I see that Democratic Senator Joseph "Joe" Biden od Delaware is not supporting a filibuster of Alito's nomination, but I have what I think is a good idea of how to go about changing his mind: Every rank-and-file Democrat should phone, e-mail or fax Joe and tell him that we'll support his bid for the Presidency in 2008 if he votes against cloture. Biden is so hot to be Prez (something that ain't never gonna happen), that hewillbelieve this transparent falsehood and will do whatever we want. (I mean, Joe would perform unnatural acts with a hedgehog if it would get him one step closer to the White House.)
OK, I kid, I love Joe Biden, he's a great man, a great American, and a great Democrat. He's also a great big fool if he thinks that not supporting a filibuster is what's best for the country, the party or, for that matter, his own political fortunes.
As for the other Joe, Mr. Lieberman of Connecticut, I see he's listed as a swing vote, but I'm not sure there's any real way of getting to him, since he's got his head so far up his alimentary canal that he can monitor his cholesterol visually.
Update: Thanks for all those calls and letter to Biden, I guess they worked.
Update (2/1): A Democratic political consultant tries to make the case that Delaware Joe is our best bet for President.
What was it Shakespeare wrote? Something along the lines of "First, let's kill all the political consultants," wasn't it?
Incidentally, the consultant is said to be "a veteran of 10 Democratic presidential campaigns dating back to 1976," which is tough to do, considering that there have only been 8 Presidential elections dating back to 1976. Presumably he changed campaigns in several of those years, probably when his candidate lost. So, assuming he worked on all 8 of the main events in that time, the most he can be credited with is a 30% winning percentage, and less if he didn't end up with the eventual nominee.
So why should we listen to a guy whose candidates lose at least 70% of the time?
Update (2/2): Via Scott Lemieux, commenter Steve M on TBogg has a great take on Biden:
You know who Joe Biden is? He's Steve Carell on The Office. Or maybe Ricky Gervais on the British Office. He thinks he's really competent and extremely amusing, and he's not -- especially the latter. In fact, he makes everyone's skin crawl.
He's like your creepy uncle who's just a little too friendly.
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
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criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
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dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
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irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
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oblivious
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philistine
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Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
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i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson
Roger Ailes (FNC)
John Ashcroft
Bob Bennett
William Bennett
Joe Biden
John Bolton
Alan Bonsell (Dover BofE)
Pat Buchanan
Bill Buckingham (Dover BofE)
George W. Bush
Saxby Chambliss
Bruce Chapman (DI)
Dick Cheney
Lynne Cheney
Richard Cohen
The Coors Family
Ann Coulter
Michael Crichton
Lanny Davis
Tom DeLay
William A. Dembski
James Dobson
Leonard Downie (WaPo)
Dinesh D’Souza
Gregg Easterbrook
Jerry Falwell
Douglas Feith
Arthur Finkelstein
Bill Frist
George Gilder
Newt Gingrich
John Gibson (FNC)
Alberto Gonzalez
Rudolph Giuliani
Sean Hannity
Katherine Harris
Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
David Horowitz
Don Imus
James F. Inhofe
Jesse Jackson
Philip E. Johnson
Daryn Kagan
Joe Klein
Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
Mitch McConnell
Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
Roy Moore
Dick Morris
Rupert Murdoch
Ralph Nader
John Negroponte
Grover Norquist
Robert Novak
Ted Olson
Elspeth Reeve (TNR)
Bill O'Reilly
Martin Peretz (TNR)
Richard Perle
Ramesh Ponnuru
Ralph Reed
Pat Robertson
Karl Rove
Tim Russert
Rick Santorum
Richard Mellon Scaife
Antonin Scalia
Joe Scarborough
Susan Schmidt (WaPo)
Bill Schneider
Al Sharpton
Ron Silver
John Solomon (WaPo)
Margaret Spellings
Kenneth Starr
Randall Terry
Clarence Thomas
Richard Thompson (TMLC)
Donald Trump
Richard Viguere
Donald Wildmon
Paul Wolfowitz
Bob Woodward (WaPo)
John Yoo
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recent listening
influences
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Isaac Asimov
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J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
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"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
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Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
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Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
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Philip Glass
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Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
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Frank Herbert
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Bill James
Gene Kelly
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Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
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John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
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Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
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Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
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the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
