Mike's Excellent Adventure at CPAC: A journey to the heart of wingnuttery
Have you ever wondered what life would be like in an alternative universe where people lived their lives in the shadow of paranoid fantasies and incompatible superstitions, and acted accordingly?
Well… wonder no more! I went to CPAC and shot a bunch of video.
Unfortunately, I was only able to attend for a day, so I missed an awful lot of funhouse insanity. But… Friday was a day that will remain with me forever. There aren’t enough therapists in the world to scrub that experience out of my psyche.
I should have known better, but I was kind of hoping that CPAC would attract conservatives on the leading edge of their movement who would be intellectually prepared and eager to wield their razor-sharp rapiers in defense of all that is good… you know… God and Ronald Reagan and… uhm… whatever else there is.
Sadly, that wasn’t quite the case.
The first person I ran into was Daryll Issa. I tried to ask him about the stimulus and recovery; he wasn’t much interested in silly and irrelevant things like facts:
Later in the conference, I caught up with Mike Pence and Steve King. They had lotsa time to stand in the spotlight and bask in adulation, but when it came time to answer a question or two about policy and stimulus/recovery/pork… well… they suddenly had more pressing things to do as staff hustled them away, telling me they were in a very big hurry. Like Issa before them, they were simply hustled a few yards away to a place they could bask in more spotlight and adulation.
So… unfortunately, I do not have a lot to report on when it comes to elected officials.
I also ran into John Bolton, Kenneth Blackwell and John Ashcroft. I told each of them that in person, they look a lot less evil than they do in the blogosphere. They were each gracious and good humored, but I was unable to secure an interview with any of them.
I did run into Jonah Goldberg. We had met previously on the set of Reliable Sources and although I do not think he recognized me, he did give me a lengthy interview. First we talked stimulus and economic policy, then we turned to his book and his ideas regarding fascism.
At about this time, I thought it would be interesting to take the ideological temperature of the crowd. You probably remember that Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly weren’t all that happy with the results of the poll of Republicans commissioned by DailyKos a couple of weeks ago. I decided to conduct my own (obviously unscientific) poll using the same questions.
Here are the participants answering the first three questions:
Early in the evening, I ran into Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. We talked about jobs:
Finally, that evening, I ran into a very special person. And I made a very cool video. But you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to see it… In the meantime, check out additional CPAC video and commentary over at my site, StarkReports.com.
only with a microphone is bravery indeed.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Let me guess, he said fascism was/is a direct result of the implementation of liberal/democratic policies. What a waste of a soul.
. . . has to say.
Why would that be important? Because it provides the never-ending excuse for the party in power to do pretty much the same stuff as long as it's slightly less bad.
I bet there were also people at CPAC who believed that torturers should not be investigated, that the Bush tax cuts should run their full course, that Iran should be the new enemy, that Goldman Sachs should control our Global Warming response through Cap & Trade, that Bernanke should be reappointed to the Fed chairmanship, and that progressives are just a bunch of fucking r#$%&*$.
But we have all that it the White House.
. . . and those in the White House have far more power than CPAC.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
When you got home, did you take a really long, hot shower?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KGmkaoIbQo
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I'd be sitting at the airport bar drinking until the threw me out or I ran out of money.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HQzvy0iClZk
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
These videos would be a helluva lot better if Mr. Stark would shut up. The camera bobbles while he searches for his words and I'm reaching for the mouse and gone. I support the video-journalism Stark is trying to do but his product is virtually unwatchable.
Your mileage may vary.
It dint move at all in his interview with Steele.
we should work to shrink the federal government.....starting with sending cretins like him back to their home states.
I guess it could just be cabin fever, been sort of stuck inside, when not shoveling, for the better part of this month, but I'm beginning to get very, very sick and tired of listening to ANY of these freakin' stupid politicians...on both side of the proverbial aisle.
I'm really feeling like I understand Diogenes - searching by lantern light for an HONEST person in broad daylight. We should start using Billy Joel's song, 'Honesty' as the C&L theme song - but it's hardly ever heard....! #;(
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
...that the chart shows shows what the interviewer thinks it shows, before beginning the "spin cycle"
This is the yearly opportunity for Re=Thugs to showcase how insane they really are.
If anyone aside from their hardcore base were paying attention, they'd be in trouble.
*
and the seemingly fascinated Main Stream Media. There is so much outright dazzled admiration on the Networks (and not just Faux News Channel). It's like cobras and mongooses ... er, mongeese?
Whip the troops in line, feed them their talking points, fill their tanks with BS, and send them out to confront an otherwise disbelieving country. I still remember when Hillary Clinton first complained about a "vast, right wing conspiracy" in this country on one of the morning talk shows back in 1993. She was hooted at all across the early right wing blogosphere. And CPAC was in session right down the street from the studio.
i prefer the phone, cuz i cant stand to look at these asshats
especially the biggest asshat of all, jonah goldberg
hey jonah...the recession started in 2007...the crash and depression started in 2008
and hey...dont show these fucks facts...they hate facts...facts wingnut fucks are like kryptonite to superman
Asking the pollster questions to CPAC attendees was especially enlightening. The birther question was especially interesting. What was with all the people saying they don't have all the facts on this? Or the woman that said she wished he would put the doubts to rest? The man put his Hawaii issued birth certificate ONLINE for everyone to see. Go LOOK AT IT! How can people be so stupid. And the woman who simply respond that of course she doesn't believe he was born in the U.S. because she's a "conservative"...I think she meant "lemming" because that her answer demonstrates that she doesn't have an analytical brain cell in her body. On the other hand, there were also some very reasoned and level headed responses to these questions that point to the existence of conservatives who simply differ on policy issues. If only they could make their voices heard above the teabaggers.
I love how Jonah declared himself as having "the best of the argument" with the recent special smackdown he was handed by a group of historians over at History News Network. I'm sure he (and his minions) think so.
And then he called David Neiwert a "buffoon" - strong argument!
Just uneducated children!
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness, it has almost totally destroied our economy, our morals, and the sprituality of America!
I think what Issa is saying is that the stimulus amounts to kicking the can down the road and many progressives agree. I'm not anti-stimulus ....it's just that the money is being spent unwisely. When the money runs out (as it will soon), we'll be back in the same boat. It's been estimated that half of all commercial property loans are underwater. Those loans are financed for only about 5 or 7 years before they are renegotiated. Underwater loans rarely get refinanced so what then? Our local mall is in serious doo-doo. They've lost several anchor stores and are due for a reset soon. That means more people out of work.
We're in for hard times. Hold on to what you got and get your money out of the too big to fail banks.
I apologize for the ignorance of this comment, because I was unable to stomach watching more than a few minutes of the Jonah Goldberg videos. But seriously, why did you even bother to post anything about Jonah Goldberg?
Okay, certainly he's a fine example of conservatives' willful stupidity and intellectual dishonesty, but I still worry that giving him any attention at all is doing him some sort of service.
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