Meanwhile, At alt.fantasy.wargamer.redstate
A real gem:
While the narrative might veer toward suggesting this is MacArthur-esque, the MacArthur here (the pompous, overconfident, know-it-all that won’t listen to his closest advisors) is Commander-In-Chief Barack “I have no clue what I’m doing but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow myself to be criticized by underlings” Obama…
That’s just flat-out word salad.
Meanwhile, Jeff Emanuel, last seen creating his own reality in the Somali pirate situation, offers this up:
In Obama’s skin-deep understanding of policy, 30k troops + Petraeus = Automatic Victory in Unwinnable War Or, “Barack Obama wants to be George W. Bush so badly he can hardly stand it”
That’s the title. It goes downhill from there.
We have to be approaching the wingnut event horizon, because now they’re just sputtering and throwing words around and I can’t even make enough sense of the gibberish to mock it. I’m also reasonably sure they both just forgot to make a Hitler reference. This time.
June 23, 2010 3:36 pm
Posted in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, Clown Shoes, Military, Wingnut Event Horizon
215 Comments
215 Responses
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 3:38 pm · Link
When it’s so ridiculous as to mock itself, you don’t need to do any mocking. Makes blogging SO much easier.
Jay in Oregon - June 23, 2010 | 3:38 pm · Link
Just dropping in to say that I love the title of this article.
Catsy - June 23, 2010 | 3:40 pm · Link
You said it. I actually lifted my self-imposed Redstate embargo to see what they’d say about this flap—I mean, surely patriotic Americans like the Redstaters, with their deep understanding for and respect of military culture, would completely grok why McChrystal had to go, and the choice of their idol Petraeus would neutralize any… what, why are you laughing?
And as a recovering wargamer, I say the title of this post is pure win.
Cacti - June 23, 2010 | 3:41 pm · Link
Remember kids, when the Dems are in the Whitehouse, civilian control of the military is baaaaaaaad and they should all defer to the insubordinate Generalissimos.
Joseph Nobles - June 23, 2010 | 3:42 pm · Link
The Formerly Virgin Ben is openly calling for more Bud Light Lime insubordination over on the Twitter. He got a little mad at me over there (I’m @boloboffin).
frankdawg - June 23, 2010 | 3:42 pm · Link
sadly it all makes compete sense to them. Event horizon is the perfect analogy here too – we are being sucked into a black hole with no escape . . . next stop singularity!
Redshirt - June 23, 2010 | 3:46 pm · Link
Applying the same principles from a Black Hole event horizon to the wingnut event horizon, alas! We will never reach the event horizon, since as you get closer, time slows down, such that it would appear to take an infinity to reach it (to an outsider observer).
Thus, it only regresses, and we are now stuck in an infinite regression of ever greater wingnut insanity, with no hope of it ending, EVER.
J.W. Hamner - June 23, 2010 | 3:46 pm · Link
@Jay in Oregon:
Werd. Well done Mr. Cole.
@JC:
General purges more naturally fit with Stalin here, so I’ll award them full points if they can make a Communist reference before the end of the day.
NobodySpecial - June 23, 2010 | 3:47 pm · Link
Please don’t conflate them with actual wargamers. Redstate is instead full of the kinds that, given Germany in ‘39 in Advanced Third Reich, proceed to get their initial attack bounced by Poland.
I mean, come on, even us old grognards got some standards.
licensed to kill time - June 23, 2010 | 3:48 pm · Link
I sure am glad you read those guys so I don’t have to. I am firmly convinced Peak Wingnut is a myth, it’s like “ain’t no Wing Peak high enough, ain’t no Salad Wordy enough, ain’t no River of Lies wide enough, to keep me from gettin’ on you, Obamababe”.
Peak Wingnut is an ever receding event horizon.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 3:49 pm · Link
Also, too: “Barack Obama wants to be George W. Bush so badly he can hardly stand it”? I thought we were all in agreement that Obama is actually hoping to succeed in one of these wars.
Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 3:50 pm · Link
God damnit, Obama! We require more Vespian Gas.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko - June 23, 2010 | 3:50 pm · Link
Ah, the pure, distilled, essence of stupid that is RedState.
I need a shower and two liters of eyeball bleach.
Stefan - June 23, 2010 | 3:50 pm · Link
I’m also reasonably sure they both just forgot to make a Hitler reference. This time.
You know who also fired his generals? Hitler.
Hey, I’m just sayin’....
dmsilev - June 23, 2010 | 3:51 pm · Link
You know, I used to think that it was mathematically impossible to create a more signal-free forum than Usenet, particularly alt.*. The right-wing blogosphere has proven me wrong.
dms
toujoursdan - June 23, 2010 | 3:52 pm · Link
When you say “approaching the wingnut event horizon” you jinx it.
JCT - June 23, 2010 | 3:52 pm · Link
OK, I think I can just speculate that this is a thought that has never, ever occurred to Barack Obama.
These guys need to give up the crack pipes pronto.
Phoenix Woman - June 23, 2010 | 3:52 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
It is.
I swear, it’s got to the point where you could drop just about any Red State piece into The Onion and it would be right at home. Though the real Onion pieces are usually more coherent.
Fwiffo - June 23, 2010 | 3:53 pm · Link
Actually, I’m surprised they didn’t come to the defense of McArthur the way they do for Joe McCarthy.
El Cid - June 23, 2010 | 3:53 pm · Link
For Obama to claim that the Afghanistan SUUUUURGE had worked as well as the first Iraq SUUUUURGE, all he’d have to do is let ethnocidal / clannish cleansing finish in Kabul neighborhoods, build walls to keep the clans apart, and declare victory.
Bob L - June 23, 2010 | 3:54 pm · Link
I am so there!
you know who else fired generals? Adolph Hitler
Face - June 23, 2010 | 3:54 pm · Link
Bud Lite is getting all kinds of free pub here. I think it’s the noveau choice of libs everywhere suddenly.
dmsilev - June 23, 2010 | 3:55 pm · Link
@Fwiffo: I was just about to say that. If RedState was transported back in time to the Korean War, they’d be among the crew calling Truman a Communist sellout for daring to sack the Great General.
dms
Belafon (formerly anonevent) - June 23, 2010 | 3:55 pm · Link
You know how the harmonic series 1/1 + 1/2 + 1/3… tends to infinity but goes very slow (after 1million terms, it gets to about 13.9), wingnuttery is infinite but each individual event adds a little less to the total than the previous. It only looks like we’ll approach the end.
Phoenix Woman - June 23, 2010 | 3:56 pm · Link
@JCT:
I’m trying to imagine a putative BHO wanting to be GWB:
“Dang! I can’t stand being married to a woman with the body of a twenty-six-year-old dancer and arms so beautiful I cry at their perfection each time she puts on an evening gown. Gotta get me the frumpy schoolmarm with the really bad bra and the horrid clothes sense.”
Um, nope, can’t do it.
Rick Massimo - June 23, 2010 | 3:57 pm · Link
Well, you have to cut them a little slack. They didn’t know whether McChrystal was going to be sacked, so last night they had to work on their “Obama sacked McChrystal so that means he’s a thin-skinned tyrant” posts AND their “Obama didn’t sack McChrystal which means he’s a weak-kneed pantywaist who KNOWS who the real men are” posts, in order to have them both ready to copy-and-paste once the decision is made. So the writing may not be as tight as usual.
