Bret: Oh, and speaking of the Senate: Did you hear Nebraska’s Ben Sasse tear into Trump during that phone call with his constituents? Too little, too late, in my view, though it’s always nice to hear what Republicans really think of their favorite president.
Gail: Yeah, thanks to Sasse we can point to a sitting senator from his own party who accused him of screwing up the coronavirus crisis, cozying up to dictators and white supremacists and drawing the water for a “Republican blood bath.” Can’t get much better than that. Catch you again next week, Bret. God knows what will have happened by then.
I'm thinking — do you draw water for a blood bath? Just taking the metaphor seriously — and I'll put to the side the violence of the imagery — isn't the liquid for a blood bath blood?
A "blood bath" is, in its oldest figurative meaning, according to the OED, "A battle or fight at which much blood is spilt; a wholesale slaughter, a massacre." Figurative in the sense of "bath." The blood is real blood. That goes back to 1843. The fully figurative meaning — "A dramatic loss or heavy defeat" — with both the bath and the blood as metaphor — is traced back only to 1967.Strangely enough, there is a nonmetaphorical meaning that predates all that — "A bath in warm blood taken as a tonic or form of medical treatment"!
I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can take a blood bath to cure the coronavirus. You know? If you could? And maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Again, I say maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I’m not a doctor. Have you ever heard of that?1834 London Med. Gaz. 22 Feb. 813 (heading) On blood-baths... According to a dark tradition,..the ancient kings of Egypt used to bathe in human blood when they were seized with leprosy.1895 Cincinnati Med. Jrnl. May 380/2 Although French doctors do not often prescribe these forms of treatment, ‘blood baths’ are not infrequently used....
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76 comments:
I have reached the point that I do in every election, whether for POTUS or not, when I think, election day can't get here soon enough.
2016: Trump can’t win, and he’s going to cost the Republicans the House and the Senate.
2020: Trump can’t win, and he’s going to cost the Republicans the House and the Senate.
Why do you keep listening to these people, Althouse?
Gail, “Can’t get much better than that.”
Yup. Biden has been bribed by foreigners.
The blood bath happened on Election Night 2016.
It was the media’s credibility that went down the drain.
I'm thinking — do you draw water for a blood bath?
It would appear no water is involved.
...but drawing a hot bath is the preparation to cut open wrists...
Not a fan of Sasse. You don’t dis a sitting president of your own party two weeks before an election unless you’re a vainglorious tool.
The fact that Sasse and his posturing impressed Bret Stephens — who has zero credibility among conservatives — tells us all we need to know.
What is it with Republicans and the “maverick” in the party that always has to stand up and shout “look at me!”??
I can't help but wonder what good conversations between people who agree with each other serve.
Remember that scene from the Godfather movies where the mob guy, now a federal witness, takes a warm bath and slits his wrists to kill himself? Blood bath, one alternate definition.
Catch you again next week, Bret. God knows what will have happened by then.
If you don't know what will happen this week your circles mingle far outside the DC beltway. I think these two know what is happening. Certainly Biden's caretakers know. It's in part why he's called a lid on this week...
Sasse has no rival, really just a write in candidate.
Mr. Burns and Smithers exult over the future prospect of "bathing in the blood" of their clown-like rivals. Krusty's on to their plans, and he has evidence. Tune in for the next episode to see how this turns out.
My money's on Krusty. As always, you may reach a different conclusion.
Brett Stephens had the wrong Montgomery Clift movie reference. I think he should really look at what was done to the 'non-essential' by the people's courts as shown in Judgement at Nurmenburg. Cuomo treated nursing home patients with the same compassion.
I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there’s any way that you can take a blood bath to cure the coronavirus. You know? If you could?
Silly woman. What will cure coronavirus is when it stops being useful as a means to attack Donald Trump. Nothing else will work.
I don't read the NY Slimes. This story is another NYT story to boost up the failing Hunter/Joe Biden campaign. Perhaps that's why the headline is such a failure. NeverTrumper and supposed Republican Bret Stephens would rather lose with dignity than win while causing lamentation from his enemies. Except he's a Democrat. Republicans support Trump.
"many of us have been saying there's lots of hard data that suggests Trump is going to lose. In fact the blood bath is happening on the Democratic side."
Makes zero sense.
Sasse is up for re-election this year, but it doesn't sound like he's in a tough race. He was challenged in the primary, but Trump endorsed the pretentious ingrate so he won handily.
They went home and sat in a hot bath and opened their veins, and bled to death. Sometimes they gave a little party before they did it. - Frankie Five Angels Pentangeli
The answer to most questions can be found in the Godfather.
- Krumhorn
It’s like our intellectual betters in journalism don’t read actual books and don’t know the language and its metaphors.
Sasse did not "tear into" Trump. It was more like whining about Trump. Sasse hit all the MSM/Democrat talking points which shows he's really about as Conservative as the New York Times Op-ed page. Why Nebraska republicans' decided to nominate and re-nominate this little soy-boy loser is beyond me. when he's not wanking on about "we need to come together as a country" or "we need to repeal the 17th Amendment" he's talking about wages being too high, and the need for more corporate welfare and wars in the Middle East.
He's Jeff Flake without the macho.
" You don’t dis a sitting president of your own party two weeks before an election unless you’re a vainglorious tool."
Agreed, he should have been vigorously dissing him for at least the last 2 years.
But, in typical political fashion he kept his mouth shut until the blood was in the water.
Will THIS be shark week?
Why do you keep listening to these people, Althouse?
Well, it did cost the Republicans in 2018. And the Senate race that year was extremely difficult for the Democrats.
So, the Senate Republican Loser clowns are looking forward to being a minority again.
"Thank God, all that hard work of being in the majority and controlling the Presidency and the Senate will be over. Finally, things will go back to normal" they think.
When Biden is President, they'll be happy. The R's can go back to talking about smaller government, making empty campaign promises and supporting bills that have zero chance of passing. And of course "Reach across the aisle", and crow about how Schumer and Biden gave them a few crumbs. I bet Mittens is all fired up, and already looking forward to a front seat at the inaugural.
You have your bath water drawn and your blood drawn. But they take your blood out, and put bath water in the tub. Seems they shouldn't be the same word.
If Biden wins, the first thing he should do is hire a food taster.
Has there ever been a candidate with less real support, meaning people who really want that particular man as President because of who he is and what he has and can do? Is there any doubt that the people voting for Biden would also vote for Harvey Weinstein if that was the alternative to Trump?
Dems are so confident that they are dredging up their fear mongering about Republicans taking away Social Security and Medicare.
I have heard that crap every four years for the last 10 elections. Maybe they are trying to say that Republicans are so incompetent that they can't even impoverish senior citizens despite trying hard for 40 years.
Elizabeth Bathory allegedly bathed in the blood of virgins to stay young. As far as I know there is no evidence of these events and it may have been a smear campaign, which when you bathe in blood is almost certainly a hazard.
Vampires bathing in blood is a trope as well. Of course, it helps that Elizabeth gets identified as a vampire in fiction. I'm not sure I would want to be the meat in my own soup, if you will, but then again I am not undead.
This kind of open back stabbing thing never happens to Democrats. They operate with strict party discipline like all communist party machines.
Sasse is a coward. If he really meant what he said he would have said it when he could have been primaried. Only now when he thinks his seat is safe and Trump will lose does he speak out. That's opportunism and he pretends he's better than that. It's definitely not brave. And I generally like Sasse.
Did they discuss the Biden emails?
HAHAHAHAHA just kidding! Like that would ever happen ...
Nothing spikes the dopamine of the narcissistic NYT audience like fantasizing about a bloodbath of deplorables. And so it continues.
All I know is that here in Michigan, we will probably be picking up a Republican Senator, John James.
stevew said...
I have reached the point that I do in every election, whether for POTUS or not, when I think, election day can't get here soon enough.
It won't be over 'til it's over, and even then it won't be over.
As many of us have been saying there's lots of hard data that suggests Trump is not going to lose. In fact the blood bath is happening on the Democratic side. Using Sasse as a data point that Republicans are turning on each other isn't deep thinking...
Dang, Mikee beat me to it at 7:17. One traditional Roman suicide protocol was a warm bath to open up the veins, then slit your wrists. Frankie Pentangeli follows that tradition in Godfather II. But as far as I know that was never called a "blood bath." Just an image with a bath and some blood in it. But what do you expect from NYT columnists? These people are imbeciles.
It doesn't help if it cures the 'rona, but gives you AIDS or hep-C.
If you catch Instapundit today he has a link to an article : "FIVE THINGS WE’LL LEARN ABOUT BIDEN AFTER THE ELECTION".
One of them is that the meanness and bias of the press was not really about Trump, and it will still be there, but directed at the rest of us who will resist things like the green new deal and the loss of private health insurance. I can hardly wait. Trump has taken a lot of hits for us, and I don't know who would have the guts to do that without him. I can't believe I've come this far since 2016, when I often argued against him ,but man, this country needs that ballsy orange S.O.B. now more than ever.
The "blood bath" is what will happen to Trump supporters if Biden wins.
Reich wants a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to punish those Deplorables.
narciso said...Sasse has no rival, really just a write in candidate.
I was wondering about that. RCP has no polling on Nebraska, just a note that it's a safe seat. Sasse's statement is what you expect from someone in a real election fight, where you say what you need to say to win and everybody else understands your situation. But Sasse is not facing that, he has no reason to distance himself from Trump. And I don't believe for a second that it will effect anything (Collins and Stephens are dreaming.)
So what's his angle?
As for blood bath, let's assume Collins knows that a blood bath doesn't involve water. (It's called a blood bath because you're bathing in blood, derr!) What, then could she mean by drawing water for a blood bath? Is it actually a clever image, like bringing a knife to a gun fight? The Republicans want everyone to think it's blood, but really it's water--the big fight between Sasse and Trump isn't a big fight at all. It's misdirection and they're actually coordinating, executing a plan to help Senators position themselves somehow to help keep the senate, which is more threatened than the White House.
Except Collins would have to be much smarter than she appears to be to pick up on the plan and describe it so cleverly. More likely she's just a hack spewing crap to fill column inches.
Blood has always been the symbol of a death. When the blood is no longer inSide a body, that body is dead. Antifa now celebrates a coming Biden Victory by publicly Publicly the bloody hearts of Trump voters. The Armageddon vision is for a mass battle that results in Men’s blood up to the horses’ bridals.
While truth and Reconciliation Commissions are a fine and dandy idea, strict self-criticism sessions followed by self-denunciation and voluntary relocation to the re-education camps are sooo much easier to set up and run. Guess which one we'll be getting?
Swamp-talk from Senator Sasse :
Speaking to constituents, Sasse criticised Trump for treating the coronavirus pandemic “like a PR crisis” and said the president “kisses dictators’ butts [and] mocks evangelicals behind closed doors”.
“His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity,” Sasse said. “He’s flirted with white supremacists.”
Senator Flake wannabe.
What is it with Republicans and the “maverick” in the party that always has to stand up and shout “look at me!”??
You mean the party that elected...Donald Trump? Is that his brand?
thanks for reminding me of Bathory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi-4iodtddw
Gail Collins AND Bret Stephens? There's your Objective Journalist A-Team right there.
rcocean said...
You have your bath water drawn and your blood drawn. But they take your blood out, and put bath water in the tub. Seems they shouldn't be the same word.
10/19/20, 8:20 AM
Might "drawn" (v.) then fall into the category of "contranym"?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their-own-opposites
Initially, I read "bloodbath" in the sense of a bloody fight, not in the sense of an overwhelming defeat, but I guess that's what Sasse meant. The mixed metaphor was Gail Collins' contribution. She hasn't been the same since she can't work Mitt Romney's dog Shamus into every column.
You can practically hear Bretbug licking the a@#holes of lefties who despise him.
Sasse is a coward. If he really meant what he said he would have said it when he could have been primaries.
It was a private phone call. I'm sure he did say these things back all along, but if a Senator says something and there is no one around to record the conversation and leak it to the NYT, did it make a sound?
@tcrosse: I know but we wont have this sort of nonsense, right? Right?!?
I don’t see how bathing in blood, esp of the young, would help with COVID-19. But maybe a transfusion might help. Medical scientists have maybe figured out part of why the young are just not dying of the virus. My memory is in the low single digits, out of more than 200k supposedly killed by the virus. It appears to maybe be a result of how our immune systems evolve as we age. As I understand it, our immune systems build up a history of immunity, as we get exposed to more and more pathogens as we age, and that we depend more and more on that memory of previous pathogens faced and defeated, as we age. Instead of that, because they don’t have this memory yet, the young depend more on a very vigorous initial response. Maybe because of the priority placed on combatting this virus, but it appears to me that the understanding of how our immune systems evolve, as we age has seemingly expanded significantly this last year.
Part of the possible danger here may be that there have been persistent rumors of our very rich elites, seemingly centered in DC and Hollywood, drinking, or possibly, transfusing, the blood of the young for therapeutic purposes, the thought maybe being that this was the real fountain of youth. That maybe younger blood worked to reinvigorate older people, who could afford to partake. The ghoulish side of this is that unwanted children are being sacrificed for this purpose. Right now, I would be more worried that the blood was from dissident Chinese Muslims, who are already allegedly being sacrificed for their organs.
This may or may not tie into the even more persistent rumors of rampant pedophilia among our elites. Not the post pubescent pedophilia of Jeffrey Epstein, but prepubescent pedophilia supposedly engaged in by the Podesta brothers, and some of the top names in Hollywood.
I am so old I remember when Trump was going to be the ruination of the Republican Party in the 2016 election.
It's the NYT, which I despise, detest, and distrust TOTALLY.
They mean this literally.
We know exactly what they plan for us.
They are calling for commissions and punishments openly.
They have been violently attacking us for 4 years. They are another violent minority party just like the National Socialists were in the 1930's Germany.
They spent months breaking windows. Not just one night.
A Biden victory just means war.
Republicans like Sasse, Ryan, McCain and Romney are the reason why Republicans are the Stupid Party. They are self-righteous, preening, political cannibals.
Gail & Brett? Talking to each other! Discussing the political scene! Debating ideas! Wait, is there a debate? Do they disagree on any major issue.......?
Not an Echo chamber - 'cuz that presupposes a vast somewhat enclosed space with folks yapping about the same thing. This is a slow motion tennis match. No score keeping. No hard serves. No smashes. No hitting to the opponent's backhand. I hit softly, you return softly, you hit softly, I return softly, you hit softly, I return softly.
It's like the political equivalent of a low level Turing Machine.
Nobody cares what these two dipshit lightweights think about anything. I'd rather be locked in an elevator with Howard for 12 hours.
As a method of suicide, the Romans would have a warm bath drawn and open a vein while sitting in the warm water, bleeding out.
Speaking truth to facts, NYT is in the business of manipulating perception to influence reality. 16 trimesters. Good luck.
Sasse is a world-class cocksucker...almost as bad as Romney and McCain.
Linda Lovelace is jealous of his skills.
Apparently an anti-Trump rally in Boston this weekend involved the drinking of blood or 'blood'. So we know which side is getting the bath. The leftist ties to the satanic occult are becoming more blatant by the day.
You have your bath water drawn and your blood drawn. But they take your blood out, and put bath water in the tub. Seems they shouldn't be the same word.
10/19/20, 8:20 AM
Might "drawn" (v.) then fall into the category of "contranym"?
No, I don't think so.
You draw water from the tap.
You draw blood from a vein.
The fact that the waters goes into a bath after (as) it is drawn is not relevant..
Churchy LaFemme: said...
By George, I do believe you're correct.
Makes zero sense.
Sorry. Post corrected to include a necessary NOT...
Blogger D.D. Driver said...
What is it with Republicans and the “maverick” in the party that always has to stand up and shout “look at me!”??
You mean the party that elected...Donald Trump? Is that his brand?
No, troll. The party that has a few "Mavericks" like McCain and Romney who pretend to be Republicans but get attention by torpedoing the Republican agenda once in a while. Like McCain running for re-election on a platform of "Build the Damn Wall." Then voting against it or being the final vote that stops the repeal of Obamacare.
Trump was an unusual candidate and a lot of us saw him as a brick through the window of the corrupt Establishment. But he has done what few politicians since Reagan have done. He has kept his promises.
I know you hate that.
This kind of open back stabbing thing never happens to Democrats. They operate with strict party discipline
True. Look at how they behave in televised hearings - very coordinated and preplanned. It didn't use to be that way. Remember Will Rogers: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." A lot has changed since the 1930s. I think the change came in the 1990s -- and the Democrats have gotten more in lockstep since then.
Sasse is a good example of why people got tired of movement or Establishment conservativism. Too preening and self-righteous. To inclined to ignore people's real concerns in favor of what they hear in seminars and high-level conferences.
Such a joke.
Does anyone believe that Biden is going to win this in a blowout exceeding Reagan's margin of victory?
The party that has a few "Mavericks" like ... Romney
Here's a sentence that I never thought I'd see.
What's with Bret Stephens's crack about Trump being "Republicans' favorite president?" Doesn't that title unequivocally belong to Abraham Lincoln?
Few recall the time Lincoln (known for his humor) shaved his beard, put orange wash on his skin, and said "Look, now I'm also your future president! Tee-hee!"
Of course Lincoln (known for his foresight) was disappointed no one seemed to get his joke back then.
Well, it did cost the Republicans in 2018.
Not as bad as when the Ds got crushed in 1994 AND 2010.
Funny how you simpletons never seem to reference those years when screaming about Trump's impact on Republicans.
C’mon Ann, allow Gail some leeway to have her auto-clitoric massage. Come 11/4, or thereabouts, she will be wearing a pussy hat.
Ann, The fully figurative meaning — "A dramatic loss or heavy defeat" — with both the bath and the blood as metaphor — is traced back only to 1967 [in the OED].
Odd. There is a decrepit, constantly-breaking-down old taxi in Ngaio Marsh's mystery novel Hand in Glove that is universally nicknamed "The Bloodbath." The book was written in 1962.
What will they call it when Republicans hold the Senate?
What will they call Speaker Kevin McCarthy when he takes the hilariously large gavel from Pelosi?
What will they call Trump winning bigger in 2020 than he won in 3016?
And which of the regular Althouse Leftist Collectivists will mentally break first?
ddh @10:50 AM (and others): If I recall correctly Seneca The Younger and his dear wife Paulina did exactly that when the time was right.
I imagine that they made generous provision to take care of their slaves after they were gone. They seemed to be good people.
The old Stoic way, still respectable after all this time.
The Republicans do not have a solid way of controlling who runs as a Republican. If you sign up according to the rules and get votes, you can run as a Republican. They had a heck of a time trying to get David Duke to stop running as a Republican. The Democrats don't allow outsiders to intrude in their party. I think that's why Trump ran as a Republican.
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