anamariecox

#iwatchfox: O’Reilly O Rilly

This might be my favorite moment so far, just because I love cranky old men with no self-awareness (yes, this explains why I cover the GOP, mostly). Bill O’Reilly, expounding on how Sandy blew Romney off the teevee screen:

I TOLD their campaign, and this is not self-aggrandizement, I TOLD them, do you realize you’re invisible? I don’t think that registered for them.

Bill O’Reilly, if only MORE PEOPLE DID WHAT HE SAID. Truly, the Cassandra of prime time cable. 

General discussion of Sandy seems to be that FOR SOME REASON Sandy mattered more to voters than Benghazi. They seem surprised by this.

#iwatchfox: Mourdock on the Offensive

This is how Bret Baier framed the results coming in from Indiana (at 6% in, Mourdock leading Donnelly by a few points). It’s a closer race than it had been, he said, since “Mourdock made some comments on rape and abortion that Democrats used against him.”

Yes, “that Democrats used against him,” like it was a controversial vote or something weird he did in college versus, oh, I don’t know, “that thousands and thousands of reasonable people of many different ideological mindsets found personally offensive.”

The Republican party is not going to be able to shake the influence of their socially conservative base until their views become so far outside the mainstream that merely speaking frankly about them is considered offensive — the way that no racist (no matter how racist) would consider saying in public what they actually believe. (If that doesn’t work for you, go deeper into taboos — imagine if Mourdock had said something along the lines of “Babies are delicious.” Is that something that would be “used against him”? Or just political suicide?)

It’s not fair to compare that directly to conservative religious views on abortion — being no-exceptions pro-life is NOT like being a racist, not at all, NO (I even have sympathy for that argument, provided it lines up with a stand against the death penalty) … but wanting to force your personal definition of when life begins on others, and to believe it’s okay for government to weigh in on what women who have already been violated once should or shouldn’t do — that’s the thing that has to become not just socially unacceptable but for reasonable people unthinkable. Making laws that would make women’s decisions about their lives for them should be as weirdly alien to us laws against interracial marriage.

Baier describing Mourdock’s situation the way he did, even in that offhand remark, may say something about how far away that shift may be. For people who are on Fox News at least.

#iwatchfox: Bizarro World

Fox News’ emergence as a watchdog of voting rights and defender of the popular vote is one of 2012’s totally expected yet still weird developments.

Really, my experiment in watching Fox News for my election news is not a perfect one. I have no “control,” really — just the stuff that I pick up from our consensual reality, which I find hard to let go of. But let’s pretend I’ve done nothing but watch Fox for months. These are things I would believe to be true, just for now:

No one is receiving federal help in Sandy’s aftermath. Particularly one redheaded woman on Staten Island, whose clip is run on average once an hour. BUT THEY DESERVE THIS HELP. To be clear: People whose homes’ mortgages are underwater? LET THEM ROT. Sandy survivors? WHERE ARE YOU OBAMA? 

Romney is going to win Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Iowa, and possibly Minnesota. He will win. This is because people “feel” this to be true. Numbers are for magician pagans. Numbers are gay. Unreliable and possibly un-Christian.

Dick Morris is a sober judge of character and the national mood.

Karl Rove is the only wizard you can trust, if you believe in that numbers shit.

Obama has deliberately let Americans die: diplomats in Benghazi, and other, unnamed people. He’s just that bad.

Everyone has perfect, poreless skin.

Catheters are as vital to daily living as air.

____

ADDED: Obv, obv: MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD EVERYWHERE ESPECIALLY WHITE PEOPLE BEING INTIMIDATED. Ignore the long lines of black and brown people. They do not exist.

Newscat Gif

newscatgif:

I feel more like the ball than the cat, really.

Gagged

I am in Twitter jail.

#iwatchfox: Uptalking the Election

I have some respect for Megyn Kelly. It’s true! She is not a dummy. But today she is sounding like a Valley Girl being told Orange Julius is going out of business: each sentence is a raising-pitch exclamation.

Everything with respect to polling is manipulation! 2004! 2004! They congratulated John Kerry for being president! The only person we can trust is is Rassmussen! And he says he can’t tell us! It’s honest! It’s honest!

The short-hand of just “2004” to mean “you can’t trust polling data” for conservatives specifically is ironic-ish, since a lot of people believe that the reason that the 2004 exits were so off is that Republicans refused to participate in them. 

#iwatchfox: Hayesian

This is a thing that someone on Fox said this morning, mocking pollsters: “‘This state is in play, that state in play’ — they don’t know! Let’s look at the election of Rutherford B. Hayes.”