If This Was A Republican Café
There was an interesting exchange yesterday involving several posts and lots of comments critiquing the content and character of the participation here at the Café. It set me to wondering how different this site might be if it lilted right instead of left. These are my conclusions about those contributors and their efforts:
Richard Mellon Day: A retired billionaire who is seldom seen in public and is reputed to have the most extensive collection of loungewear since Louis XVI. He lives mostly in flight in a luxuriously appointed Boeing 767, landing only to purchase his favorite brands of cigarettes and a custom version of Cheese Doodles prepared under contract by a gourmet bakery in Minnesota.
Day's articles characteristically focus on his lifelong love of tyrannical leaders from the Early Middle Ages whom he memorializes in what can be only characterized as romanticized versions of these historical despots. He is particularly fond of using the barely historical character, Archibald the Merciless, a semi-mythical Welsh king whose court and kin were renowned in their time for their mendacity. Richard celebrates this ethic of self-indulgence in allegorical stories about Archibald that examine and enthusiastically promote such autocratic sentimentality. Day also writes about contemporary issues in which he consistently argues that it is the few wealthy and well placed who must dominate the masses of untermenschen.
Phyllis Godsend: TheraP as she is affectionately known is a televangelist and head of the largest mega church congregation in Southern Montana. Her extraordinary fund raising ability allowed her to launch her own telecommunications satellite using Chinese aerospace assets. She has her own cable network and appears daily for several hours advising and counseling her teleflock.
Godsend's contributions to the Café are sporadic but the theme is always the same. "I will share your pain with you if you will share your cash with me. Pass it on." There have been several attempts to prosecute Ms. Godsend for this as being a classic "Pyramid scam" but all were settled out of court or were dropped after the untimely deaths of the complainants.
Angelina Beau l'Homme: Angelina uses the handle LisB in honor of her lifelong relationship with Liz Cheney.
Angelina writes as a staunch defender of the stay at home stay-at-home. She is the only woman elected President of the all-male Promise Keepers because of her tireless efforts promoting the notion of "Equality In Subservience", that women can rule by acquiescence.
Nancy Luntz: Aka Stratofrog: A retired CIA cryptologist and speech writer for Republicans like President George Bush; considered by Conservatives as the dean of political rhetoric and phrasemaking. William F. Buckley Jr. said in his auto-obituary that he always wished he could write like Stratofrog.
Her most notable contribution was when she worked tirelessly with Sarah Palin to train her to end every sentence with "and also."
Quintilius Bubkes O'Hare: Writing as Quinn Esq. is the scion of a wealthy dynasty of Canadian Seventh Day Adventists. His grandfather, Sean Caligula O'Hare, served as a missionary to the King of Siam in the late Nineteenth century where he convinced the King that the excrement of a rare species of Canadian raccoon had aphrodisiac properties. The subsequent trade agreements made the O'Hare family enormously wealthy.
A recluse, Quinn bursts on the Café scene unannounced from time to time in defense of inherited wealth. His unique style of discourse is partly the religious fervor of a preacher and partly the circumspection of a man whose wealth is the product of trading in animal poop.
This is just a small example of the caste of characters that I imagined might populate the TPM Café if it wasn't so liberal.
(Author's note: Caffeine is an amazing drug.)
Like that great Senator Coburn of Oklahoma once said after kind of finishing his NYT crossword:
CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?
We must pray for the Wall Street Magnates that did not get away.
We must pray for the CIA operatives who were only following orders when they set up those secret prison camps around the globe in order to keep this country safe from communism, or terrorism or whatever constitutes the threat of the day.
We must pray for the prison widows who are left with only a few million to cope in their struggle to survive.
We must pray for the lawyers, yes those lawyers everyone wishes to get rid of including Dick the Butcher and praise them for their creative writing clinic at the OLC.
We must pray for those condemned by MSM for merely speaking their minds, sometimes it is best to kill a black fascist president.
SO MANY PRAYERS NECESSARY AND SO LITTLE TIME.
