Is it Bartlow or Bartlett?

Goodness, let us not get even more deeply mired yet another "lesser evil" trap by assuming individuals, simply because FOX will not book them, are worth hearing frum (sic)!

Karl Sanchez -

It's Bartlett. Thanks for catching my typo! Fixed!

John Puma @ 2:

You raise an interesting point that I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. I won't (yet) go into details of my thinking, but are you trying to suggest that a one-party system (or a two-party system where at least one of the two parties is dysfunctional beyond all measure and thus quickly making itself completely obsolete and inoperative) is a good thing?

To Brad @ 4:

I'm suggesting ONLY that the likes of Frum, et. al., are opportunist hucksters whose "enlightened" pronouncements, after their previous execrable careers, should not be amiably accepted, and certainly not glorified, simply because they publicly state what should be obvious to a moderately observant ten-year old. These are sophisticated political operatives who are simply positioning themselves, to benefit from what, we can only hope, is their accurate assessment of a shift in the country's political direction.

I will never rise to the exalted level from which I can write snappy one liners to justify an administration's continuation of our policy of perpetual war. However, once someone else has done that, he needs to do something quite a bit more substantive than seeing FOX for what it is, to atone for the massive injustice and crime he has conspired commit. And remember, two of the three members of that breezy-sounding "axis of evil" are still available for their first round of that magic of our "gift of democracy."

Even Ed Shultz, the self-proclaimed reformed “righty,” for all the admirable things he says, identified himself, within my earshot, as a similarly incorrigible neo-con when he wondered aloud, perhaps the Thanksgiving before last: “Has anyone ever heard one word of thanks from an Iraqi for the help we’ve given them.” If you agree that 21 continuous years of our war/”sanctions,” with a) 20% of the Iraqi population displaced b) some 2 million dead, along with 3) depleted uranium, the grisly gift that TRULY “keeps on giving,” is a favor for which any perpetrator thereof should complain for lack of thanks, save yourself some time, don’t bother with the rest of this comment. Reply to me only with: “I agree with Ed.” I’ll happily promise never to set foot on your blog again.

I fail to understand how my comment could be interpreted as favoring a one-party system. I want to see more than mere lip-service to our alleged two-party system. (Just as I demand more than lip-service to our lofty national meaning, mission and intent. See below.) My state’s recent ballot had six names from which to choose from president. Since they were not the two corporate finalists, they had no voice and one had to be jailed for publicly saying so. Why NOT six parties? Our country is as firmly deadlocked, or worse, with two parties as is any of the multi-party parliamentary systems in the world.

However, with our two-party system, when you say, "at least one of the two parties is dysfunctional beyond all measure and thus quickly making itself completely obsolete and inoperative" do you imply that I need to coo about Frum, et.al., to advocate it's resuscitation? Are you revealing that your championing of “reformed righties” is an effort to resuscitate it?

That party has spent the better part of 30 years fighting valiantly to establish a new homeland for frank fascism.
I view it as I did Larry “wide stance” Craig, for whom I was DELIGHTED to see any protection of law suspended since he was found violating the VERY SAME type of law he spent HIS execrable career pushing, promulgating and passing to the detriment of many lives, most notably, the young man crucified on a Wyoming fence.

Besides interviewing Howie Klein, I suggest you read his blog. From that alone you can get a clear picture that we have essentially a one party system - the corporate party. In my most optimistic moments, few and far between as they are (it must be obvious), I estimate that congress has perhaps 10% of its members who have a measurable concern for their constituents. The rest are the moocher and agents of those who created mooching on the grand scale.

I DO NOT like or approve of that. Fawning over the corporate party’s allegedly former(?), high-level perpetrators, is not a self-preserving, productive activity any more than is Obama's chronic, pathological empowerment of the party that would lynch him physically if they thought they could get away with it.

On this blog you document, daily, the wide-spread, persistent pernicious campaign of the radical reich to literally destroy our republic via electoral fraud. When Frum et. al., are pictured on this blog EACH handing over a check to you for $250,000, then I will personally present their awards. Until then, I regard them as major-league moochers.

The measure of the integrity of a country is how small is the DIFFERENCE between what it SAYS about its values and purpose as opposed to what its ACTIONS prove those values and purpose truly to be.

By that standard the US is a miserable (murderous) fraud and there is simply no reason to give awards to proven, prime promulgators of that fraud.

John Puma said, among other things, @ 5:

However, with our two-party system, when you say, "at least one of the two parties is dysfunctional beyond all measure and thus quickly making itself completely obsolete and inoperative" do you imply that I need to coo about Frum, et.al., to advocate it's resuscitation? Are you revealing that your championing of “reformed righties” is an effort to resuscitate it?

You needn't "coo" about anyone or anything. I'm not suggesting that, anymore than I ever suggest anyone must agree with me (or anybody else) about anything!

I happen to believe that a wholly dysfunctional Republican Party is neither good for the U.S. or, more to the point, good for the Democratic Party. While there is much I disagree about with guys like Frum and Bartlett, yes, I do believe they deserve some measure of credit for swimming directly against their party's increasingly tyrannical and dysfunctional tide and for making common sense arguments they actually believe in, no matter the personal cost, inside of a seriously diseased party in which such common sense and reasoned beliefs (whether I agree or support those beliefs is entirely beside the point) are otherwise completely unwelcome.

Without a legitimate "opposition party" to the Democrats, they are presented with little reason to push back and counter a "legitimate" corporate narrative that might otherwise be represented by Republicans. They adopt that narrative as their own instead. One example: Republicans had long championed the "market-based" healthcare law that eventually became known as "ObamaCare". Had the GOP been doing its job and, legitimately, pushing for that version of a healthcare insurance "solution", Ds might have been busy countering it with either a public option or, even better, a [gasp!] single payer system.

Without such legitimate opposition, however, the Dems have a natural (and, yes, corporate-sponsored) tendency to move to fill the vacuum left vacant by the Right, as they did on Healthcare. And that's just one example.

So, yes, I tend do believe that a healthy and functioning Republican Party, no matter how much I agree (or, far more often, don't) with the views represented by them, is good for both the U.S. and the Democratic Party. I'd also argue that it's healthier for small "d" democracy as well, for a number of other reasons that I won't go into for the moment.

So, without presuming things I haven't said, where have I got it wrong?

To Brad @ 6:

You say:
"Without a legitimate 'opposition party' to the Democrats, they are presented with little reason to push back and counter a 'legitimate' corporate narrative that might otherwise be represented by Republicans."

I strongly object to the notion in this statement that the Dems are immune from our expectation, and demand, to act with independent integrity and concern for the well being of the country and its citizens. I would suggest that you are merely confirming, and accepting, the lack of collective backbone of the Dems. I expect the Dem party, itself, to BE "the legitimate opposition party" to the frank fascists.

If, as you say, the "Dems have a natural (and, yes, corporate-sponsored) tendency to move to fill the vacuum left vacant by the Right," and we accept that as unchangeable political reality, then we repeat the saga of Germany of 1923-33 and are, thus, truly lost.

You seem to be saying that our only recourse is to have the GOP come to its senses and Frum & Bartlett et. al. is the mechanism by which that is to happen. I urge the direct route not reliance on GOP alleged conversions.

Note: yesterday the corporate party of death-and- destruction-for-profit voted in the senate 94-0 to extend sanctions on Iran ... a member of Frum's axis of evil.

Note: single-payer health insurance, Medicare-for-all, had been in the hopper (HR676) for literally years when Obama care was presented.