Q - June 23, 2010 | 3:57 pm · Link
Nothing but incoherent sputtering at InstaPundit’s place, where we learn that Rolling Stone is NOT the MSM, Petraeus is better than 10 Super Bowls put together and Obama is a hypocrite for picking Petraeus because Obama is a big jerky-jerk head who wants to lose anyway.
SpotWeld - June 23, 2010 | 3:58 pm · Link
I see this at every gaming meet of sufficient size.
The rules that everyone plays by aren’t good enough for at least one player.
They have it set in thier head that they can do a certain thing (have a certain skill, move a certain pattern, buy a certain commodity, etc… ) becuse they are clever enough to interpret the rules a certain way.
Everyone else at the table realizes they’re just trying to change the rules in thier favor (And only in thier favor, these guys never seem to agree to a similar imterpretation when someone else tries it.)
Eventually you have to shout them down just to keep playing becuase they will.. just.. keep.. talking until they get someone to agree with them.
It’s not rules laywering (that, at least, keeps itself within the rule) it’s bullsh!tting until someone is worn down enough to give them thier freaking points.
Thankfully these guys never seem to get invited back to the room parties
chris - June 23, 2010 | 3:59 pm · Link
+500 for the Usenet allusion in the title
+1000000 for the impending wingularity
slag - June 23, 2010 | 4:03 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
Haha!
Besides, why on earth would Barack Obama want to go from being The One to being The Other One? If only we Obamabots would take a lesson from these clear-eyed realists about the proper way to worship a president. Maybe we’d be getting a lot more out of this deal.
ThatPirateGuy - June 23, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
@Catsy:
I would encourage you to fall off the wagon and get back to wargaming.
Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 4:04 pm · Link
@Phoenix Woman: Worth noting that Barack Obama got not a single vote from the SCOTUS, while Bush got five.
Chyron HR - June 23, 2010 | 4:05 pm · Link
You know who else forced a military commander to
commit suicideresign afterbeing implicated in an assassination plotmouthing off to Rolling Stone magazine?PurpleGirl - June 23, 2010 | 4:06 pm · Link
This title is so full of win, JC. You deserve a nice, new shiny internet.
beltane - June 23, 2010 | 4:08 pm · Link
The Obama/McCrystal dust-up is exactly like the Hitler/Rommel one. Why has Redstate not pointed this out yet?
Midnight Marauder - June 23, 2010 | 4:08 pm · Link
That is from Jeff Emanuel.
What the fuck does that shit even mean, son?!
Warren Terra - June 23, 2010 | 4:09 pm · Link
I think this was McChrystal’s McClellan gambit – get himself fired, say the Prez wouldn’t let him win the war, become an opposition hero.
Oddly, didn’t Palin misname him McClellan in the Veep debate?
Bella Q - June 23, 2010 | 4:09 pm · Link
They are somehow genetically incapable of admitting the President made a good decision. They were gonna blast whatever he did, and they have been so intent on the actual blast part, that they forgot to even try to set forth anything approaching a coherent reason for their disapproval.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 4:10 pm · Link
This seems the perfect thread to mention the following:
NOT TO MENTION
What the hell is up with all these Fox people going on and on about Obama’s seven golf outings since the oil spill started—were they not conscious during Bush’s gajillion days of vacation?
I mean to say. It’s like the folks on the right are so full of hate for President Barack Hussein Obama that they will twist facts any way they can in order to make him look bad! It makes one doubt the good will of one’s fellow Americans.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 4:10 pm · Link
A winger here at work tried to tell me the three following things:
1—It’s OK for a serving general to talk shit about the President. Anything else is “communism.”
2—George Will and Rush Limbaugh know more about warzone Rules Of Engagement than somebody who’s actually served in the military and in Iraq and Afghanistan (me.)
3—Obama’s ROE are getting people killed unnescessarily. When it was pointed out that it’s McChrystal’s and Petraeus’ ROE, he replied “That’s even worse!”
I swear to God I am not making that shit up.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 4:11 pm · Link
@Warren Terra: She was talking about GEN McKiernan, who was the US commander in Afghanistan at the time.
demimondian - June 23, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
@ellaesther: No, unfortunately. It would only be easier if it weren’t so…painful…to find yourself to be a conspecific with the author of the original piece.
John Cole - June 23, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder: Read the whole post. It is nothing but sputtering incoherence.
Bob L - June 23, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
You know, the more you think about that Redstate comment the less sense it makes even by their own standards. Isn’t in Right Wing mythology MacArthur the man who single handedly saved the US from the Commies in the ‘30s and Japan in the ‘40s and the Chines in the ‘50s only to be stabbed in the back by those socialist pansies Roosevelt and Turman? It’s almost like they are going so far off to the Right they are on the the extreme Left now.
beltane - June 23, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder: This means that Jeff Emanuel failed his English for Dummies course. He aced the dummy part, but the English was just too hard.
IM - June 23, 2010 | 4:12 pm · Link
We have to be approaching the wingnut event horizon
Is this somewhat like Peak wingnut?
Linda Featheringill - June 23, 2010 | 4:13 pm · Link
Okay. The Right is reduced to silliness.
But what can they do? Obama stole two things from them. a) he fired the general for insubordination [a nicely authoritarian thing to do] and b) he inserted Petreaus [who is practically perfect in every way] into the job.
Poor babies.
kommrade reproductive vigor - June 23, 2010 | 4:13 pm · Link
Yikes. I’ve read Tweets from Palin that are more coherent.
JCT - June 23, 2010 | 4:15 pm · Link
@John Cole:
Maybe Palin is moonlighting at Redstate? Sounds like her.
asiangrrlMN - June 23, 2010 | 4:17 pm · Link
OK. I got it. If the Prez wants any ‘cooperation’ from the right (pundits and congresspeople alike), he has to act like it’s opposite day every day. He needs to say he wants to drill now,drill here, drill forever, and the righties will be agin it. Healthcare? He HATES the idea of healthcare for everyone. They’ll fall over themselves to pass single payer. Cap and trade? He’s firmly against it. They will rip each other apart trying to prove that they are the most eco-friendly of them all.
In fact, I say we take this tack with all the wingers. Tell them we love exactly the opposite of what we want to happen, and they will fall in line.
@John Cole: No. That is why we read the shorter—so we don’t have to read the whole damn thing. We save that for YOU.
ed drone - June 23, 2010 | 4:19 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
That last sentence is snark, isn’t it? I mean, the rest of it looks like you haven’t really been paying attention to the right-whingers, but the “doubt the good will” part must really be snark.
Isn’t it?
Please?
Ed
Emma - June 23, 2010 | 4:19 pm · Link
Soonergrunt: I believe you. I’ve encountered some of the same trying to discuss HCR.
These people are not, repeat not, underline not, amenable to reason.
cleek - June 23, 2010 | 4:19 pm · Link
i really like this notion the wingnuts have that Obama is “incompetent” and “doesn’t understand policy” (and that he golfs too much).
now, i have no idea what these criticisms are based on – and the way they throw it around, it seems to be some kind of wingnut common wisdom that doesn’t need explanation – but it sounds another instance where they’ve taken rhetoric that they used to deride as “Bush Derangement Syndrome” and did a simple: s/Bush/Obama/g.
it’s like they’re getting revenge for all the mean things people said about their hero, Bush, by:
1. assuming Obama is the same kind of hero to the left
2. throwing those exact same “mean things” back at Obama
3. expecting people to not laugh at them
it’s like listening to 3-year olds argue back to adults: “No, you are a bad boy ! No, you sit down ! I hate you!” (sulk!)
Indie Tarheel - June 23, 2010 | 4:20 pm · Link
@IM: There is no such thing as Peak Wingnut™.
