaugh's feelings were hurt because he wasn't invited.

Labels: Barack Obama, conservative movement, George Will

She's made herself useful to the House Conservatives as a foot soldier in the Dogma Drama: "No government, no how ... No money spent on nothing, no way."

She's earning a reputation for theatricality ... those huge blow-ups of Roger Clemens she showed such an anatomical interest in, her school-marmish rounding up of spectators in the Capitol rotunda to attend the "Drill, Baby, Drill" insurgency last August.

Merely a taste of what's to come as Republican conservatives launch their "Stop Obama Socialism At All Costs."

The Madam intends to be a playah.

If that means a whole new Red Scare and nasty obstructionism, well, whaddya want? Flowers and sweets?

FOOTNOTE: Yes, I said "Red Scare." Expect a whole new kind of McCarthyism rousing itself on the right. Eve Fairbanks cracks open that particular egg in The New Republic.

Labels: conservative movement, Virginia Foxx

We reported a couple of days ago about Erick Erickson's notable mixing of metaphors over at RedState ... in calling for a "purge of the deadwood" in the conservative movement. Erickson intimated that he was personally on the lookout for "fake conservatives" who might be first in line for purging, though he wasn't yet ready to begin naming names.

Michael Medved apparently decided to out himself. Erick Erickson, meet Michael Medved, conservative dead wood. Medved (for the record) is listed as the eighth most influential right-wing radio talker. He used to guest-host for Limbaugh pretty regularly, until he got his own show. Before that he reviewed movies.

In today's USA Today, Medved says that right-wing talk radio is spewing way too much trash to an increasingly small audience and that maybe that isn't the most productive course to take following the disaster of November 4. Figuring out how to rebuild a credible political opposition to deal with Obama constitutes no less than an "existential challenge."

Oooo ... existentialism! We're tingling all over already, mainly because Medved actually gets it. The universe has reoriented itself, and he & Limbaugh & Hanity & O'Reilly & the four & 20 other blackbirds baked in the Talk Radio Pie aren't the masters of this new domain ... because, see, existentialism starts with "a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world."

For a black socialist (and most liberal senator) with the middle name of Hussein to win the presidency with 365 electoral votes ... well, that's just absurd. What's a right-wing radio talker to say, huh?

Saith Medved: "Depending on responses from leading conservative talkers, this rude, raucous indispensable medium [talk radio] will either rise to new heights of mainstream influence, profit and credibility, or else collapse as a declining vehicle for an increasingly angry and alienated fringe."

Judging from our own local small-potatoes example, "On the Right Side" with Jim Goff and Jim Hastings on WATA, they're going whole hog for the "increasingly angry and alienated fringe," an audience that will comfortably fit, say, in any standard-size SUV. "On the Right Side" has recently reinstated "Tolerate This!" as its on-air theme song. The ditty has lyrics that Medved would blanch at but which the increasingly angry and alienated fringe apparently laps up. For one small, SUV-type example:

Tolerate this! I believe in driving the biggest car I can

We reckon this is what Medved calls cultivating "a niche audience rather than the Republican mainstream," because even the conservative Republicans we know (those who still speak to us) realize that the massive consumption of petroleum is just not a viable societal option any more, let alone a feasible political pitch.

Not that we want the angry white guy act to slack off! Far better to purge the Michael Medveds from the party. You betcha.

Labels: 2008 election results, conservative movement, Erick Erickson, Michael Medved

Charlie Cook headlines two of the "best minds" among the ranks of national Republican operatives and their prescriptions for bringing their party back from the grave. These two operatives choose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons: their advice is going to be heroically ignored and their advice would earn them a one-way trip on a sharp rail out of town if anyone knew their names.

The first operative flies directly in the face of most of the GOP soul-searching we've so far covered here:

...when I hear people say it is still a center-right country and that we need to return to our conservative roots, I think that is a long-term strategy to do nothing and a strategy that will keep us in a permanent minority.

The second operative ends up with this fourth point:

...stop being [misguided] on immigration. We are alienating huge parts of the electorate, we are turning our primaries into single issue "hate" contests and ignoring the single fastest growing bloc of voters in the country.

We can be thankful that all this advice will not be read, and if read, will not be followed. From what we've seen, Republicans intend to purge their faint-hearted "moderates" and charge off even more resolutely toward the Cliff of Total Wacko Extremism.

Labels: Charlie Cook, conservative movement, National Republican Party

Some of the most interesting reading these days is found on conservative blog sites, and we're particularly alert to more calls for "purges" of weak-kneed sisters in the ranks who dared vote for one or another of those Bush initiatives that are now seen as conservative heresy.

Erick Erickson at RedState, for example, who wants to separate the conservative "movement" from the Republican Party (since look where being joined at the hip got them all!) and who uses the "p" word ("purge ... purge") twice, along with the metaphor of "dead wood" for describing Republican/conservative leaders whose leadership is no longer required (and by "dead wood," Erickson is apparently not referring to the impenetrable space between Sarah Palin's ears but to certain unnamed "conservative" orgs and unnamed Republican members of Congress who need to be disappeared as soon as possible).

As a spectator sport, the philosophical advancement toward hari-kiri on the Right has been even more fascinating than we could have hoped for, and no one's even been bled out yet. We're avidly waiting to see whether "the movement" can squeeze itself down into the number of people who'll fit comfortably inside a walnut shell.

NOTE TO PURGERS: Sen. Saxby Chambliss voted FOR the Bush/Paulson bailout, than which there can hardly be a greater conservative heresy. Yet there was Sarah Palin, the Doofus Darling, campaigning for Chambliss all over Georgia yesterday, proclaiming him conservatism's savior and -- naturally-- a "maverick" in the Senate.

Labels: conservative movement, Erick Erickson, Sarah Palin, Saxby Chambliss