More Catnip For The Likes Of Me . . .

Ha-ha.

At this point, the GOP looks more like a collection of warring tribes than a cohesive political force. Fiscal conservatives don't have much use for social conservatives. Libertarians and moderates don't get along with either camp. "We are factionalized now as a party," lamented Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). "We have to come together."

Read the whole thing.

Like I've been saying, sooner or later it will dawn on the commentariot that the GOP just really isn't a political party anymore.

Midnight In The Garden Of Goobers And Weasels cont.

Maybe if I try this every other week or so, specially if I feel vindicated; like now.

Maybe, maybe it's beginning to dawn on my colleges in blogolia that the GOP really isn't a party anymore; and that the only, only thing those soldiers for themselves agree on is no new taxes for ever and ever. When that goes, and that might be soon, then it's Katy-bar-the-door.

And tell you what: The Dems are ripe for splitting too--albeit in generally saner and needful directions. Now, that will be interesting . . .

The Grand Old Parody

Things have been quiescent here for any number of reasons, most of them good. Top of the list has been an ingrained reluctance to add, however slightly, to the yammering circus of our commentariot. Long have I held that the GOP is doomed as a national party and that Barack Obama will be easily reelected. Recent events have only made this clear to even your run-of-the-mill reporter.

Frankly, I expected the Repub implosion would come via its elected representatives in Congress, stupid, angry, and disloyal, breaking things in such a heedless way that sane members of the caucus would by necessity have to drift over to the Democratic side on a few big votes for the good of their careers, districts, and the Republic. GOP leadership avoided such awful optics with the help of our brain-dead press and a Democratic establishment tossing lifelines and conceding issues here and there, while taking markers, if only with the electorate, for later.

(And I think last night's State of the Union address neatly outlined the areas of payback to come.)

What I was NOT expecting was this real time, and exquisitely expensive, parade of jackasses, ding-dongs, and stuntmen all fighting to be standard bearer for a load of ideas--at least those not cribbed directly from the Occupy folks--that have become more inane and toxic with every recitation. These people, with the seriousness of seminarians, mock electability with loud, self-satisfied voices. Their reward will be in little corners of right-wing heaven, which is a small and greasy place nowhere near the November polls. I'm not calling a Democratic landslide just yet, but if one is on the way, it will be clear by June.

Midnight In The Garden Of Goobers And Weasels cont.

Nearly seven inches of rain fell in about ninety minutes in Chicago early this morning. Awakened by the commotion, I can tell you it was as if my apartment was going through a carwash. It was the highest daily rain total for this city, which is home territory for torrential downpours, in 140 years of record keeping. Number two, by the way, about a half-inch shy of this morning's sum, was three years ago.

Yep my friends, something is abroad in the land, a system-wide disdain for human plans and political positions, an indifference to the best made plans. New rules are in place and even the stupidest climate-change denier must be feeling a certain unease at this summer's events.

No, check that, the stupidest ones likely think this is part of some great plan in which they have starring roles to play. That is certainly the case in D.C. (because everything is connected) where I now put even odds on default, a drop from 3-1 against in a few days. Stated earlier are the four reasons why I think it'll happen. The fifth being that the president, as I thought, for all his high-minded policy flexibility, can and did draw a line.

According to the L.A. Times, the collapse came when the White House wanted to up the scope of the deal to something along the lines of the senate work group proposal (let us note in passing, a fairly rightest plan), while the GOP wanted to hold the health insurance mandate hostage to insure Democratic complicity to tax "reforms". This strikes me as the last cards from both sides; the President wanted something transformative, and the GOP wanted a scalp.

It is worth noting that Republicans are mainly trying to make substantial policy changes divorced from writing and voting on any distinct legislation doing so. I know I'm a little boring on the subject, but this is a tactic of a bankrupt political party; its articulated policies are broadly unpopular, its ruling philosophy utterly schitzophrenic, its leadership fractured, and with yet enough power to presume to control events even as events spin out of anyone's control.

The Republic has been here before, and while I can't say if the collapse of the Whig party led inevitably to the Civil War, or if momentum towards the war tore apart the Whigs, the two events are intimately connected. Though I have been predicting the end of the GOP for a while, what I didn't appreciate until very recently is how when one party in a two party system implodes, the consequences for the nation, in the short term at least, are really very serious.

A Day In The Lie

Oh what to make of today's Murdoch hearing? That members of both all three political parties asked tough and pressing questions was enough to make the old man wish this were happening in the U.S. Senate, where the Republican half of his inquisitors could be counted on to tell him what a great man he is, attack the motives of the majority, and apologize for his having to testify in the first place.

No, money does not mean quite as much in Blighty as it does in the States, where it means everything. One might note too the generally higher intelligence level on display in Parliamentary proceedings than in our highest legislative chambers. Fact is, Americans have always been suspicious of smart people in public life, possibly for broadly democratic reasons and the idea that a stupid politician is easier to control and less likely to cause trouble on his or her own.

James Murdoch, with his American accent and occasionally British pronunciation, came off well enough, I reckon--nervous, helpful, deferential, concerned, and opaque when necessary. One senses that he'd much rather spend his days in the relatively clean and cool lairs of TV and new media. I'm betting that when dad goes, so do the messy old print properties.

The Dirty Digger looked done and dusted, gruff and out-of-it, and certainly gave no evidence of being fit enough to helm a multi-national communications corporation--at least one that's publicly traded. His dignity was saved somewhat when that fuckwit assaulted him with shaving cream, a despicable thing to do to any 80-year-old, especially one giving testimony, for which he should spend several years in gaol; but what will be remembered going forward was a stern old man fond of pounding the table who yet claims ignorance with how a good part of his U.K. business operated.

His denials were not particularly convincing and could be capsized by the criminal investigations. Indeed, the next phase of the drama will be if, or when, the Murdochs will be called upon to add to or amend their testimony in light of further revelations. Because young James was both insistant of what he knows now, and evasive enough, especailly in regard to paying hush money, to lead one to believe he was being prudent in light of fresh revelations.

The Liar In Winter, Cont.

Rupe is to give testimony (with his son) tomorrow regarding the phone hacking scandal to a panel of MPs. People who know think he won't do well. Be that as it may, as Murdoch's world implodes what should be kept in mind is that no matter the legal outcome--which is years away--the grip he had on the imagination, the public and political mind of Great Britain is gone forever. He might be able to keep some of the juice he has in the States after this, though I doubt it.

It's clear that News Corp. channeled a river of money flowing from cable TV and network sports into any number of questionable (from a strictly financial perspective) if altogether legal investments, to criminal escapades like bribery, industrial and private espionage run by a cadre of goons masquerading as journalists; the main object being to create and maintain a growing bubble of power with the Dirty Digger at its center.

What's notable is how self-reinforcing the project was, that money paid for access, which led to power, and more money, and access, as the influence spread from Australia to the U.K. to the United States. Soon enough a reputation for brains, ruthlessness, and success became a fantasy which bears very little relation to the easily-disregarded human toll of the many victims, underlying political realities, and financial missteps that cannot be wished away. In the end the whole project became so unfeasibly supercharged that all it took was one little story about a murdered girl's voicemail and the whole rotten thing popped like a dead pig in the sun.

The outsized nature of Murdoch's reputation, the idea that he was smarter and more powerful than he apparently was, has vanished in the last ten days. Depend on it, no one of any consequence is afraid of him anymore, and a lot of his former dependents are sorry they know him. This is a fatal blow to an enterprise which has relied on intimidation and illusion for so long. It was all a stupid dream.

Jumping The Shark Jumps The Pond

On Saturday, I wrote that While evidence of outright thuggery in the States has yet to appear, everyone seems to be taking a sensible wait-and-see attitude [...] You can now rest easy knowing that such evidence has shown up, in fact was in something like the public record, as the estimable David Carr reports this A.M.:

In 2009, a federal case in New Jersey brought by a company called Floorgraphics went to trial, accusing News America [a News Corp. marketing subsidiary] of, wait for it, hacking its way into Floorgraphics’s password protected computer system.

(Really, the whole article is required reading.) The case was settled out-of-court to the tune of 655 million scarole, with the plaintiff company quickly purchased by the defendant too. So let us add over two-thirds of a billion dollars to the list of recent News Corp. losses noted earlier here. What's more, the guilty chief of News America has since been named publisher of the loss-leading N.Y. Post, a position he fills today.

I might be wrong, but it feels that, with Carr's piece, the Times is announcing a more active stance regarding its reporting of the Murdoch crime family here in the States. Who knows where it might lead, and one hopes that this possibly new sense of mission and fight has everything to do with the pending departure of the inane Bill Keller as ed-in-chief.

UPDATE: And of course there's the matter of certain Brit-celebs who had their phones hacked while on U.S. soil.

Numbers Crunk

As much as one agrees with the overall points made by the London Obsever's Will Hutton regarding Murdoch's influence on the D.C. budget madness (and more of that here anon) the notion that, I quote: Fox News, [has] an audience of 100 million... is absurd, and wrong by a factor of 35.

The latest ratings for that mighty propaganda network total on the short side of 2.5 million viewers (aka less than one percent of the population.) It is in fact a measure of the inanity of our media landscape that what Bill Paley would have considered a rounding error 50 years ago is felt to be so goddamn influential. That people who should know better have for years credited the dwarf with a giant's stature, is one more indication of where Murdoch's power will be once the reality principle is finished with him.

Rupe's Snoops' Deep Poop, Cont.

I had to look it up, but, sure enough, I came up with this nearly two years ago about what I suspected was the looming failure of the Dirty Digger's business:

Depend on it, outside of its pathetic share price, we will not hear about the impending collapse of the Murdoch empire until after it has happened and no one can pretend anymore.

As it transpired, the implosion has been very public and in real time. Still, no one can pretend things are okay, and the celerity of the implosion conforms to another truism I'm fond of, namely that when things collapse, they collapse very fast.

While I admire the paranoid verve of the British MP who suspects this morning's unexpected arrest of Rebekah Brooks was to keep her from giving testimony to a Parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday (at the Guardian blog) one has to think it happened because some new evidence of thuggery popped-up sometime in the last 24-48. No, madame was pinched without warning. If it were the States I'd suspect a plea bargain for sworn testimony is on the table, but recall that in Olde Blighty, one is guilty until proven innocent, so maybe the authorities are not looking to make deals right now.

To reiterate, I expected Murdoch's ruin to come in the shape of revelations of financial chicanery, an idea I am loathe to give up on just yet.

UPDATE: Oh, dear. Apparently Mrs. Brooks' arrest comes as part of an investigation by the Crown's Serious Fraud Office.