Corner Stone - June 23, 2010 | 4:20 pm · Link
@toujoursdan:
I always think of it like Nick Cage in the movie Next.
Where each time you look at the future, it changes. Because you looked at it.
EconWatcher - June 23, 2010 | 4:21 pm · Link
I have to say, coverage of this at The Corner has been surprisingly fair. Rich Lowry actually called it “obama’s home run”—and he wasn’t being snarky. http://corner.nationalreview.com/
“I’m not sure how Obama could have handled this any better. He was genuinely graceful about McChrystal and his explanation of why he had to go made perfect sense. He called for unity within his adminstration in pursuing the war and sounded quite stalwart about both the war and about the strategy. More importantly, his choice of Petraeus as a replacement for McChrystal is a brilliant move….In short, Obama has made the most of a rotten situation.”
Linda Featheringill - June 23, 2010 | 4:22 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
“doubt the good will . . . . ”
No reason to doubt, Honey. It just ain’t thar. Atoll.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 4:22 pm · Link
@ed drone: Yes, my friend, rest assured. Very snarky indeed.
maus - June 23, 2010 | 4:22 pm · Link
@Face:
It’s no Pabst, I tell you what.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 4:23 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill: See above.
I iz using the sarcasms, I swear!
ed drone - June 23, 2010 | 4:23 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
Oh, good! I was worried.
Ed
R-Jud - June 23, 2010 | 4:24 pm · Link
@Emma:
“Not hindered by logic,” as a teacher of mine once said of Newt Gingrich.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 4:25 pm · Link
PS I thought the use of the middle name “Hussein” would the Balloon Juice dog whistle that allowed everyone to know that I’d put on my faux-rose-colored glasses for sarcasm’s sake. Sigh. Sarcasm fail.
/raises fist to sky, shakes/ INTERNET!
Warren Terra - June 23, 2010 | 4:27 pm · Link
@Soonergrunt
I stand corrected. Still, in Oct 2008, Palin thought our general in Afghanistan was McClellan. In June 2010 our general in Afghanistan thought he was McLellan. Also.
Palin/McChrystal ‘12?
asiangrrlMN - June 23, 2010 | 4:27 pm · Link
@ellaesther: I got the sarcasm. But, I could also see how if someone did not know you well, they would mistake you for a reasonable moderate with that comment.
tomjones - June 23, 2010 | 4:27 pm · Link
The Hitler analogy is implied.
Adack O’Hitler, anyone?
matoko_chan - June 23, 2010 | 4:27 pm · Link
@John Cole: My take-away is that COIN is done here…..that Obama is done with COIN. He is continuing the strategy…McC was the COIN guy, but he had x amount of troops and 3 years to make it happen. Drawdown is July 2011.
McC knows he can’t make it. If Obama still believed in COIN he would have kept McC on, given extensions on the goals, and smacked Eikenberry down.
Didn’t happen.
Petraeus doesn’t believe COIN can work in Afghanistan…he said that in 2008.
Petraeus is goin’ in to build an escape hatch with the mini-surge like he built an escape hatch with the original Surge in Iraq.
Replacing McC with Petraeus says, hey, we already lost.
lets gtfo.
the wingnuts are going to freak out over this, but COIN didnt work.
It never worked, it couldn’t work. The same social network theory that supposedly allowed COIN doctrine to form trusted networks ensures an endless supply of enemy networks.
KG - June 23, 2010 | 4:28 pm · Link
do not mock the wingularity, otherwise the wingularity might strike and Sharon Angle will beat Harry Ried to become Senate Majority Leader, because that’s what she’s running for, right? One day, we will reach Peak Wingnut or the Wingnut Event Horizon, and then sanity will return to the land for a couple of minutes. Then the stupid will return. I say this because I have come to accept that the Wingnut Event Horizon is more like the eye of a storm, calm for five minutes than the same shit flying the other way.
Martin - June 23, 2010 | 4:30 pm · Link
@EconWatcher: When the wingnuts start to lose the Corner – that’s got to be a sign of something catastrophically bad.
Southern Beale - June 23, 2010 | 4:31 pm · Link
All of this would be so funny if I didn’t clearly remember how they attacked everyone who didn’t automatically bow down and worship George W. Bush for 8 years because for chrissakes WE’RE IN A TIME OF WAR PEOPLE
I mean, remember Natalie Maines, okay?
So a General blabbers to Rolling Stone and that’s just peachy? But a country singer says she’s ashamed the president is from Texas and we have CD crushing parties cuz it’s WARTIME?
Nope, sorry, ain’t buying it, y’all can just have a steaming cup of STFU on Southern Beale, ‘k’thx’bai
matoko_chan - June 23, 2010 | 4:31 pm · Link
@EconWatcher: well the NRO troglodytes don’t get the implication, that Obama is done with COIN.
theres going to a ginormous freakout when they realize that Obama just threw their beloved Surge and Anbar Awakening fantasy under the Science and Empirical Evidence Bus.
pharniel - June 23, 2010 | 4:31 pm · Link
@soonergrunt:
I would have fucking cockpunched that asshole, then taken a finger as a reminder .
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony - June 23, 2010 | 4:32 pm · Link
Look, if we were approaching the wingnut event horizon, we wouldn’t know it, because we wouldn’t be able to observe it. The alternative, though, is that there is no wingnut event horizon.. that we are headed for a naked wingularity, which is both gross and unpredictable.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 4:33 pm · Link
Wait a second, is this Redstate we are talking about or Glenn Greenwald and his flying monkey’s. Not to mention the rest of the nutroots/ I thought Obama was WORSE than Bush. Redstate may have to up its rightwing nuttery to catch up with the leftwing kind.
Sometimes the irony gets so ironic it’s hard to keep track of who’s who and what’s what
Cain - June 23, 2010 | 4:33 pm · Link
O/T
But the world’s longest tennis match is still going on at Wimbledon.
last count it’s like 56 vs 56 games and it is still going on!!
cain
Cain - June 23, 2010 | 4:33 pm · Link
O/T
But the world’s longest tennis match is still going on at Wimbledon.
last count it’s like 56 vs 56 games and it is still going on!!
cain
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 4:33 pm · Link
I’m just curious about where McChrystal goes from here? He’s been relieved of command, but does that mean he goes back to a desk job somewhere? Does he retire? What?
Polish the Guillotines - June 23, 2010 | 4:35 pm · Link
@John Cole:
May I nominate a new term/tag/lexicon entry for this?
“Wingcoherence.”
KG - June 23, 2010 | 4:35 pm · Link
LGF passes this tweet along from some feed called Top Conservatives on Twitter:
link
For being former Champions of Democracy, they don’t seem to be doing democracy right.
demimondian - June 23, 2010 | 4:35 pm · Link
@Warren Terra: FTW.
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 4:36 pm · Link
@J.W. Hamner:
I’d be interested if someone can come up with a wingnut blogger bingo card.
Some tiles:
Obama is a secret muslim
Obama is not an American
Obama hates the troops
Obama is a soc1alist
Obama is a Chicago thug
Obama is a weakling
Obama = Hitler
Obama = Stalin
feel free to add your own.
fourlegsgood - June 23, 2010 | 4:36 pm · Link
LOL. The day is still young – I’m sure they’ll find time to go back and update those posts to say “HITLER!!”
demimondian - June 23, 2010 | 4:38 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: I had assumed that his resignation was a formal resignation from his commission, but, if it didn’t, then he’ll have to retire. There are only so many flag rank officers in any of the services, and he’s not going to have any place to take a job which is commensurate with either his rank or his experience.
handy - June 23, 2010 | 4:38 pm · Link
America’s not a democracy, it’s a republic! Therefore BHO needs to be ousted from the tree of liberty. QED. /logic-impaired wingnut
ETA: Although having written it, I realize now that “logic-impaired wingnut” is redundant.
Midnight Marauder - June 23, 2010 | 4:38 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill:
Really, let’s just cut to the chase here.
@John Cole:
I expected nonsense of an all-galaxy caliber, but that…? Wow. Just a stunning exhibition of incomprehensible delusion.
catclub - June 23, 2010 | 4:39 pm · Link
@chris:
“+500 for the Usenet allusion in the title
+1000000 for the impending wingularity”
So, I’m thinking you aren’t driving tonight.
fourlegsgood - June 23, 2010 | 4:40 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: He’ll almost certainly retire. He’s in complete disgrace – there’s no coming back from something like this.
fourlegsgood - June 23, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link
@demimondian: he just resigned his post, but you’re correct, his retirement will follow soon.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony - June 23, 2010 | 4:42 pm · Link
He’ll get a job with his buddies at Blackwater.
Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 4:43 pm · Link
@KG: Wingnutlarity… what’s the root of that word? Singularity? Or Hilarity?
WereBear (itouch) - June 23, 2010 | 4:43 pm · Link
@SpotWeld: There are people, as in your example, who will expend an unlimited amount of energy complaining to get what they want.
It’s because it’s the only way they know how to get anything.
SiubhanDuinne - June 23, 2010 | 4:44 pm · Link
@chris:
None of my business, of course, but that seems like a lot of drinking even for a Balloon-Juicer.
Ash - June 23, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: He’ll do a stint on Fox News first, probably write a book, then head on over to Xe.
Dan - June 23, 2010 | 4:45 pm · Link
They really just hate Obama, don’t they. That is what it all comes down to. They have nothing but their hate.
Mike Kay - June 23, 2010 | 4:46 pm · Link
Well, at least they’re “honest brokers”.
Mike Kay - June 23, 2010 | 4:47 pm · Link
@Dan: But what’s different between them and the PUMAs and Firebaggers?
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 4:48 pm · Link
Also, just watching the end of the President’s announcement, and I noticed in the MSNBC talk-over by Brian Williams that as the president went to the door back into the White House, he held the door open and let all the other participants (petraeus, gates, biden, etc.) go in before closing the door. That was nice. I don’t recall ever watching a similar exit with Bush, but the leader of the most powerful nation in the world holding the door open for his underlings is pretty cool. He didn’t have to do that.
Manners. He haz them.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 4:48 pm · Link
@asiangrrlMN: Reasonable moderate? How dare you madam?!
/slaps asiangrrlMN with glove/
Why I’ve never been so insulted in all my days. All of them, I tell you!
Et Tu Brutus? - June 23, 2010 | 4:49 pm · Link
The event horizon will not be in reach until Palin declares for the repug presidential primary and is subsequently beaten by Pawlenty. Meanwhile, back at the ranch- is this not a demotion for General P ? Was he not the Commander, U.S. Central Command, from Sept. 2008 to now ( running AfPak war is commanding only one theater- CentCom runs all theaters). Poor generals, not as omnipotent as CEO’s of Oil companies, I’m guessin’. Ah well, un-winnable wars, unstoppable oil leaks, hmmm, good things happen in 3s, whadda think is next?
Linda Featheringill - June 23, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link
@ellaesther:
“Sigh. Sarcasm fail.”
But this only adds to your mystery.
Gravenstone - June 23, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link
@soonergrunt: I gather you’ve been in that job too short a time to get away with taking that cretin out back and beating them to death? Mores the pity.
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist - June 23, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link
Your best post headline ever, John.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 4:51 pm · Link
They, the wingnuts are more honorable, albeit mean and crazy. They don’t pretend to support something they don’t. That is the only difference, really.
eemom - June 23, 2010 | 4:55 pm · Link
OT, but I heard Ed Schultz righteously ranting at wingnut callers-in this morning on C-Span while plugging his new book.
I’ve never watched him on MSNBC, I think because one time I started to and he had Hamsher so I changed the channel…...but he was pretty impressive on the radio. I think he could be our side’s answer to rush Limpballs, except for not being a fat worthless tub of toxic waste.
russell - June 23, 2010 | 4:56 pm · Link
I think you have the wrong metaphor.
Rather than an event horizon, from within which nothing can escape to touch the outside world, you should think of wingnuttery as an infinite and inexhaustible fountain.
There is no Peak Wingnut, and there is no wingnut event horizon. There will always be plenty of crazy to go around.
Tsulagi - June 23, 2010 | 4:56 pm · Link
Yeah, I kinda remember that one. Emanuel, no doubt promoted to four teabags in the RSSF by now, was convinced due to the fog of war those on the scene did not see the events happening as clearly as he did in his mind thousands of miles away. Yeah, a Navy captain towing essentially a rubber ducky and the snipers on the ship fantail outnumbering the three pirates by about 4 to 1 were hyperventilating and too overwhelmed by the threat to accurately remember what happened.
Good to see he hasn’t changed. His vision thing still working for him; his keen analytical mind still in evidence. Only one thing you could say to the author of such brilliance: Your shit’s all tarded and you talk like a fag.
SiubhanDuinne - June 23, 2010 | 4:56 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
That’s really nice, and I’m glad you noticed and mentioned it. Obama has always struck me as a genuinely classy guy. I remember during one of the primary debates in ‘08 when he pulled out Hillary’s chair or something, and another time right after one of the debates during the general when he gave Michelle an arm to hold as she stepped off the platform. The contrast with McCain (who basically turned his back on Cindy, walked off the platform ahead of her and left her to her own devices) was quite stunning.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 4:57 pm · Link
@Gravenstone: Pretty much.
He’s an engineer, I’m an IT tech on contract.
I love it when government employees talk about how evil and wrong the government is. I’m always like “look in the mirror, dickhead.”
fourlegsgood - June 23, 2010 | 4:57 pm · Link
@russell: you know, you are correct!! wingnuttery is like an infinite oil spill.
Dan - June 23, 2010 | 4:58 pm · Link
WHICH REPUBLICAN WILL BE THE FIRST TO PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE TO MCCHRYSTAL?
blackwaterdog - June 23, 2010 | 4:59 pm · Link
Now i can quit. I heard it all.
licensed to kill time - June 23, 2010 | 5:01 pm · Link
@russell:
A kind of Old Faithful Geyser o’ Crazy, reliably erupting at regular intervals. I like it.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 5:01 pm · Link
@Et Tu Brutus?:
Not really. He won’t be direct commander there for long anyway. Somebody will be selected to run the war in Af soon enough, and it won’t do anything to Petraeus’ career. He wasn’t going to be Army Chief of Staff or Chairman JCS anyway. Too many other generals dislike him.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony - June 23, 2010 | 5:02 pm · Link
@soonergrunt:
It is weird how often that happens, too. I am always amazed that the biggest fools spouting the ‘government can do no right’ are former employees.
demimondian - June 23, 2010 | 5:06 pm · Link
@soonergrunt: Yeah, but you’re a contractor. You don’t count.
—- demi “and, yes, my title is engineer” mondian
jwb - June 23, 2010 | 5:06 pm · Link
@Cain: That is seriously funny commentary from the Guardian.
handy - June 23, 2010 | 5:07 pm · Link
They’re not harmless? Sorry, until Jane Hamsher starts two endless wars, pisses all over the constitution, and signs draconian laws like the Patriot Act, that’s what I’m going with.
kay - June 23, 2010 | 5:12 pm · Link
@eemom:
He’s better on the radio than on television. I don’t know why. He doesn’t translate. There’s something wrong with the visual there. Watch and see. You’ll move back in your chair, trying to put a little distance between you and his big screaming head. That’s also true of Rush Limbaugh, so there ya go.
Mike Kay - June 23, 2010 | 5:13 pm · Link
@handy: we’re talking about bloggers.
I’m not singling anyone out because there are numerous PUMAs and dead-enders.
Really, if this shit was printed on, say, Huffington Post, every hard lefty on the blogosphere (you know the usual suspects) would be having an orgasm.
Redshirt - June 23, 2010 | 5:15 pm · Link
Tangent: Why are so many technical people – engineers for example – who are ostensibly quite intelligent, so politically idiotic? Asperger’s based selfishness?
apikoros - June 23, 2010 | 5:17 pm · Link
Ladies, Gentlemen, (and you dogs hiding out on the internets)
My nominee for a place on the wingnut bingo card, and the comparison I think you should be looking for, is McCrystal = Rommel. I can hear the “He was trying to save us from the dreaded _____” ringing back from the future.
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 5:17 pm · Link
@Redshirt:
That’s a good question.
Mike Kay - June 23, 2010 | 5:18 pm · Link
I simply can’t get angry at wingnut losers for echoing what we see on an hourly basis by the usual suspects on PUMA and firebag-type blogs.
Last week, I read a hard leftist PUMA blog that wished the President would die from a sudden heart attack.
In comparison, they make redstate look civilized.
blackwaterdog - June 23, 2010 | 5:21 pm · Link
@Phoenix Woman:
You owe me new keyboards. It’s all coffee now.
Kevin Phillips Bong - June 23, 2010 | 5:22 pm · Link
@soonergrunt: This. Still blows my tiny little mind when I hear all the troopers and handsomely compensated UAV contractors around me trashing the Big Bad Government. It’s almost like they lack all sense of self awareness.
Mnemosyne - June 23, 2010 | 5:22 pm · Link
@Redshirt:
If I had to guess, I would say it’s because they often go into highly technical fields because they have difficulty interacting with other people. There are plenty of people with Asperger’s and even autism who are empathetic, so it’s not that. But it’s not a coincidence that politically idiotic people go into fields where they can have as little human contact as possible and work all day on machines and code that don’t talk back.
valdivia - June 23, 2010 | 5:23 pm · Link
OT. Have you guys seen this about Fucking Fournier getting another leg up in political reporting? The republican talking points generators just keep getting promoted eh?
http://www.theatlantic.com/pol.....ere/58606/
freelancer - June 23, 2010 | 5:27 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s not just politically idiotic, there’s a high correlation between one’s belief in creationism and having a degree in engineering.
They just love that anthropic principle.
blackwaterdog - June 23, 2010 | 5:28 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
He was also incredibly gracious to the Runaway General. He’s all class.
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 5:30 pm · Link
@valdivia:
Ambinder’s exclamation point pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? (!)
Also, not surprising Fournier is jumping the AP ship. CNN just cut their AP contract, and the organization is bleeding money. What is National Journal, any way? Never heard of it.
asiangrrlMN - June 23, 2010 | 5:30 pm · Link
@ellaesther: Forsooth! Ten paces at dawn. I rise gallantly to accept your challenge and your insult to my honor (upon you being insulted). Therefore, we shall have a duel from which only one can emerge winner!
valdivia - June 23, 2010 | 5:31 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
don’t they do political reporting that is supposed to be ‘neutral’ and reality based or something? also polling?
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link
@handy:
I am talking about politics, and the debate surrounding them. And specifically levels of intellectual honesty, or dishonesty, on the blogosphere. In that, there is little difference between liberals and wingnut, imo. not talking about issues or issue differences. Though the politics of issues would be included.
Cain - June 23, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link
@jwb:
Oh man it was, only the brits can do commentary like that.
cain
SRW1 - June 23, 2010 | 5:32 pm · Link
What, Redstate calls Afghanistan ‘unwinnable’? Traitors, I say, stabbing the military in the back, I say.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 5:36 pm · Link
@kay:
Absolutely agree, I started listening daily back when he started his radio show, I think around 2004. Before I frequented blogs much, and he helped me get through the worst of the Bush years, and I also rarely missed Franken a little later on.
On teevee though, he is not nearly so good, and often pisses me off with ideological wanking. It smells like raw ambition to me, but maybe I’m wrong, and will tune into his radio program for the first time in a while.
JL - June 23, 2010 | 5:42 pm · Link
By 1948 Albert Einstein wanted to be Jerry Lewis so badly he began to wear water-squirt carnations.
David in NY - June 23, 2010 | 5:42 pm · Link
@SRW1:
Not only are they traitors—they seem to have concluded that MacArthur was a jerk, so they’re heretics! Wow!
Randy P - June 23, 2010 | 5:44 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: A couple of years ago I’m sitting at a retirement dinner with a coworker, an engineer, who I don’t see very often. Nice enough guy, and so far as I knew a competent engineer and a smart guy. And he’s going on and on about how if we just opened up the offshore drilling, there’d be so much oil available that the price of gas would go down to pennies. Like it’s orders of magnitude more than the sum total of all the oil being currently drilled on earth.
I just sat there looking blank and thinking “As an engineer, shouldn’t you base numerical statements like that on, you know, data? Rather than stuff pulled out of somebody’s rectum?”
Where does a statement like that come from? Rush?
David in NY - June 23, 2010 | 5:45 pm · Link
@Dan:
That’s the only thread of consistency in the whole world of wingnuttery, I believe.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 5:46 pm · Link
I have been offered a position on BJ by the mighty FSM, as a resident Obot troll. I have accepted to serve, though the pay will remain the same.
PopeRatzy - June 23, 2010 | 5:46 pm · Link
How many people even get the reason for referencing a site like redstate in USENET group naming terms? How many people even understand the insanity that is the alt hierarchy. Where else can you find groups dedicated to Toyota and bashing Obama (alt.autos.toyota).
Bill Section 147 - June 23, 2010 | 5:48 pm · Link
@El Cid: When they are all dead the shooting will stop.
ellaesther - June 23, 2010 | 5:50 pm · Link
@Linda Featheringill: My mystery! Oh, if only you knew the depths of my…. Actually I’m probably the least mysterious person you might ever meet. That is, if you can find me to meet me….
@asiangrrlMN: Gloves it is! Nothing sharper please. I’m a bleeder.
Mark S. - June 23, 2010 | 5:56 pm · Link
Did anyone think back in 2001 that we would still be in Afghanistan almost ten years later? And that the situation would be a lot more fucked up? I sure didn’t.
Does COIN even work? Before anyone says Malay, are there any other examples, cause I can’t think of one.
Bill Section 147 - June 23, 2010 | 5:57 pm · Link
@Indie Tarheel: Well true and not true.
See in 1987 Peak Wingnut was about 24 oz. and a Large was 16 oz.
In 2010 the large is 44 oz.
Et Tu Brutus? - June 23, 2010 | 5:59 pm · Link
soonergrunt,
Yeah, really- going from commanding multiple theaters to one theater is technically a step down, although it appears to be more of “please do this for the good of our country”, rather than , “this was your guy who f#$&d-up, so you can clean up his mess”. No doubt the big P sees the potential for another political feather in his cap, rather than military career advancement ( assuming he can get us out of there with some smidgen of face intact).
Uloborus - June 23, 2010 | 6:01 pm · Link
@Redshirt:
My guess would be because intelligence is not one single commodity. You can be fabulous at math, and a terrible speller. So I find it easy to believe that someone could, say, have the skills necessary to get and hold a mentally demanding job, but be unable to identify lies because they’re wrapped in emotional terms he/she/it favors. And once you’ve stepped off that cliff, there ain’t no bottom.
blackwaterdog - June 23, 2010 | 6:03 pm · Link
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/.....Xd2G6Uuz8z
El Cid - June 23, 2010 | 6:05 pm · Link
@Bill Section 147:
This will prove that the SURGE works. Also, the banana in my ear keeps all the alligators away.
cleek - June 23, 2010 | 6:07 pm · Link
here’s a classic... a wingnut nurse does a 1,200 word psychological assessment of Obama :
fucking awesome.
and, to make it even better, the comments are full of other people giving their considered medical assessments as well. they’re like a bunch of miniature Bill Frists.
(oops. i forgot this was mass psychoanalysis of people we don’t know day here on the BJ threads! sorry!)
Jay in Oregon - June 23, 2010 | 6:10 pm · Link
@Zifnab:
I dub thee the winner of this thread. /salute
Wapiti - June 23, 2010 | 6:11 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: When I first read your comment, I immediately thought – “What’s wrong with General Petraeus? Did he forget that he was the junior in that crowd so it’s his job to get the door for the others?”. But it is the President’s house, after all, and it’s the mark of a gracious host to let your guests go first.
Pangloss - June 23, 2010 | 6:13 pm · Link
@cleek: This, from the same people that give Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin a clean bill of heath.
jl - June 23, 2010 | 6:15 pm · Link
So, let me get this straight. McChrystal gets canned after he and his staff give a stupid and insulting interview to a rocknroll rag, apparently while smashed on Bud Light Lime (izzat right? I never heard of it before). On a fricken road trip.
Obama fires the guy.
And Obama is the impaired loser?
This episode will provide some yucks if the Tbaggers and neocons try to put it up there in the epic history of President versus General standoffs:
Lincoln and all his generals until Grant
Truman and McArther
Obama and McChrystal
I guess we could throw in Washington versus Gates, but Washington wasn’t President yet.
Really?
They are making a joke and they don’t realize it.
fourlegsgood - June 23, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link
@El Cid:
But then what do you do about the screaming monkeys?
Zifnab - June 23, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: You know, if you want to call out FDL in particular, I’d really at least appreciate a link or a cited incident. You can swing by SadlyNo.com and get a deluge of right wing stupidity. Please show me the liberal equivalent, because I simply haven’t seen the sheer volume of derangement and hypocrisy on the left.
All I’m hearing out of you is “Liberals are just as bad, but worse” full stop.
El Cid - June 23, 2010 | 6:21 pm · Link
@fourlegsgood:
If those monkeys had wanted bananas they should have learned how to put on decent clothes and get a damn job. Bananas don’t grow on trees, you know.
Bill Section 147 - June 23, 2010 | 6:22 pm · Link
@El Cid: When they are all dead the shooting will stop.@soonergrunt: I have a righty friend who works for the State. One day I was a little tired of the taxes crap and I reminded him – he doesn’t really pay taxes. He is a tax farmer, I run my own business, I pay taxes.
And the reality of it all is I could not even have my business without the government researched, government funded, government secured existence of the internet. But for righties that are government workers the government is still the bad guy. They also think government bureaucracy is horrible – of course they have no experience working in private industry for a company with 10,000+ employees.
Mnemosyne - June 23, 2010 | 6:24 pm · Link
@cleek:
The funny part is that she acts like these are actual facts that of course everyone agrees on even though, as many of us have said before, to anyone from the Midwest Obama doesn’t look unemotional or cold at all. He looks like, well, a Midwesterner. We’re not demonstrative. Sorry.
jl - June 23, 2010 | 6:29 pm · Link
@Mnemosyne:
I thought Obama was Hawaiian style laid back and mellow.
But maybe that looks the same as midwestern reserved to crazy people like the neocons and wingnuts.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 6:33 pm · Link
@Zifnab:
You could start at FDL, then move on to The Confluence, Taylor Marsh, and Talkleft etc.. etc…. And there are many more, but since the particular bullshit around here seems to coalesce around Glenn Greenwald, I will offer this link. There are many more like it where that came from.
And I didn’t say they were as “deranged” as wingnuts, especially on issues. Only that intellectual honestly levels are the same. And I would say worse, considering wingnut support what they say they do. If you think there is a nickels worth of difference between saying, Obama wants to be like Bush, as opposed to Obama is worse, or as bad as Bush, then knock yourself out.
edit – And I will add, that even around here lately, damn near every comment someone challenges of mine, misreads or embelish’s on what I said, and I have to spend time pointing this out.
gwangung - June 23, 2010 | 6:41 pm · Link
Oh, gawd, yeah. There’s no magic about automatic suckage if you slap a government label on it; it’s the nature of large organizations.
Quaker in a Basement - June 23, 2010 | 6:44 pm · Link
Hahaha! Love the link in Redstate’s sidebar from Dan Spencer:
Mary G - June 23, 2010 | 6:47 pm · Link
I was flipping around on the teevee this morning looking for news on the oil spill container being removed, but everyone was talking about the general’s firing. That is, except Fox, where the three airheads were discussing with great passion and indignation some retired policeman who is on full disability yet performs in triathlons.
Sometimes when I look at memorandum and see some topic all the news outlets and the progressive blogs are all talking about, but absolutely no one from RedState or Hot Air is even mentioning it, I fear for the fate of the republic.
The Dangerman - June 23, 2010 | 6:51 pm · Link
I’m trying to come up with a more absurd statement and am having quite a hard time.
“I want to cleave off my penis with a dull hatchet so bad I can hardly stand it”.
Nope. Not absurd enough; perhaps after a beer.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 6:52 pm · Link
I am just agitating for a better blogosphere, kinda like progressives claim to agitate for a better Obama.
And that it might be a good idea to get ones own house in order before slinging rocks at glass houses/wingnuts, or something.
Fair is fair, tisn’t it/
Chad N Freude - June 23, 2010 | 6:52 pm · Link
The President holding the door for the others shows how weak he is.
Re: @R-Jud:
I’ve always liked the Car Guys’ “Unencumbered by the thought process”.
Finally, being a injinear myself and working with numerous other enjunars, I can attest that many engineers are thoughtful, analytic about politics, and in danger of falling off the lefty end of the world.
Edit: And very sociable also too.
LA Confidential Pantload - June 23, 2010 | 6:53 pm · Link
The Prez holding the door open for his meeting attendees probably will be considered classy…..everywhere else in the world. In America, I’m not sure a black man holding a door open for a bunch of white men is looked at the same way. Certainly not by the loonies.
And I’ve heard from an informed source that McChrystal has already been offered an executive-level position with Los Zetas.
maus - June 23, 2010 | 6:54 pm · Link
@Quaker in a Basement:
Is “dither” the new “vetting” for bandwagon-jumping idiots?
D-Chance. - June 23, 2010 | 6:54 pm · Link
The Washington Independent website is falling apart. First, Dave Wiegel leaves; now, it’s Spencer Ackerman.
That pretty much leaves the scrubs and bench-warmers, none of whom are anywhere near the level of Dave or Spence.
RIP, WI.
handy - June 23, 2010 | 6:58 pm · Link
@cleek:
Sounds a bit like another rising star in the Wingnut Welfare circuit, Robin of Berkeley, without all the hippie punching.
uloborus - June 23, 2010 | 6:58 pm · Link
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
You seem quite irritable today, Stuck. Are you trolling for trolls? I know you enjoy the adrenalin of a good screaming match, but I’ve always preferred you in your role as That Guy Who Can Tell You How Something Actually Works That Other People Are Making Up Fantasies About.
It’s just odd. It’s like you’ve got a lot of pent up frustration this afternoon and you’re ringing the Corner Stone Bell or something.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 23, 2010 | 7:07 pm · Link
@uloborus:
Nope, as a matter of fact, there will be no more screaming matches if I can possibly help it. There is frustration however, and if people here want to feed the corner stone troll, they can, and it will make me no never mind. Folks claim I am an Obot, maybe cause I say I am, in part, but most of the screaming I do here is not about Obama. It is caring, likely too much, about keeping the debate on BJ honest, (to not become a wankers cesspoll as is the case on so many other blogs), or at least the effort toward being honest.
I will do this no more, and will not bother corner stone nor any of the other trolls, but will rather join them with my own brand of trolling. People can call me what they want, and trash my pets, but when I infrequently show up it will be to place a bussel in the BJ hedgerow. And done without personal insults, or rancur from me. At least that is the plan.
I will sign out for now.
arguingwithsignposts - June 23, 2010 | 7:17 pm · Link
This is completely OT, but I’ve been on a bit of a Jackie Chan movie binge lately (beginning with the new “Karate Kid”). He has an awesome movie called “New Police Story” that I’m watching at the moment. Awesome. Apparently (according to wiki), he doesn’t like the American movies he does, but uses them to fund his native language movies.
Litlebritdifrnt - June 23, 2010 | 7:18 pm · Link
@Mary G:
Ah yes the new RWNJ meme all the evil police officers, paramedics and Firefighters are destroying civilization with thier fat cat retirement bennies which they got for doing nothing, nothing I tell you for 20 years and now they just sit back and buy thier t-bone steaks with the taxpayers monies. I remember right after 911 when according to the RWNJs it was a capital offense to even look at one of these brave souls the wrong way, they were GODS, GODS I tell you and could not be critized, how soon the RWNJs forget. It would be ever so slightly amusing if it wasn’t so tragic. You should hear Rush on a tear about it.
PS) did anyone else but me catch the coolest tweet ever today?
@whitehouse Welcome to @twitter President Medvedev! @KremlinRussia_E: Hello everyone! I’m on Twitter, and this is my first tweet.
POTUS welcoming Medvedev to twitter, isn’t technology cool?
Kyle - June 23, 2010 | 7:19 pm · Link
Wingnut Yesterday:
Obama weak, indecisive, dithering, too cerebral
Wingnut Today:
Obama HITLERHITLERHITLER, Chicago-style gangster, power-crazed dictator, OJ SIMPSON ANGRY BLACK MAN!
Under Bush, McCrystal would have been fired years ago before even being given the command, when he suggested that more troops were needed than the president’s “gut” thought was necessary.
bemused - June 23, 2010 | 7:19 pm · Link
@Mnemosyne:
I’m a midwesterner with all scandinavian genes so I didn’t even really notice that Obama was not demonstrative, lol. Silly me, I could have sworn I’ve seen Obama pretty pissed off & passionate several times. Guess that nuance stuff flies right over the heads of conservatives.
@cleek:
Incredible. They just conjure up crap out of nowhere.
Litlebritdifrnt - June 23, 2010 | 7:21 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts:
I lived in Hong Kong for two years when I was in the Navy (1986 – 1988) and had the distinct pleasure of watching him make some movies. I saw him try to jump over a bus in Wanchai once and missed, he got hit by the bus, bounced off the pavement and went splat. After about 15 minutes he was up on his feet trying the stunt again. He is absolutely incredible. I love him to pieces.
matoko_chan - June 23, 2010 | 7:22 pm · Link
welcome back general.
this is choice. from Abu Muqawama’s(Andrew Exum) comments:
lawl….it begins.
COIN is a [military] moon without a [civilian] planet to orbit.
i luffed that.
Abu Muqawama is coincidentally at a conference on Afghanistan.
I hope he can introduce the Mexican COIN option.
demimondian - June 23, 2010 | 7:23 pm · Link
@El Cid: Damn straight.
Bananas grow on plants.
Just being helpful.
Mnemosyne - June 23, 2010 | 7:48 pm · Link
@jl:
Actually, Yutsano and I ended up chatting about that here in the comments threads one night and came to the conclusion that, despite appearances, Hawaiians have more in common with Midwesterners than they do with, say, New Yorkers. A certain emotional reserve is common to both cultures.
IMO, it partly explains why Obama ended up in Chicago after living in both Los Angeles and New York for school—the people in Chicago were more similar to how he was raised.
uloborus - June 23, 2010 | 7:54 pm · Link
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
That was kind of the point. I LIKE your reasoned arguments. I learn a lot.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 8:02 pm · Link
@Et Tu Brutus?: I don’t think Petraeus actually has any political ambitions. He’s never said or done anything to support the idea himself and has said multiple times that he isn’t interested. The time to do that was in 2007-2008, though, so he could’ve gotten out of the Army on a high note and before the Dem sweep so that he could keep his options open while he’s still young, but he didn’t do that. He’s over 30 years in service, so he can’t get more retirement, and he’s 57 years old, so that would’ve been the time. Retire in 2007, spend two years fishing and learning domestic policy, meet people with lots of money in 2009, run for Congress in 2010 and Vice President in 2012.
Nagana Happen now.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 8:09 pm · Link
@Warren Terra: +2 Warren.
Belafon (formerly anonevent) - June 23, 2010 | 8:13 pm · Link
Someone at LGF found this tweet:
Corner Stone - June 23, 2010 | 8:34 pm · Link
@uloborus
I was curious about something. On a previous thread you said:
“I’m not against the war”
I was a little confused and hoped you could expound on that a bit.
Citizen Alan - June 23, 2010 | 8:46 pm · Link
@Mark S.:
I did. I told my then-boss, a Bush supporter, that we were about to embark on Vietnam Part Deux. He just laughed, secure in the knowledge that Afghanistan would be a prosperous Westernized democracy in time for the 2006 elections.
jl - June 23, 2010 | 8:55 pm · Link
@Citizen Alan: Me too. Afghanistan would end up as a US mess/quagmire/failure/ TCF. Because the Afghan effort was being run by the Bush/Cheney regime, and they seemed proud of committing nonsense there that made no sense. So, it would end up a mess. It was a QED, as far as I was concerned.
I had more doubts about how badly Iraq would end up than Afghanistan. But then, I knew much more about the history and culture of Afghanistan in 2003 than Iraq.
Corner Stone - June 23, 2010 | 8:57 pm · Link
@Citizen Alan:
I could never understand what people expected. Fighters in Afghanistan weren’t going to mount battalions against us, where our clear technological superiority would win the day and own the night.
It was always going to be a clusterfuck of epicosity. I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t see this.
soonergrunt - June 23, 2010 | 9:11 pm · Link
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
I know. It’s like “you DO realize that you sound like a total dumbass right now, don’t you?”
I’ve perfected that expression—the unblinking stare over the top of the eyeglass frames thing.
Platonicspoof - June 23, 2010 | 9:13 pm · Link
Yes, yes, but did Erikson remember to make a call to arms for his Redstaters to send President Obama bottles of Bud Light Lime?
(And is there a convenient Bud link at his website?).
FlipYrWhig - June 23, 2010 | 9:19 pm · Link
@maus:
I think “dither” is the new “kerfuffle.” All the wannabe-cultured wingnuts like Glenn Reynolds and the people at The Corner used to call everything a “kerfuffle.”
kay - June 23, 2010 | 9:29 pm · Link
@FlipYrWhig:
They did, and I thought I was the only one who noticed.
They stopped using it because it was a minimizing word, and Democrats are in power now.
Some Bush-Era horror would be revealed (“the US attorney kerfuffle” “the so-called torture kerfuffle”) and they’d write it off as Leftist hysteria. A mere kerfuffle.
Now of course, we have HITLER in the White House, TAKING OVER THE WORLD, so you don’t see it much anymore. No use for it, really. Nothing is unimportant or overblown now. It’s all a grave and growing threat to the Republic.
Jeffro - June 23, 2010 | 9:32 pm · Link
The comment @ Redstate that labels McChrystal “kind of a liberal”...wow…
Mark S. - June 23, 2010 | 9:33 pm · Link
Well, I thought we’d kill or capture most of Al Qaeda, install some strongman and gotten the hell out of Afghanistan. I also didn’t think Osama bin Laden would still be alive. Afghanistan just doesn’t seem that damn strategic to me. I guess I didn’t bank on trillion dollar lithium deposits.
Redshirt - June 23, 2010 | 9:36 pm · Link
I think I’ve answered my own question about wingnut engineers – they’re just louder and ruder than your average engineer. I know plenty of lefty engs, and they’re just more laid back, and nice. The wingnuts are always aggressive or vaguely hostile. Not sure what the cause or effect is there.
So, like all rude people, there’s probably not as many of them as you think, but because they’re always causing drama, you just notice them more.
asiangrrlMN - June 23, 2010 | 9:56 pm · Link
@ellaesther: Wait a minute, gloves? I was thinking Super Soakers like Biden and Rahm whilst wearing white T-shirts. We could sell tickets and give the monies to the most progressive candidate in an upcoming race.
Faux News - June 23, 2010 | 10:18 pm · Link
These morons @ Red State are truly delusional and need to be on psychotropic medications.
Batocchio - June 23, 2010 | 10:31 pm · Link
@Midnight Marauder:
That’s a keeper. Especially:
No wingnut knows what the fuck actually happened in Iraq or is happening in Iraq – and none of them ever wanted to know. Clap louder for Tinkerbell!
Keid A - June 23, 2010 | 11:11 pm · Link
matoko_chan
The European NATO countries desperately want out of Afghanistan, yesterday, if not sooner.
Their economies are under deep distress. They feel enormous pressure to reduce their deficits. The war in Afghanistan is one obvious thing to cut. Even the Brits. The domestic crisis is consuming everything else.
The pressure on USA, to also cut losses and bail, is growing daily too. Even if you believe in what you’re fighting for, the global economic situation is just too weak and unstable to support long-term, expensive, military entanglements.
The periphery will be abandoned to try to save the center. It’s an old story.
Corner Stone - June 23, 2010 | 11:21 pm · Link
@asiangrrlMN: ...must…refrain…FSM help…me…
uloborus - June 23, 2010 | 11:21 pm · Link
@Corner Stone:
I could. I haven’t the slightest intention to. To be honest, you’ve now dragged that comment out twice, a chance (although certainly meant) sentence in a larger point. The rather blatant implication is that you think it’s impossible to reasonably support our having gone to war in Afghanistan. It’s a topic that brings out the most unbendingly idealistic element of the blog, which you are practically poster boy for. I find the shouting fests the issue inspires tiresome, and I’m not going to get into it further.
Corner Stone - June 23, 2010 | 11:31 pm · Link
@uloborus: Wait a second. I absolutely have asked you twice about this. I don’t think that’s unfair. I didn’t see a response the first time. How is it some kind of wrong to bump it, at least once more?
If you support the war in Afghanistan I’d honestly like to hear why. I’d like to know what you think can be, or should be, accomplished there.
I may or may not feel strongly opposed to your reasons but that’s the nature of discourse.
But no one made you say that, you volunteered it. So, to me, it seems like you have, or had, a point to make.
And honestly, I’m tired of you trying to third party bag on me without addressing me directly. But I get why that may be.
Sheila - June 24, 2010 | 12:19 am · Link
The extreme rightwing appears to be surrounded by an event horizon, like a black hole. When the truth gets anywhere near, it’s sucked inside never to be seen again.
Jebediah - June 24, 2010 | 12:22 am · Link
@PopeRatzy:
Well, it made me very happy.
Et Tu Brutus? - June 24, 2010 | 1:08 am · Link
@soonergrunt:
Kinda doubt either one of us could honestly claim to know what goes on in his mind ( unless you are him?, Or among his closest confidants?). And I admit my wild speculation as to his political ambitions is colored by the musings of certain journalists; nonetheless, the man has shown himself to be an adroit political operator, likely why his military peers view him with disdain. If he can pull even the smallest rabbit out the AfPak hat, he’ll be the closest thing to a modern Eisenhower this political generation has seen. Could this be lost on such an intelligent man, with such a limited future in the military?
soonergrunt - June 24, 2010 | 1:15 am · Link
@Wapiti: It’s also military protocol that personnel enter or leave a space or building with the most junior first followed by the others, each more senior than the one ahead of him till the last (senior) man is through the door.
This goes back to several different origins, but primarily the concept that the junior personnel enter the potential threat environment first to trigger the ambush.
Also something about personnel entering so that the leader can stop short and not enter the room/space if there’s no opposite number of equal rank on the other side, and he then doesn’t have to negotiate with inferiors.
soonergrunt - June 24, 2010 | 1:21 am · Link
@freelancer: Remember, they think that since they design shit, that everything had to be designed. Apparently Engineering colleges and programs don’t require the study of philosophy, ethics, or logic.
asiangrrlMN - June 24, 2010 | 2:07 am · Link
@Corner Stone: See what I’m sayin’? We could make rightwingbatshitcrazy monies, amirite?
mclaren - June 24, 2010 | 5:16 am · Link
@Redshirt:
Politics is all about people. Engineers and other tech-heads are left-brain control freaks who apply pure logic, devoid of human feelings, to solving problems. That works well for designing bridges. It works very poorly when you start to ask whether we should have child labor, for example, or health insurance for poor people, or whether we should continue killing innocent villagers in Afghanistan no many how many years the war takes.
Applying pure logic, you just keep on killing Afghan women and children until there’s no one left. What’s the problem? The engineer doesn’t see it.
bob h - June 24, 2010 | 6:56 am · Link
I suppose it is gratuitous to point out that our officer corps is overwhelmingly Republican, and that the McChrystal flap fits in with the longstanding Republican project to de-legitimize Obama?
soonergrunt - June 24, 2010 | 7:58 am · Link
@bob h: Well, since McChrystal noted in the very article that caused his downfall that he voted or Obama (another thing a general should never do, allow anyone to know his vote) I think it’s a little misguided.
machine - June 24, 2010 | 9:39 am · Link
$10 says that Red State tries to lure McChrystal into their WoW guild so that they’ll finally have half a chance to take down Thrall.
Steve J. - June 25, 2010 | 12:44 am · Link
“Barack Obama wants to be George W. Bush so badly he can hardly stand it”
This ranks up there with Assrockets infamous remarks about the genius of Pres. Fredo: