jindal gets his breather

josh marshall @ talking points memo:

dems gloat after rush awards himself sole custody of steele's testicles.

i'm loving michael steele. i mean, i'm not sure how else to put it. this guy has to be about the worst, most embarrassing party chair we've seen in recent memory. it's embarrassing enough that steele is like, what? ... the third republican to criticize rush and then make it less than 36 hours before being forced to undergo the 21st century republican version of a maoist self-criticism session. it's sad for the republican party that no one can criticize rush without having to be hauled out for this sort of humiliation a day or so later. but for steele not to have realized that or not to have been sufficiently in control of his mouth to avoid saying this just shows once again that this dude is really, really not ready for prime time.

digby @ hullaballoo:

but [limbaugh] is, as some of us have been pointing for years, the true leader of the republican party and we were told that he was a harmless, mainstream entertainer and we should all just lighten up, even as luminaries of the republican party and the luminaries of the conservative movement bowed and scraped like abused streetwalkers at the feet of their violent pimp. they defended his comments about abu ghraib, fergawdsake. he can literally do no wrong.

andrew sullivan @ the atlantic:

comrade steele dutifully apologizes to the great leader and offer his regrets to his fellow comrades in the movement. re-education camp will follow shortly. this climb-down marks the end of establishment republican resistance to the poujadist pontificator. it’s rush’s party now. so why shouldn’t he run for president in 2012? make palin his veep — and be done with it.

dnc chairman tim kaine:

chairman steele’s reversal this evening and his apology to limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that limbaugh is the leading force behind the republican party, its politics and its obstruction of president obama’s agenda in washington.

white house press secretary robert gibbs:

i was a little surprised at the speed in which mr. steele, the head of the RNC, apologized to the head of the republican party.

mark silva @ the chicago tribune:

the democrats are laughing all the way to the blood-sport bank.

dittohead central @ free republic:

... this makes steele even look weaker. we need someone with cojones to lead the RNC, not a backstabber like steele. he had no business going on hugley’s CNN show ...

next time you go on a talk show or news program and another “brotha” tries to turn you against limbaugh...i want to hear you scream from the mountain tops, that limbaugh is a force to be reckoned with and is right 98.8% of the time.

to see the way the CNN host was manipulating steele so easy was just horrible. hughley heaps praise on him and speaks about his new level of respect for steele. steele's response was a pie eyed nod in agreement. hughley could have had him agreeing to recreational drug use in the whitehouse if he wanted.

unless blacks start seeing themselves as men, and not blacks, then nothing will change.

michael steele is the one that took the bait and helped the democrats with this whole thing. they have been baiting for weeks now..surely steele is not that clueless.

i went back at that tape and i realized words that i said weren’t what i was thinking wow! that inspires confidence.

one of those things where i thinking i was saying one thing, and it came out differently one of those things? happens to everybody all the time, huh? sure, malapropisms, a lapsus linguae now and then, but no, no one says "bite me" when they mean to say "i love you."

i was maybe a little bit inarticulate. hey a-hole: you're the chairman of the republican national committee. you can't afford to be "maybe a little bit inarticulate." you know, don't you, that media whores from CNN to CNBC to god knows where are quoting you and using your "little bit inarticulate" stupidity to hang racism around your party's neck? you do know that, right? why are we cursed with dumb f*ckwads for "leaders." i give up.

grovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovelgrovel

nothing says you’re sorry like, “i resign”.

rush had his “A game” today, but is still man enough and smart enough to accept the apology from steele.

i left the GOP today and i’ll be damned if i go back. i’ve had it. perhaps one day with god’s grace the grand old party will learn how to treat conservatives who fight the hardest, vote in droves and give freely pf time, talent and cold hard cash.

certifigate: bizarrobama

bobby jindal's presidential aspirations may have hit a particularly painful and publicized-all-too-well speed bump with his loudly-ridiculed response to obama's address to congress, but the news cycle is moving on and conservatives thankfully enjoy such therapeutically short memories — as illustrated by this weekend's conservative political action conference (cpac) presidential straw poll:

mitt romney 20% bobby jindal 14% sarah palin, ron paul 13% each newt gingrich 10% undecided 9% mike huckabee 7% mark sanford 4% rudy guiliani 3% tim pawlenty 2% charlie crist 1%

with the campaign rhetoric for 2012 kicking into gear, the nomination still looks within jindal's reach, especially with rush limbaugh lionizing him as the second coming of conservative demi-god ronald reagan:

i'm going to give you a name that would make me jump for joy — bobby jindal. i did an interview with bobby jindal. he is the next ronald reagan if he does not change.

continuing to stake out his territory as conservatives' alpha-demagogue, limbaugh pissed all over any fellow wingnuts daring to nay-say the golden child:

i love bobby jindal, and that did not change after last night ...

