Happy Birthday James Carville. Now Retire.

[babylonsister]

Ouch! This is going to leave a mark!


Pete Cenedella
Posted October 25, 2008 | 12:48 PM (EST)
Happy Birthday James Carville. Now Retire.


This is a birthday card to James Carville, on a day when polls show most Americans rejecting the negative campaigns and the spin-mongering that he has been such a part of. The gift your countrymen and women bring you is an early retirement. Looking around at our country today, I'm happy to say your dubious services are no longer needed.

We all like to point fingers at Karl Rove and Lee Atwater and their ilk on the right, but goddamn if no single figure better embodies the ugly political stalemate of the past 20 years than you, Jimbo. During roughly the same period as your comfortable rise to political and cultural prominence, Democrats and Republicans have been engaged in a dysfuntional, co-dependednt relationship at the head of our national household. Your career arc parallels the unpleasant domestic drama this nation's family has been sucked into. The nasty pettiness has been going on for so long now that it's become as normalized as the air we breathe.

The meanness in our political life has left the whole extended family hooked on rage, taking sides in the country's custody battle and savaging each other in the process; or else numb and self-medicating with a raft-load of flat screen TVs and better-faster video games, disposable luxury items and McHomes we can't afford, all financed with easy credit as part of Mommy and Daddy's big irresponsible real estate Ponzi scheme. Everyone's either pissed off, numb, or both.

And now it turns out every last member of the family has to dig deep into their life savings to pay off Mommy and Daddy's debts, before the Chinese bookies and Saudi mob start leaning in a little too hard, before the whole American estate is in the hands of the repo man.

What does this unseemly relationship have to do with you, Mr. Ragin' Cajun? Well, you represent the whole shady deal, the anti-social contract; you literally have a compact with the enemy, sleeping every night with your bride, the Republican consultant and conservative media wheel-greaser Mary Matalin. Your mutual bank accounts have grown fat as you pad your resumes with the dumb show of political bashing and character assassination. Every time the discussion around the nation's dinner table turns ugly, and someone gets up and has to be restrained from taking a swing at Grandpa or little sis, your calculator registers another ka-ching. You're like Punch n' Judy, playing at a fight to pocket some coin, working both sides of the street. You're not loyal to any real ideas or values, just true to the Game, and the rewards to be reaped from playing it -- and us -- for all it's worth.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-cenedella/happy-birthday-james-carv_b_137806.html

[BeatleBoot]

1. I still say Lee Atwater and Karl Rove

started the shit.

And thank god our party had someone who understood that game and stood up to those punks.

[wyldwolf]

3. amen, and screw Arrianna Huffington - that Gingrich/McCain enabler

[TomClash]

6. Very Good Point

She has a past as a big capitalist princess bride.

[babylonsister]

8. No, screw Carville and Maitlin. His outrageousness following

Richardson's endorsement of Obama won't soon be forgotten. He acts like a Dem only when it suits him or somehow benefits him. You crowning him for his good deeds doesn't make it so.

[wyldwolf]

10. No, screw Huffington - supporter of Gingrich and McCain over Gore

[madfloridian]

5. Carville attempted a coup to replace Dean after a big win....not forgotten.

Not ever forgotten.

We were all feeling good about winning back some seats in Congress, and then Carville went on TV and
and called for Dean to be replaced.

It was stunning and shocking and won't be forgotten.

The Huff Post blogger is right.

[wyldwolf]

7. that's an odd definition of "coup."

Hey, why not include that fact Dean was pleaded with for extra cash by the DCCC and only relented at the final hour?

[wyldwolf]

2. sure, because without those like him on the Democratic side...

... we would have all been singing 'give peace a chance' while the GOP won a generations-long political realignment.

Honestly - never ceases to amaze me how people like those at the Huffington Post believe they hold some lock on electoral politics.

[TomClash]

4. I'm not a big fan of Carville's anymore but . . .

. . . who the hell is Pete Cenedella? How many floors did he sleep on trying to get Dems elected? Carville slept on quite a few.

He deplores nastiness and then does an ad hominum attack on Carville?

I think this article is garbage.

[armed_and_liberal]

9. Walk softly and carry a big stick...

is what works now as is being proven by Barack Obama.

James Carville was the right man for the time when Bill Clinton came along. Some of us may despise the centrist views of Carville and Clinton, but in 1992 knocking an incumbent Republican President out of office with a liberal agenda was not going to happen. We needed a leg breaker like Carville that could counterpunch the rightwing spin machine. To that I think Democrats owe him some gratitude

I do agree that it is time to put Carville back in the box with a note to only open in case of fire or Palin