My favorite right-wing angle on Libya is that Hillary Clinton, not Obama, is the one who was tough enough to go toe-to-toe with Gaddafi. National Review (not linking) is running a poll that asks “In your view, who is tougher, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?” and Hillary is winning 98 to 2 among the knuckle draggers who visit that website.
Of course, if the intervention in Libya goes well, whatever that means, Joe Klein will tell us that Gaddafi just learned what two dead pirates and one dead house fly already knew, that Obama is not a man to be trifled with.
When it’s not “who would you rather have a beer with” it’s “quien es mas macho”.
srv
Someone has to wear the pants in this administration.
/snark
TheMightyTrowel
It’s all about the manliness – Hillary was already coded manly (ie, not a ‘real’ woman) and obama feminine (M Dowd has made a career of calling successful D pols girly men). This poll was waiting to happen.
arguingwithsignposts
el school bus es mas macho than el lightbulb. duh.
Zifnab
Remember when Hillary Clinton was universally reviled by the GOP loyalists? Now she’s every Republican whine-o’s favorite Democrat. The cognitive dissonance in the wing-nut-o-sphere is truly amazing to behold.
Brachiator
This is elegant bullshit, the way the right wing applauds use of military force in Libya but denying Obama any credit.
These guys are good, the way they stay on message.
gene108
@Zifnab:
It’s not cognitive dissonance.
The wing-nuts reviled her because she’s Lady Macbeth “on steroids”. She’s the master mind behind the murder of Vince Foster, for example. They believe there’s no one she wouldn’t kill to grab ultimate power; she’s a megalomaniac who will stop at nothing to rule with an iron hand.
Thinking she has the “balls” to blow somebody up, anybody up, anywhere in the world fits right in with the wing-nut view of her.
Suck It Up!
That’s interesting because I’ve been seeing others on the left say this is all Hillary The Hawk and that she talked Obama into doing this. Well whatever. Obama makes the final decision.
Comrade Javamanphil
The GOP loves their Daddies but boy do they fear their Mommies. I can only imagine their
“massage” therapistpsychologist visits.ET
Personally I think she and he got punked by the Arab League.
BGinCHI
Behold the media failure in this country. No analysis, no process, no bigger picture.
Instead of saying “Washington is wired for Republicans,” (which it is), I’d add that “the Mainstream Media is wired for Sports Coverage.”
Everything that happens internationally is the Olympics, whether it is or not.
Bulworth
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Punchy
But what’s Sully think of this? I’m guessing he thinks a no-fly zone is a backyard with a bug zapper, or a fashion statement that eschews zippers.
Culture of Truth
“In your view, who is tougher, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?”
It’s a trick question. The answer is “Tim Pawlenty.”
Bob Loblaw
/*Unless you’re a member of Al Qaeda**, in which case you’re probably safe as can be in the bushland of Yemen or Waziristan. Turns out talk about crushing terrorists is easier than it sounds without better intelligence capabilities and allies on the ground, which we don’t have. Sad trombone.
/**Excepting Al Qaeda #3, of course.
Mark-NC
So, Obama picked a good Sec. of State – good for him!!
Bulworth
@TheMightyTrowel: Via Sully, foreign policy specialist and notable tough guy, Hugh Hewitt, is saying that all we need to WIN is some special forces. Who will be greeted as liberators.
Zifnab
@gene108:
But in this case, the Republicans view blowing people up as a positive attribute. They attribute the positive attribute to the person they love. Now they love Hillary over Obama, so she gets their votes.
Compare this to the Democratic Primary, where Rush Limbaugh was actively pushing his “Operation Chaos” plan to get Republicans to vote for Hillary just to muddle the primary system. Why support Hillary at all, if you think she’s Hitler in pumps? Who cares!
Or after the elections, when Obama picked Biden as VP and the GOP launched their PUMA campaign with the McCain master stroke of putting Sarah Palin on the ticket. Princess Mooseburger invoked Hillary more than once in her run, and in a positive light.
Hillary was the monster behind the throne of the Clinton Presidency, back in the 90s. Now she can’t get enough GOP endorsement.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Can we pay Osama Bin Laden to blow up the set of Morning Joe on a day when they have both Mark Halperin and David Gregory in for a visit?
Halperin was earnestly spewing “Wag the Dog” bullshit (the citizens of Bengazi would beg to disagree that their plight was fake), and I found myself wishing that he’d put his pasty, puffy face somewhere in harm’s way.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Chingacabezas cada uno de ellos.
Tyrone Slothrop
You’ve produced some great lines, DougJ, but this might just be your best effort.
Matt
Meh. The average National Review reader just wants Hills and Caribou Barbie to take turns fisting him in the ass like the pig-bottom he is…
Superluminar
Of course this just proves Obama’s anti-colonial Kenyan heritage.
Linda Featheringill
We always knew that if Obama and Clinton decided to play good-cop-bad-cop Hillary would take the more aggressive role.
And be quite good at it, too.
So this is no surprise.
gnomedad
The Serial Patriotic Adulterer says St. Ronnie would have shown Gadhaffi what for, all right.
Comrade DougJ
@Tyrone Slothrop:
Thank you.
gnomedad
NR would have voted a cup of tea as tougher than Obama. Comparing him to Vince Foster’s assassin was just icing on the cake.
Ronc99
It used to be Dubya/Darth/Rumsfeld as the “Axis of Evil” in my eyes. Now it is Obama/Hillary/Gates!
Benjamin Cisco
This sort of shit is why the NeoConfederates are going to get their ass handed to them in 2012 – they just gotta let that freak flag fly. They can keep it up, they can trot out Herman Cain, Dean Cain, Abel’s brother Cain, it ain’t gonna matter.
__
At this point, it’s like a kid running around with his hair on fire because he doesn’t want to go to bed – it’s already over, HE just don’t know it yet.
Bulworth
@TheMightyTrowel: What happened to Obama as Chicago Thug?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Tyrone Slothrop: I have to agree; that one is classic.
Cris
Who did “quien es mas macho” first, Laurie Anderson or Bill Murray?
trollhattan
Hard to imagine what they’d be going on about had it been Hillary who won the nomination and stomped ol’ man McCain and Snookie–which she surely would have. The hate pivots automagically to whomever is in charge while having a “D” pasted after their name.
Happened to be behind a teetering Eff Two-Fiddy pickup with (no kidding) flames painted on it for good measure, yesterday at a stoplight. This gave me an opportunity to read the very chatty bumper sticker: “With Nixon we had Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. With Obama we have no cash and no hope.”
Heh, teh funny is strong with our young Patriots(tm). I’d have loved to ask this shit how he’d have enjoyed being drafted by Melvin Laird and shipped to Southeast Asia, supplied with an auto-jamming rifle and a half-gallon of jungle juice. For free!
MaximusNYC
Remember, Obama is a bloodthirsty dictator, except when he’s a spineless girly-man.
TheMightyTrowel
@Bulworth: You see it works like this: when he disagrees with white people, being a black man, he’s a thug. When he leads the military, being a black man, he’s a wuss. It’s kinda a distillation of the cognitive dissonance at the heart of american racism.
srv
@Bulworth: Rahm’s gone.
trollhattan
@Cris:
Murray. Laurie was riffing off that SNL bit. Muy, muy macho!
gnomedad
@Benjamin Cisco:
Image win.
Cris
@Newt (via @gnomedad): What the fuck? Reagan did bomb Tripoli, you smug pecker-partier. And yet Gaddafi stayed in power long after the Gipper left this mortal coil.
manny
@Bulworth: exactly.
the cognitive dissonance between their alternate portraits of Obama alone is hilarious.
One day he’s a soft pansy, the next he is an Alinsky-ite dirty hardball chicago pol,…shoot that Tea Party Express racist called him something like a Radical Welfare Thug or something.
Kilkee
I don’t think I can distain newt any more than I do, but could someone, just once, ask him to support his endless BS claims? Which tyrants did Ike oust (as Prez, not SHAEF commander)? And Reagan, oh jeez, he was a reall wartime hero.
trollhattan
@Kilkee:
Newt is as perfectly crafted a shameless person as I’ve ever witnessed. Every utterance, every action should be considered suspect. Anybody who takes an order from Newt at a restaurant had best verify it with two others before turning it in to the kitchen.
A very small example: Jon Stewart had Newt pinned in on some horseshit point he’d been advancing, using shoebomber Richard Reid as an example that ran counter to Newt’s premise. Newt dismissed the point by
claiminglying that Reid was American, not British. A lie in defense of the greater truth, or somesuch.Bolton and Bennett do the same. Half of them is also running for preznit.
Suffern ACE
@Cris: Reagan landed Marines in Beruit and shelled those PLO positions with battleships, bringing us the 30 years of peace to that area that we have experienced.
Benjamin Cisco
@gnomedad: Thanks much.
tkogrumpy
Two dead pirates and a housefly, an interest group you don’t hear a lot from lately. That was gold Doug.
Bill Arnold
It is perhaps a regrettable nit, but it was three dead pirates.