... people on our side are really making a mistake if they go after bobby jindal on the basis of style. because if you think — people on our side i’m talking to you — those of you who think jindal was horrible, you think — in fact, i don’t ever want to hear from you ever again. ... i’ve spoken to him numerous times, he’s brilliant. he’s the real deal.

conservatives are hoping jindal's speech will remain nothing more than a fading nightmare ... that is, as long as they can help a particularly patriotic and usurper-hating wing of the movement ignore his opening paean to the ineligible one:

regardless of party, all americans are moved by the president's personal story — the son of an american mother and a kenyan father, who grew up to become leader of the free world. like the president's father, my own parents came to this country from a distant land. when they arrived in baton rouge, my mother was already 4½ months pregnant. i was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "pre-existing condition."

it's bad enough suggesting that everybody should get all verklempt over superboy's origin story, but ... telling the world that the next great champion for a conservative renaissance is ... (gasp!) an anchor baby?!!?

welcome to bizarro world, america!

for many certifigaters the issues of documentation or place of birth are but tangents. to borrow shakespeare: "his pop's the thing, wherein we'll catch the conscience of the king". they've twisted their knickers into gordian jockstraps over the horrifying fact that obama's father was not a citizen. many insist that his mother was too young to confer citizenship to her son, or better yet, that she renounced her citizenship by marrying his father. ultimately, birthplace is irrelevant:

everyone should understand and KNOW the answer to the question of what country is the country of which obama was a natural born citizen. It is IMPOSSIBLE for barry obama, barry soetoro, or barack hussein obama junior, to be a natural born united states citizen. he can NOT POSSIBLY be a "natural born citizen" of the US because his father, barack hussein obama senior, was a citizen of UK and/or kenya. barcak hussein obama junior could be a natural born british citizen or a natural born kenyan citizen. there is NO possible way barack hussein obama junior could be a natural born US citizen; because, at the time of barack hussein obama junior was born, his father, barack hussein obama senior was a british and/or kenyan citizen. whether barack hussein obama junior was born in hawaii, kenya, or the moon, is irrelevant.

so what about bobby, who proudly boasts of having neither parent as a citizen at the time of his birth? the issue was recently posed in what turned out to be an uncharacteristically short thread at our favorite hardcore wingnut blog and certifigater watering hole. and i'm shocked, i tell you, just shocked at the level of disinterest in the question:

jindal/palin not a natural-citizen, according to the birthers.

jindal was born in baton rouge

... the allegation is also that That One was born abroad. jindal was definitely born within US territory.

of foreign-born parents. hey, it's not my theory. but the birthers are going on and on about obama not being a natural born citizen because his father was kenyan.

there is proof of his birth and residency here. all that was hashed out when he first ran for governor in 2003. then again in 2007. the louisiana democratic party is real nasty. the problem with zer0 is that he will not provide the real proof and that alone was what keeps the issue alive.

apparently, jindal's parents could've been born on krypton — and it won't matter as long as he's being reeled out as the conservatives' last lifeline to political relevancy.

certifigaters also accuse the usurper of identity fraud, referring to him derisively, as illustrated above, by his stepfather's surname as "barry soetoro" or his mother's maiden name "barry dunham" and other "aliases". perennial also-ran alan keyes, for one, has filed a subpoena for obama's college records, which he claims will prove that:

1. obama attended school as a foreign exchange student and
2. obama was an indonesian citizen and
3. obama was registered under his "alias" soetoro

thank god piyush — oops, i meant "bobby" — doesn't have issues as bizarre as this simmering on the back burner for jindal-deranged moonbats to make a stink of ...

so here's to the next great conservative hero: