I was scanning for a radio station yesterday (don’t listen to non-sports talk radio much) when I heard Limbaugh talking about the latest scandal. He seemed to be assuring his listeners that this Abramoff thing was just the beginning of a long story, and the Demmies who were bragging on the seeming involvement of DeLay and other Pubbies had a big surprise coming.
Now, that may be true (I’m very bad at predicting what the outcome of Grand Jury testimony will lead to) but to me, this sort of solace is akin to a giant fireball two days away from full and total contact with the earth and being assured that it’s too soon to tell for sure how this will end, so don’t get yourselves worked up over this, me buckos. When is it EVER not technically “too soon to tell”? When all of the appeals have been exhausted and the principal figures have been in Allenwood for fifteen years?
Does this guy have a index card listing “Responses to recite in times of partisan disaster?”
Too soon to tell what’s really happening
I suspect the Demmies are involved secretly and it’ll all come out in the wash
Clinton lied under oath
Should this even be a crime?
Some poll somewhere shows that most Americans don’t care about this yet, and may never care (I actually heard this too, before I could switch off)
Actually, I hate the “too soon to tell” thing the most, coming from right-wing nutjobs who love to jump in with both feet at the first hint of Demmie scandals.
It’s not just politics either: I listen to a lot of sports-talk radio, and I hear a lot of “too soon to tell” about trades, Free Agent signings, etc. If that’s your contribution to the discussion, then please STFU. Yes, it hasn’t happened yet, so we all understand it may work out well, or badly. The part that really pisses me off is that the same people who offer “T.S.T.T.” responses are precisely those who, after it’s clearly in the books, are least inclined to revisit the trade or FA signing. “Ancient History, my friend. Why even discss something that happened six seasons ago. Let it go. Maybe the team blew 130 million, maybe not, but that’s all water under the bridge by now. Let’s discuss something that happened THIS millennium, huh?”
This technique strikes me as fundamentally dishonest, a bullying technique that (seemingly) allows the speaker to set the agenda of which topics are appropriate for discussion and which not, and allows the discussion always to stay focused on those subject that the speaker feels comfortable discussing.
Huh. It was just a few weeks ago that I scanned the talk radio stations and heard Rush claiming that there was nothing to the Abramoff story and that he had inside information that there was no way he would be charged.
I guess Abramoff must have accepted the plea deal purely for it’s entertainment value.
MEh. He also made the insightful observation that the real blame for the scandal lays at the feet of campaign finance reform legislation, and that Abramoff’s actions were just creative and necessary.
Brilliant! Elsewhere in the news, immigration law is to blame for snakeheads and suppliers of fake ID.
The difference between normal people and zealots like Rush are that I’m happy with whatever corruption (repub or dem) is exposed, and those responsible punished.
I never get that response “well the dems did the same thing”. I always say “well, then they’re a bunch of assholes too!”
Well, it is too soon to tell what’s going to happen. And the reason it makes sense to say that is that there are plenty on the left shouting about how this scandal will bring down the Republicans. It may well do that, but the odds are pretty high. As I said in the GD thread, this reminds me a lot of just a few months ago when Fitsgerald announced the indictment against Libby. It was not uncommon to hear that the investigation was sure to nab Cheney as well.
I mostly agree with the OP. However, just to be the nitpicking bastard that I am, the OP says that he doesn’t listen to much sports radio in the opening sentence, then in the last sentence says that he listens to a lot of sports radio.
Not really germane to the main argument, which I agree with (that it’s a bullying tactic to set the agenda), but hey take my nitpick for what it’s worth.
It will, however, hit the Republicans harder than the Democrats, as the Republicans are the party in power and… was it DeLay? DeLay had a genius for cutting off opposing party donations.
I don’t know that I’d go that far. He sure seems to have contributed a lot of money (both through PACs and individually) to Dems and Dem organizations. For example, he gave the National Republican Senatorial Committee $436,500, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committeee $423,480. And he gave the National Republican Congressional Committee $498,000, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee $357,700. And the chart indicates that he gave money to over 100 Democratic Senators and Congressmen, as well as a number of state and local Democratic organizations.
Please note that this doesn’t indicate that he did anything illegal with regard to any of these representatives. It merely indicates that he was a lobbyist, and as such, had an interest in contributing to whoever was in power, be it Republican or Democrat.
I remember when he first came to L.A. (Los Angeles) (1996?) The Hot-topic back then was the homeless and Rush jump on the Band Wagon and for several weeks pontificated on how he was going to drive a bussload of vagrants down to the Malibu Colony (Homes of Movie Stars and the Affluent). The day came and he wussied-out, he spent the rest of the broadcast trying to explain why he couldn't do it.
All it did was muck up the system something terribly, because you really now can’t give [DRUGS] to who you want to give it to. […] And here’s [DEALERS] finding a way, a very creative way to get [DRUGS] to people where [DRUG SUPPLIERS] are not legally allowed to get it there, in a direct route. Ergo, [THE WAR ON DRUGS]has itself corrupted the system even more so than it was. In the meantime, the architects of this little plan are treated royally.
Or…
All it did was muck up the system something terribly, because you really now can’t give [MOB MONEY] to who you want to give it to. […] And here’s [SOME MOB GUY] finding a way, a very creative way to get money to people where [OTHER MOB GUYS] are not legally allowed to get it there, in a direct route. Ergo, [ORGANIZED CRIME] reform has itself corrupted the system even more so than it was. In the meantime, the architects of this little plan are treated royally.
Hey, this is fun!
On a serious note…not that I ever took him seriously, but that’s got to be the most dumb-ass justification for shit I’ve ever heard, in a world replete with dumb-ass justifications for equally or moreso dumb-ass shit.
“Too soon to tell” is just the first part of the two-pronged obfuscation of any right-wing wrong doing. First, they say it is too soon to tell; then when all the facts are in, they accuse detractors of “dwelling on the past” as they portray themselves as “looking to the future”.
