SoonerBlue

It should've been a piece of cake for Tea Party candidate Doug Hoffman to win NY-23...but he lost in a district that has voted GOP for 138 years. What happened?

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were pushing hard for Hoffman...who also had Sarah Palin's mavericky support. How did the Tea Partiers turn an otherwise easy victory into defeat? What happened?

You say that the loss of two Dem governorships is a 'stinging rebuke' to the White House.

But you say nothing about how your hero Hoffman's loss is NOT a 'stinging rebuke' to extremist wingnut politics?

So much for the anti-Democratic Congress/White House Teabagger movement -- because Democrats GAINED seats in the House. Seats that can vote.

So, was Tuesday's election a wake-up call for Dems...or reality check for Repubs?

Righties are saying that President Obama has lost his mojo because NJ and VA elected GOP governors.

Let me get this straight -- two state elections losses by Democrats are a 'stinging rebuke' to the Democrats in the federal government...while two Democratic victories in federal elections don’t mean a thing?

The GOP lost both Congressional races the other night, including one in a district they'd held since the days of the Civil War. A 'stinging rebuke' to Obama, no doubt...

Lefties are saying that the state election results don't have as much national significance as the Congressional results, because state elections focus mostly on local issues and state issues.

Let's talk about the significance of state races. How about in November '01, when GWBush's approval ratings were in the 80s, and Democrats went on to win gubernatorial races in NJ and VA? That was certainly no portent of things to come -- the 2002 mid-terms didn't go very well for Dems.

Governorships have NEVER been a reliable barometer of national politics.

Incumbents also usually get kicked out in the mid-terms....and an especially bad time to be an incumbent is during an economic catastrophe.

A lot of people are saying that there's not much of a lesson to be learned from a bunch of low turn-out races in an odd year...except for, um, it's the economy stupid.

FishbowlDC reports that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with Fox News official Michael Clemente yesterday and smoked the peace pipe about the little dustup between the WH and the news network.

Clemente, who oversees Fox's news coverage, is said to have met with staffers at the Washington bureau and told them to play nice... to remain "fair and balanced."

I'm not holding my breath on any of that...

So, Fox News wants to come over and trash your house, call you every name in the book, then wants to be invited back...and even be treated like an honored guest?

Doesn't look like Fox would've called a truce if its ratings were still good...more likely the hot war has turned cold.

O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck sure made hay there for a while, using the quarrel as a public-relations tool to stir up support with their base and boost ratings. I still say they probably don't believe half of what they rant about...but simply play the game to gain ratings...which brings power, attention, and money.

In these days of so much easy low hanging ratings fruit - see balloon boy - I guess it's too much to hope for responsible journalism to report on the real problems of our country...and I'm not just talking about Fox. All network news information should be taken with a grain of salt...and it's easy to spot the partisan BS. I personally get my serious news from PBS's "News Hour."

TV news critic and "Network" screenwriter, Paddy Chayefsky said: "Television is Democracy at its ugliest."

Thank goodness we have Freedom of the Press in this country. Fox News certainly has the right to say whatever they want about the Obama administration. But, Freedom of the Press does not require news outlets to be responsible or unbiased. So, Fox has every right to slant stories to align with their political and editorial viewpoints.

Just like the White House has the right to call Fox another arm of the Republican party. Freedom of the Press does not require the WH to treat all news outlets equally...or provide them with a seat at the briefing room table.

Fox News has made no bones about being hostile to the Obama administration. They are perfectly within their rights to practice journalism that way -- and make oodles of money doing it -- but it is NOT responsible journalism.

Another thing -- Fox News will create the story it wants to report. Like when they spent a week promoting the 9/12 protests...and then their newscasters were caught on video whipping up teabagger anger...just so they could report on how furious the "Tea Party" protesters were.

So...if Fox wants to do business that way, they have the right to do so...but there's nothing in the Constitution wot sez the White House has to invite them to sit at the table with the grown-ups.

Boy, you know the wingnut base of the GOP is becoming more radical when they boo and hiss Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and call him a RINO -- Republican In Name Only.

I mean, he's one of the most conservative senators around. If he ever strays from the hard right position on a vote it's because it doesn't matter. Like Sotomayor was going to be confirmed anyway, so his vote didn't matter. But next time it does matter he can vote the hard right position, then point to Sotomayor as proof that he's willing to be open-minded.

So if Graham strays from conservative dogma, it's pure strategy...he is no "front man for the Democrats."

That's why it was odd when Graham encountered an angry crowd of wingnut teabaggers at a townhall meeting a couple of days ago. They kept interrupting him with cries of - 'You're a country club Republican'...'Sotomayor!'...'You lie.' Outside people carried signs -- 'Unconstitutional Anti-Christ Socialist Federal Deficit Spending Programs"... "Democrat in Drag" and "RINO."

Looks like Graham has suddenly become the new target of tea party activists. In fact, "Beckerheads" started to turn on him about a week after he publicly spoke against TV crazy Glenn Beck.

I have news for you Lindsey, it wasn't Ron Paul who hijacked your party...it was Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, Malkin, Bachman, Kristol, Dick and Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, etc., etc., etc....

Read about the townhall ruckus here: (CNN) – South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has always enjoyed a little back-and-forth with belligerent audiences.

The Republicans have a big problem if their crazies endorse only hard right candidates...some might make it through the primaries, but if their candidate gets to the national election they will lose. This great country is so much larger than a small pocket of only white angry people.

Thank goodness the wingnuts are on the wrong side of both demographics and history. The Angry White Guy Party can make some noise, the mainstream media will report its every move...but in the end they will wither and die.

If you look at every single poll that asks people their beliefs and policy positions, a huge majority of people express views that are the exact opposite of what the teabaggers believe. It's just a fact.

Get this - guilt-ridden conservatives are all over the media trying to convince us that the Holocaust Museum murderer - James von Brunn - isn't really a right-winger, he's a leftie.

Let me get this straight -- a white supremacist consumed with hatred of Jews and blacks...who is a Holocaust denier...who said President Obama was created by Jews...who said Obama has a fake birth certificate...who hates the US government...who hates Liberals...who fears the takeover of our country by black governors...who tried to help his segregationist friend (John G. Crommelin). of the ultra right-wing National States' Rights Party, get elected Governor of Alabama...who has published his rantings on many rightwing hate websites like stormfront and freerepublic -- isn't really a right-winger?

Yep, sounds like a typical lefty to me.

We'll just see...after the police get through checking out the contents of von Brunn's car, court documents, arrest record, his 40 years of collected written ravings and his hard-drive....then we'll know how many of his favorite websites were of the leftie persuasion.

Sorry, but I tend to "pigeon-hole" Jew-hating, Afro-American-hating, militia-loving lunatics as rightwing. Deductive reasoning...it's just the way my mind works. Everybody knows that Neo-Nazism and white supremacy are forms of violent extremism of the right...not the left.

Hey, I wonder if they also have proof that the killer of Dr. Tiller is also a leftwing nut job as well...

BTW...I wonder what all his neo-Nazi skinhead friends think about being called "lefties" by their rightwing media BFFs? Doesn't look to me that they'd like it one bit. Has someone pointed that out to them?

It's all an old wingnut propaganda trick - redefine the meaning of a term loud enough and often enough and people will come to - even subconsciously - believe it's true. The swiftboater attacks on John Kerry is a good example...another is claiming that President Obama is Muslim who doesn't have a valid birth certificate.

It's so comforting to think that there are legions of heavily armed lunatics wandering this country coast to coast, getting fired up by the rightwing hate machine, blaming all their problems on them hippies who want to take away their SUV’s...looking for opportunities to shoot people who think like me.

But I won't hold my breath waiting for people like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Malkin, Beck and Coulter to realize that words have consequences...that they have all gone far beyond what should be tolerated in a moral society.

Yet, I have to be fair, the majority of Conservatives do not share these extremist rightwing views...too bad they're too chicken shit to stand up and disown these rightwing crazies because they're scared it might cost them votes in future elections.