The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Confession: I Want A Cruz Administration As Much For Prosperity As For Relentless Waves Of Butthurt From M.B. Dougherty

Posted on | March 24, 2015 | 50 Comments

by Smitty

The anticipatory agony from Michael B. Dougherty is schadenfreude-licious:

Cruz also exhorted his audience to “imagine” many things, an America that is “finally becoming energy self-sufficient,” “booming economic growth,” “young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers,” and the eradication of the IRS. He implored us to imagine a president that protects the Second Amendment, repeals every word of ObamaCare, ends Common Core, and stands with Israel.

In other words, imagine an America with no Democrats or Independents.

Got news for you, Dougherty: you got turning the economy around, and reducing unemployment by getting people to work again instead of just quitting in despair, and those Independents will join conservatives in staring at you like a messy bit of rhetorical road kill.

Dougherty’s piece is so bad as to achieve total self-parody:

Except Cruz is worse than Obama. At least rhetorically, Obama often credited the good faith disagreement of conservatives, and made it seem like their voices counted. Cruz has yet to offer a single policy proposal or rhetorical lifeline to the middle.

Bollocks. Obama, to my recollection, has never once said anything generous regarding those in disagreement with him, always managing either to imply they’re fools, or he’s the moderate and reasonable guy.

No, the sum of the Obama Era is that Democrats (a) argue in bad faith, and (b) cannot believe that any else argues in good faith.

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats

Comments

50 Responses to “Confession: I Want A Cruz Administration As Much For Prosperity As For Relentless Waves Of Butthurt From M.B. Dougherty”

  1. blaster
    March 24th, 2015 @ 10:14 pm

    Dougherty hates Hispanics?

  2. CrustyB
    March 24th, 2015 @ 10:18 pm

    “(Obama’s) good faith disagreement of conservatives”

    How long did it take Dougherty to create the little world he lives in?

  3. Political Rift » Confession: I Want A Cruz Administration As Much For Prosperity As For Relentless Waves Of Butthurt From M.B. Dougherty
    March 24th, 2015 @ 10:19 pm

    […] smitty by Smitty The anticipatory agony from Michael B. Dougherty is schadenfreude-licious: Cruz also […]

  4. Adobe_Walls
    March 25th, 2015 @ 12:52 am

    To be honest I often imagine a world without Democrats/Bolsheviks.

  5. Adobe_Walls
    March 25th, 2015 @ 12:54 am

    Just ”White Hispanics”.

  6. Steve Skubinna
    March 25th, 2015 @ 1:17 am

    You know, between 1861 and 1965 it became necessary to shoot Democrats. Do they want to make that happen again?

  7. smitty
    March 25th, 2015 @ 4:18 am

    I genuinely hope not.

  8. ericjg623
    March 25th, 2015 @ 6:30 am

    “Michael B. Dougherty”

    Who?

    Or, more likely, who cares?

  9. LN_Smithee
    March 25th, 2015 @ 6:36 am

    Michael B. Dougherty:

    At least rhetorically, Obama often credited the good faith disagreement of conservatives, and made it seem like their voices counted.

    Yeah. Hey, here’s some of that ‘Making it seem like conservatives’ voices count’ stuff now, from 2009:

    https://youtu.be/jifjRVLVjzA

  10. Quartermaster
    March 25th, 2015 @ 6:42 am

    A Cruz admin would be delicious, if for no other reason than the agony of the left in both parties.

  11. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 25th, 2015 @ 7:13 am

    White chocolate really isn’t chocolate. Most white chocolate is not even made with cocoa butter anymore.

    Everyone knows dark chocolate is superior to milk chocolate too.

    Hillary promised chocolate.

    Just sayin.

  12. marcus tullius cicero
    March 25th, 2015 @ 7:15 am

    …well, I have my opinion too and it’s that Democrats are EVIL…there fix it for you! <:P

  13. Toastrider
    March 25th, 2015 @ 7:23 am

    Yeah, I had to laugh at that. I’m utterly bumfuzzled at why anyone would believe this.

  14. Art Deco
    March 25th, 2015 @ 7:51 am

    Dougherty is a fixture of the alt-right, and has always been one of the most congenial figures thereupon. I had pleasant exchanges with him a decade ago when he was working retail in the Hudson valley and blogging on the side.
    The problem with the alt-right is that it’s denizens can be good and they can be original, just never at the same time. They disdain the conventional right, but they are parasitic on the conventional right for any implementable thoughts on public policy that might pass between their ears. In all of their signature features, if they advocate anything at all they advocate something unworkable, something disgusting, or something someone of the conventional right has been actively promoting with more energy and panache than they could manage (see. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies). The most engaging contributors to alt-right publications (e.g. Chronicles) do not have any alt-right signatures in their writing (see Philip Jenkins for an example).
    At the core of it is that alt-right denizens are rather like enthusiasts of literature on the Kennedy assassination: less a political type than a psychological one. The whole mess is a self-aggrandizing exercise by people addled by their own conceits (see Ron Paul) or by their status anxieties (see Rod Dreher) or by their resentments (see Philip Giraldi) or by general disorientation (see Paul Craig Roberts). The whole too-cool-for-school pose that Michael Doughterty tends to favor in his writing on political conflict draws on the first two strands and godfather Ron Unz draws on the 1st, 3d, and 4th.

  15. Jeanette Victoria
    March 25th, 2015 @ 8:16 am

    As a ‘White Hispanic” I’m loving the butt hurt and Cruz derangement already happening

  16. Finrod Felagund
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:30 am

    Combining “Obama” and “good faith” in any sentence is usually an oxymoron.

  17. Matt_SE
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:31 am

    I just recently had dealings with the Paulites, and have come away realizing there’s no talking to them. They are full to the brim with self-reinforcing delusions and conspiracies.
    And they DO NOT want that pointed out to them.

  18. Matt_SE
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:32 am

    There’s only two parties anymore: the citizens and Washington D.C.

  19. Matt_SE
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:34 am

    Tastist.

  20. Squid Hunt
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:47 am

    Wait. That’s not true. That one time Obama said Boehner might get something done…oh…uh…if the radicals in his party were gotten under control…? Is that us? The conservatives are radical? Isn’t radical conservative an oxymoron?

  21. Squid Hunt
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:50 am

    *snorts* Atleast rhetorically…As in, Obama’s willing to lie to sound fair.

  22. Squid Hunt
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:51 am

    Check any census. I know it’s news to La Raza, but hispanics are white.

  23. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:57 am

    What is ‘hispanic’? Blonds from Chile speaking spanish are ‘hispanic’, right? Local Walmart has an aisle with the sign ‘Hispanic Foods’. Then a couple of shelves down, ‘Latino Foods’. I’m still trying to figure out the difference. And my daughter has a gringo father and a latina mother. Which is she?

  24. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:59 am

    I LOVE a good helping of schadenfreude with my coffee.

  25. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 25th, 2015 @ 12:28 pm

    ¡Sí!

  26. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 25th, 2015 @ 12:29 pm

    It’s easy if you try. No safety net below us. Above us only sky.

  27. InRussetShadows
    March 25th, 2015 @ 12:47 pm

    There is no talking to most libertarians, period, and the Paulites are just a more vocal and deranged version. Any discussion with them either eventually ends up being about drugs or Israel. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that most of them, if not all of them, should be treated as the enemy and shamed into shutting up. Expose their antisemitism and their fundamental selfishness and make them slink away.

  28. NRPax
    March 25th, 2015 @ 1:13 pm

    Imagine all those people…caring for themselves.

  29. JadedByPolitics
    March 25th, 2015 @ 1:40 pm

    Well I mean how could it not be good faith for Obama to say “punish your enemies” I myself thought well that there Obama fellow is well looking to punish me, hey lets get the party started!

  30. ECM
    March 25th, 2015 @ 1:58 pm

    The problem is, most modern libertarians are not, in fact, libertarians–they are, at best, misguided libertines, which is why everything eventually leads back to drugs and gay marriage with these people.

  31. Shawny
    March 25th, 2015 @ 2:28 pm

    That’s why those RINO’s like Boehner are more of a threat to a Cruz candidacy than the liberals. These days “radical” is anyone who tells the truth, talks like they actually are Pro-America with Conservative values or mentions the Constitution in a sentence. Now that’s gonna leave a skidmark in any liberals shorts.

  32. Art Deco
    March 25th, 2015 @ 3:22 pm

    MB Dougherty I do not believe has ever promoted any specifically libertarian conceptions. His association with the alt-right derives in part from skepticism about immigration and a distaste for foreign military operations.
    There is an abrasive libertarian aspect to the alt-right, then there is another aspect obsessed with psychometrics (and blacks and Jews), and then there is an aspect which fancies that inter-war isolationism is replicable in every context. The three aspects are not in conflict with each other, but there is definitely a difference in emphasis.

  33. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:09 pm

    Now how did you get the spanish punctuation in there? I am so inept…..

  34. Matt_SE
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:15 pm

    It was the isolationists I ran afoul of.

  35. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:16 pm

    Imagine there are no bureaucrats,
    It isn’t hard to do
    No Nanny State controlling us
    nor all those forms to do..

  36. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 25th, 2015 @ 9:37 pm

    Cortar y pegar, mi amigo.

  37. K-Bob
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:40 pm

    There’s a question no one will be asking after the Year 2000.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFuTQTbEXrE

  38. K-Bob
    March 25th, 2015 @ 11:48 pm

    We call them neo-libertarians. Most of them have never read a word by Murray Rothbard.

  39. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2015 @ 12:17 am

    This just makes me think about some of the rockets aimed at Cruz over the past few days. It’s been fun to watch.

    I wonder what you call spending five years running a 4000-member department with over 700 lawyers for the second-largest state (both by population and by geography).

    I mean it’s some sort of real “experience” isn’t it?

    What sort of experience is it called when you are in charge and have to deal with managing personnel, regulatory issues, productivity issues, and issues that reach into every household (due to cases involving pharmaceuticals, hiring practices, and other important aspects of living)?

    What if you occasionally have to deal with issues of national sovereignty? And of course, governing bodies? Also many decision-making boards and naturally, law enforcement agencies? Also the occasional appearance before a legislative body?

    Whatever people want to call that, it would be funny to watch them claim it wasn’t “executive” experience.

  40. Zohydro
    March 26th, 2015 @ 5:01 am

    O impresa a ALT+0161 para “¡”…

  41. NRPax
    March 26th, 2015 @ 5:34 am

    (My favorite)

    Imagine there’s no hippies
    I’m sure that makes you smile
    No social justice whining
    Nobody being vile
    Imagine all those people
    Learning how to bathe.

  42. Bob Belvedere
    March 26th, 2015 @ 6:16 am

    Damn well put.

  43. Art Deco
    March 26th, 2015 @ 8:17 am

    He was the Solicitor-General of Texas, not the Attorney-General (and 4,000 sounds high as a head count for the latter’s department). The solicitor-general is the chief of the appeals bureau within the attorney-general’s domain.

    The description of the solicitor-general’s duties includes the following:

    “The Solicitor General of Texas is supported by two deputies, over a
    dozen assistant solicitors general and a highly dedicated support staff.”

  44. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 26th, 2015 @ 9:58 am

    And we have a WINNER !!!

  45. BillClintonsShorts17
    March 26th, 2015 @ 10:04 am

    º¡Gracias!

  46. Quartermaster
    March 26th, 2015 @ 12:42 pm

    Grina!

  47. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2015 @ 1:52 pm

    Yes, he was Solicitor General, because he was nominated by then Attorney General Greg Abbott.

    “Before I was in the Senate…I was the Solicitor General of Texas; the chief lawyer for the state of Texas before the US Supreme Court. I held that position five-and-a-half years. (I) supervised and led every appeal for the state of Texas in a 4000-person agency with over 700 lawyers.” — Ted Cruz, speaking with Mark Levin (2015-03-24)

    He was the chief lawyer for the State, which was an appointment, not a hire. Abbot nominated him, but he had to be approved (I assume by the legislature).

    It’s an executive job. He had direct responsibility to the State, and not to the Attorney General. He lead teams of people and interacted with all of the groups I mentioned.

  48. Art Deco
    March 26th, 2015 @ 2:14 pm

    He actually supervised a two-digit staff, not a four-digit staff. The page devoted to the Solicitor-General’s office makes that plain. The remainder were reporting to the Attorney-General’s other direct reports.

  49. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2015 @ 2:24 pm

    Thanks, Bob!

    You know, I’m amazed at the level of industry he had to deal with in that office. I don’t know if Texas is a sheer outlier because of its size, but the volume of cases they prepared briefs for before the Supreme Court (and also the scope of many of them) is amazing.

    A little detail is that the Attorney General (Abbott) selected the cases. Cruz was going to run for Abbott’s job in 2010 because Abbot looked like he was going to become Lt. Governor. But Kay Bailey Hutchison was the focal point due to her publicly mulling over retirement. She changed her mind and stayed in office, so Abbott stayed put as well, at which point Cruz dropped out of the race for Abbott’s job.

    So I’m pretty sure Cruz has Abbot to thank for many things, and Abbott’s current job as Texas gov. is likely (but this being politics, not necessarily) to play in Cruz’s favor.

  50. K-Bob
    March 26th, 2015 @ 4:23 pm

    I’m guessing they had all of the usual ten digits, each. But no worries over people who had fewer.

    “The Solicitor General of Texas is supported by two deputies, over a dozen assistant solicitors general and a highly dedicated support staff.” — from the Texas Solicitor General page. So that’s where your quote was from.

    The point is it was an executive job, where he was issuing direction to a LOT of people, and had to interact with many aspects of the Texas state government. In other words, in order to do his job, he had to know as much about government in Texas as he possibly could. The numbers of cases he won shows that he did his job very well.

    Anthony Zurcher:

    Cruz developed a reputation as a top-flight litigator, winning the Best Brief Award from the National Association of Attorneys General for five consecutive years.

    — Texas Observer

    He wasn’t just some guy who ran the copy machines at night to prepare briefs for Abbott.

    I’m definitely going to give Walker and maybe one or two other guys in this race a good look. But my point here is that if people are so hot for executive experience, then they need to face up to what that actually means. (For example, I wouldn’t vote for John Kasich if he was the only name on the ballot, and you cannot deny he has executive experience.)