Come on, let us all stand together in song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJMtn6IJeE
August 31, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I found this to be quite clever and well formatted. Excellent projection and perspective of 'outside the box' satire as well as character depiction.
Okay, hope that's literate enuff and satisfies all who have issues with a simple, 'good post, funny, illustrative and just right modicum of snark'. If not, I don't care.
Appreciate and Rec'd.
August 31, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a lot of Commummism in this giblet. Sure, Floorboardgate showed us a lot of the nasties, you know, vertices and phalanges and the boom boom from the downstairs room, and maybe it shouldn't have been, but ultimately, who's to be believed, the Donkey? And the Senators, far from GOP wives (who could frighten), and Biblical men in need of, you know, le nudge, so maybe a bit of the cross-species action, and maybe what God intended. Can't name the animals without knowing them. Biblically-wise. What an ass.
But for my valued money investment, I say it's creeeeeeeeeping Snowcialism, coming in from the North like a drift over the back field, and COMMUSUMMISM ISN'T FAR BEHINDER! Don't get left out America! Shoes! Shoes! For God's sake (blesses his feet) SHOES! The secret of LIFER! Get soled!
Ouch. I've soiled myself. My apologies, Overlord.
August 31, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gibbering giblets, suffering succotash and screaming scrapple from the Apple, illegitimi non carborundum, my worthy.
August 31, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did somebody say 'gimlets'? Pass on the succotash and the scrapple. Make it a double, cause I'm not alone, OK? Somebody get these donkeys out of here. Not you Don Key. You've got a certain je ne sais quoi that fits in with the hoi polloi, these hotsy totsies. Gimlets for everyone. I wonder what all the poor people are doing today!
August 31, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clearly, you two have been drinking. I warned you about the choco-smack. Ah well. As the French would say,
I'VE SOILED MYSELF!!!
AND WATCH THE DUCKS! WATCH THE DUCKS YOU FOOLS! THEY'RE SMOKING!!!!
August 31, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Choco-smack's fer kids. Their passing out absinthe over at the root vegetable's place. Nobody with an IQ over 110 allowed though. Bring your friends.
August 31, 2009 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
(runs past the peeg)
August 31, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didja ever try to actually run past a peeg when something good's a cookin'? Memories come to mind of that summer in college, when I was milking the cow, and slopping the peegs, (George and Martha - it was the bicentennial year), as my date watched from the window of the pig pen, the pigs crashed the gate I had latched behind me as I poured the slop into their trough, and came in, bowling me over in my 'Date clothes' into the muck of the pen. Cuidado amiga!
August 31, 2009 10:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
(slop)
(absinthe)
hmmmm
August 31, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not wishin' to offend or anything Miguel, but.... your date. Which side of the window was she watchin' from?
August 31, 2009 10:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's none of your business chump!
August 31, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I think I get it...this is about dickday, stratofrog, quinn and theraP AFTER they got mugged?
Though if'n yer gonna be a hoity-toity, ya better get yer goddam grammar rite:
It should read, "if it WEREN'T so liberal," the subjunctive tense, there, son.
'Ceptin' jason everett miller says josh says it ain't librul, anyhow.
August 31, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find Larry more of a hotsy-totsy than a hoity-toity.
But that may just be me.
DUCKS AFLAME!! DUCKS AFLAME!!!! AIIIIIEEEEEE!
August 31, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, i thought he was pretending to be a hoity-toity. Ohhhh wellll....
It was still funny.
August 31, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
As old as I am I can still recall the sting of the ruler on my palm that always followed an error in English grammar. Ouch.
August 31, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I work for Her Majesty's Secret Grammar Police; sorry to bust a member of the hoi-poloi. No one wants the Queen Mother rolling over in her grave.
Eh bien?
August 31, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, that isn't what I said, but nice to see the choir still misquoting me. I said his site was center-left, at best, and is positioned as a home for all political ideals. But, yeah, I guess that is the same as saying Josh isn't a librul. [sic]
September 1, 2009 6:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, jason. Maybe what happened, now that I think of it, was that in a comment you had said someone should check out what Josh said about TPM not being a Left site, and directed readers to his words about the site. I did not check the link. Again, apologies. Maybe you could direct me again to Josh's description of the site.
September 1, 2009 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
No worries, Wendy. I just hate my name used in vain when I didn't do anything to actually deserve it. :O)
I couldn't find a one-liner that would clear up the confusion but the FAQs at the bottom of the page has the following quote as the number one response to the question: Does TPM have a comment policy?
Seems clear to me that Josh is better served by a variety of voices that increases his demographic heft rather than being shoved inside a confining box that could only be labeled liberal or left.Inclusion is diversity in action.
September 1, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
jason,
you just changed the subject at hand which was whether or not this is a left or center/left site to how Josh is better served.
September 1, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't change anything. Josh accepts different points of view which by definition means it is a site pretty much in the center on most issues when all the competing points of view are averaged out across the board.
That is in contrast to your view that it is a leftist site and anyone without those ideological views should be ready to have shit and brimstone rained down upon their head.
Pretty much in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the site.
September 1, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and p.s.: I don't even care what the label of this site is. I like josh's work. I get irked with myself every time I click up Huffpo. The site makes so much money, they can get breaking news quickly. I cringe that Arianna is the voice of the liberal blogosphere; she drives me aroung the bend.
September 1, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Line of the year from Q.B. O'Hare (the circumspect):
Next thing you know, he'll be sticking celery up his arse again.
August 31, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's right. My problem is I cannot give too many awards to him. I mean Q never appreciates and he would get one everytime he comments. hahahah
August 31, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You had to remind me and quote it here didn't you?
August 31, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think I'm allowed to say nice post...so what the &^%$(*(^^$$&^**(&^%$&^**^&^^$%$%&**(%%$$#^&%%^$^&^&%^^*^&^*&*(*(&*(*(*(*%^^$^^***%^(
...and don't ever show your face around here again!!!!!!!!!
August 31, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
BTW... I didn't rec it (okay, so yeah, maybe I did...but just a little.)
August 31, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Liz Cheney???? Oy.
Rec'd anyway, because I can.
August 31, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay this is funny! Hahahaha. Good for you! (Don't pass it on)
August 31, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry H - GREAT! I laughed through the whole piece. Highly recommended, and thank goodness it is fiction!
August 31, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, this is stupid.
August 31, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the spirit!
August 31, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, coffee works wonders at the café. And the Donkey Kong was so incredibly popular over the weekend. I just love a good fright.
Hey, it’s late and I just returned from Dr. Alternative’s office. He explained convincingly that TPM has developed Radix Tree Syndrome. That is, it all begins at the root part or point where an animal part begins, like beneath elephant tales.
He advised me to stay away from whatever smells like mean spirit. You know what I’m saying - the term "power" strictly refers to the torment expressed in numbers on the café menu, or in the cache-conscious data restructuring of “recommends.” I do feel like a stupid ape saying this, but what’s the Other to do?
Upgrade the security warnings to code dread.
August 31, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry did you forget someone?
Liberace Woody Handlesworth (Larry.H)
The multibillionaire broom magnate, owner of Kansas City Wheat Co.,Haywire Inc. and Sticks Unlimited. Liberace is a pirate philosopher who yearly gives away a million dollars to elderly women as "Sweepstakes" just so he can steal it back along with the widows jewels. His other major holdings include majority ownership in the "Wunderbroom" chain of discounted stores. Wunderbroom is a solar powered broom that slightly vacuums or as some say, sucks. Mr Woody as he is called by his employees,is presently under indictment in a class action suit brought by 56 former women employees,all of whom had to take maternity leave while still in his employ. One employee was heard to say, "Mr Woody wont be able to sweep this under the rug".He can be seen presently on the TV show, "So You think you can Dance"
I state emphatically that there are no facts or importance in this comment.
August 31, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hahahaha DonDi...
I second that articulation! Your description of Larry’s wild dust-up has me bristling with adulation for the push back.
August 31, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Addendum: Liberace Handlesworth was named in a class action suit when his tele-product, the 'Sham-broom' turned out to be just that, a sham. Handleman, was able to transfer the bulk of his personal wealth overseas before the civil suit came to trial which he lost. He currently blogs from Uruguay, where he is rumored to have close ties with a small colony of ex-Nazis, and has adopted a child who bears a striking resemblence to Adolph Hitler in his younger years..
August 31, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be young Hilter Handlesworth?
August 31, 2009 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cawnt tok roit now. I'm foomin' a' the moth.
August 31, 2009 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I say below I reject the Nazi reference. But a little research on your part might have enlightened you to the fact that as has been widely reported in your press, most important national leaders in the U.S. - Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, former Vice President Richard Cheney and sundry political, intellectual and religious leaders - are Nazis or sympathetic to the National Socialist ideology. It would appear from my reading of late that no nation has been so thuroughly converted to the platform of the NSDAP since Germany in 1933.
August 31, 2009 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Consider yourself rebuked.
And scorned.
*
Now run outside and get yer freak on.
Go on. Git!
September 1, 2009 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Libel. Defamation. Call my lawyers. Call my immigration attorney. My papers are in order. I can come back to the U.S. anytime I want. So I have a few older German gentlemen who work in my garden. So what? And that young man is my nephew, my sister's child with a, well she had fertility issues and was artificially - wait - this is none of your business. And no one has called me Woody since the last company picnic in 1983.
This is all very distressing. I need to go for a - uh - Wie sagt man auf englisch? - ah - a hike.
August 31, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just those elderly German gentlemen 'working' in your garden, that we're interested in here Herr Handlesworth.
August 31, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
(Boy that clip brings back memories. Thanks M2o. Uh - we aren't recording are we? I mean these parentheses work right?)
September 1, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
[Block quotes are preferable]
September 1, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now what on Earth were you doing when you found that video?!?!?
September 1, 2009 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do not know where he finds them. 14 seconds I will laugh off and on for an hour, because of this. hahaaha
Oh and sometimes I thank him and as to use bit in chat or something. I give him proper attribution as they say, but my audience praises me. ahahahahaha
September 1, 2009 3:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
miguel,
easy on the old German guys.
I'm German and Irish. I drink a lot. When I get drunk I run over people with my tank.
September 1, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm Welsh-Irish John, and I too enjoy a drink now and again. When I get drunk I go over to my German neighbor's house and pour sugar in the gas tank of his vintage Panzer. :)
September 1, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is goooooooooood. hahahah
September 1, 2009 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is something to be said for living in a free country and being able to express ourselves as we please. Whether it is here or somewhere else is of no consequence. The mere ability to do so is the most important thing about all of this.
That we won't always agree is normal. That disagreement might erupt into controversy is also normal.
That it reflects the kind of silliness we criticize of our politicians in Washington should tell us something.
September 1, 2009 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ohmigod! The clique's in here! I can't keep up! It's too much! It's too much! AHHHHHHH!!!!!
Rec'd as an outstanding work.
Man, and all this time I thought, Obama can't be a Nazi AND a Socialist and Black at the same time. I had no idea how wrong I was. hahahaha
September 1, 2009 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gregor,
on Thursdays Obama is a Marxist.
September 1, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Now see, this is exactly the kind of inside baseball blogging that prompted yesterday's exchange, regarding participation and peep-pushing posts to the top of the heap! Damn funny though!
September 1, 2009 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, did anyone put up the sign that people not in the clique cannot contribute to the banter? I can't find it! Dang it! Maybe I left it at my last post? Maybe somebody stole it!?! Yeah, I think somebody stole it! It was missing when last I looked and I thought maybe someone was bringing it to today's Inside the TPMCAfe Clique post. Of course, there was a great big pile of ashes where the sign had been. Did somebody burn it? yeah, that's it! It was burned to the ground by the Zom-Bushes!
September 1, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good thing, you've got a matching banner!
September 1, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Click.
September 1, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink