Oh, shut the fuck up Peter King, you noxious blowhard:
Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said Tuesday that President Barack Obama should invite Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson to meet with him at the White House.
“I think it would be very helpful if President Obama went and met with the police officer, or at least invited him to the White House,” King said on Fox Business Network.
“And say, ‘you’ve gone through four months of smear and slander and the least we can do is tell you that it is unfortunate that it happened and thank you for doing your job.'”
Reflecting on Obama’s speech last night, King said he thought the President’s remarks were “lackluster.”
“I wish he said one good word about the police — one good word about Officer Wilson who had gone through all this,” King said, noting that the controversy affected both the defense and the prosecution.
I’ll make a deal. You meet with the families of these people first:
f course it was Irish, not Islamic terrorism that King championed. So that’s different. Right? For decades, King was one of the keenest, most reliable American voices supporting the Irish Republican Army during its long and murderous campaign.
According to King, the terrorist movement was “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland.”
In Northern Ireland, the conflict was drily referred to as “The Troubles.” But that understatement hides the brutal nature of an ugly, squalid conflict during which more than 3,600 people were killed. Republican terrorists were responsible for more than 2,000 of these deaths. The scale of the carnage was such that, on a per-capita basis, a comparable conflict in the United States would kill 700,000 Americans.
And King was at the heart of it: In the 1980s, he was a prominent fundraiser for Noraid, the Irish-American organization that raised money for the IRA and was suspected of running guns to Ulster, too. Indeed, King’s rise to prominence within the Irish-American movement was predicated upon his support for the IRA at a time when New Yorkers were softer on terrorism than they are now. Noraid helped win King his seat in Congress, making him, in some respects, the terrorists’ Man in Washington.
On his travels to Northern Ireland, King would stay with members of the IRA and spend his evenings in IRA drinking clubs, soaking up the atmosphere and, I dare say, enjoying the craic.
In 1982 he told a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County, New York, that “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.” That same year, an IRA bomb killed eight people in London’s Hyde Park. Two years later, the IRA almost succeeded in murdering the British prime minister. Only good fortune saved Margaret Thatcher’s life. In 1987, an IRA bomb murdered 11 civilians in Enniskillen during the annual Remembrance Day service. These are merely some of the more infamous IRA atrocities. There isn’t space here to list them all.
King was such a well-known figure in Northern Ireland that one judge presiding over a murder case in which the accused were members of the IRA, threw King out of his Belfast courtroom because, as the judge put it, “he was an obvious collaborator with the IRA.”
Then maybe President Obama might sit down with the man who killed an unarmed teenager. Why? I don’t know. Wilson seems to have no regrets. And if he should go to the White House, I hope to hell the Secret Service frisks Wilson. Guys got an itchy trigger finger and is easily scared.
Mustang Bobby
As I noted in this morning’s open thread, why doesn’t he also invite George Zimmerman? Kumbayah moments for everyone.
c u n d gulag
Also, too – why was there no invite to the White House for George Zimmerman?
He should have gotten some Presidential award for keeping his community secure!
‘Cause Obama’s the REAL racist!
THAT’S WHY!!!
*snark*
c u n d gulag
@Mustang Bobby:
I’d say ‘great minds think alike,’ but that would be overinflating my mind. :-)
El Cid
What he said.
dubo
The Oathkeepers have started a recruitment drive to “patrol” Ferguson jesus fucking christ
Laertes
Shorter King: “Now that we’ve conclusively established that Wilson was the good guy here, it’s time for his defenders to eat some crow.”
Of course, nothing of the kind has been established. But in his capacity as Wilson’s defense attorney, McCulloch did everything in his considerable power to make it look like a trial. The process had a certain “trialiness,” and for Wilson’s admirers it’ll be literally impossible to understand the difference.
schrodinger's cat
Peter King, Steve King, how many crazy Kings does GOP have?
mai naem mobile
You guys forgot Orly Titz. She needs a spethal invite too.
ET
So clueless and tone deaf. Why in the world would he think the president would do that or even should.
JPL
As I suggested yesterday, if King were really concerned, he’d walk hand and hand with Wilson on the streets of Ferguson singing Kumbaya.
Belafon
@dubo:
The police aren’t scaring the blacks enough on their own. Hell, some black kid thought he could walk in the street and talk back to a cop.
//
Does the left need to create its own “patrol” group?
schrodinger's cat
@mai naem mobile: Also too, Donald Trump.
Bruuuuce
Of course, inviting Wilson to the White House where he was served with a federal indictment on civil rights violations charges would have a delicious smoky schadenfreude overtone.
Brian R.
Peter King (R-Terrorist Enabler) needs a steaming hot mug of shut the fuck up.
beltane
@JPL: Heck, let him walk the streets of NYC hand-in-hand with his hero.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this moronic obsession with Obama inviting people to the White House drives me crazy. I gather it’s one of the major themes of Chuck Todd’s new book-like product, which I want Charlie Pierce to review,
I always think of Peter King as the loud mouth know it all at the bar who makes all the other loud mouth know it all drunks suddenly remember they have to go to choir practice or help their kids with homework.
dubo
@Bruuuuce: Haha yes
The only invite Obama should give Wilson is to congratulate him on being a Made Man, Tommy DeVito style
mai naem mobile
@schrodinger’s cat: lets not forget Darrell Wilson’s brother Joe”you lie!!”Wilson. They can give them nice “White House” monogrammed white sheets as mementoes, to wear at the next Klan party.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
The amazing rush to deify Wilson is as galling as it is unsurprising. They really want to turn him into a folk hero for the 21st Century, complete with the outrageous embellishments to make him look like such a larger-than-life hero.
eric
I cant remember how i even arrived at balloon juice, but i’m glad i did. i read a few of your posts. nice to see there’s more than one other person i’d consider normal still alive. stay strong. Eric V.
Pogonip
Remember the two gentlemen cited a few days ago, who stayed and took care of their nursing home residents when the place closed? Why aren’t these guys national heroes, invited to the White House?
LanceThruster
To be fair, support for the IRA was from both sides of the aisle.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Pogonip:
Because they’re protecting and taking care of the undesirables, rather than eliminating them.
SatanicPanic
That’s racist. Very racist. Obama’s job is not to entertain white people, especially Wilson.
Belafon
@Pogonip: One was black, the other was Latino, and both did it without being paid. Not only was their skin color wrong, but altruism has no place in the free market.
Karen in GA
So, who’s going to invite Wilson to the SOTU?
John Revolta
“The President charged toward me and gripped my hand in his huge clawlike fist. I was terrified and feared for my life.”
boatboy_srq
@Mustang Bobby: I still say (here, again) that this is King trying to set up a situation where Wilson tries to arrest BHO for Presidentin’ While Blah.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Karen in GA:
Maybe Boehner, especially since the National Review is saying Obama should be banned from making the SOTU altogether.
mai naem mobile
I don’t think The Donald’s hair rally would make it through a Klan rally. But Rudy Giuliani doesn’t have any hair issues that would conflict with a Klan rally. All these random thoughts i have my head.
SatanicPanic
@John Revolta: yup, this is the scenario I bet King is hoping for
Mike E
@schrodinger’s cat: Not Angus tho, thank gawd.
mai naem mobile
@schrodinger’s cat: Elvis the Zombie King of Rock n Roll
Suffern ACE
I haven’t been following the news. Did something happen in Fergusson?
kidding.
God, Peter King is a pants pisser and I bet he’s thinking that there’s a full blown race riot in every corner of the country. “Our cities are in flames from the black people” if our cities were reduced to a few square blocks in Missouri.
Tommy
Brown was twice my weight and well over a foot taller. Different skin color. I like to think if I was a cop nobody would have lost their life in this situation and maybe, maybe at worse a ticket would have been issued. Let’s just say everything we heard is true from the police department. He was walking down the middle of the street. He stole a few smokes (worth $12). Those are not remotely violent crimes nor anything over a minor crimes with no jail time (without a record).
It is about escalation ….
I have no idea what happened that day. Confused. But I think murder.
But how do you escalate that to pulling your gun? Don’t the police have to have interpersonal skills? Let’s say Brown got somewhat agrressive, how don’t you tone it down? If for no other reason then backup to arrive? It makes no sense.
Mike J
Have you noticed that the same people who usually talk about how “the citizens shouldn’t be afraid of the government, the government should be afraid of the citizens”, and “we came unarmed, this time” aren’t really supporters of keeping the government in its place now?
KG
@schrodinger’s cat: they’ve just picked up the mantle of Huey Long… every man a king…
JPL
@Tommy: Wilson is the size of one of my sons. He is not a small person.
KG
@Tommy: the entire nature of the confrontation confuses me. i’ve never met a cop that goes into a situation while in a patrol car that would allow anyone to get near the car door. there’s a reason why cops park 30-40 feet away and then walk up. i’m also confused as to why Wilson’s thought process while allegedly being attacked in the car was not to try and roll up the window (i’m guessing they have electric windows) or drive the car to a safe distance, but instead to reach for his gun in a close quarters situation that is pretty much the worst place to use a gun. so much of this story just doesn’t make sense.
Litlebritdifrnt
If I ever came across King I would go out of my way to punch him in the fucking face. “Brave Freedom Fighters” my arse, it takes real bravery to blow up boy scouts and horses. Mother fuckers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Karen in GA:
Maybe nobody.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: Peter King’s district is right next to the biggest city in the country and one which is not up in flames from the black people. Of course, he like most Republicans in this country, live in suburban isolation chambers, cowering in their oversized, empty houses with Fox on the big screen, watching the provocatively dressed blonde ladies tell them that the only thing standing between them and the violent horde of “animals” out there are police officers like Darren Wilson.
Seriously, the media, led by Fox, has effected the largest mass castration in human history. I’ve always despised these people for their racism, but now I have contempt for them on account of their cowardice.
Jebediah, RBG
@dubo:
I really, really hope their asses handed to them in a big, embarrassing way.
KG
@SiubhanDuinne: to deny the president the chance to deliver the SOTU in person, something that’s happened pretty much every year since, what, FDR? that would just be a fiasco. i mean that is graduating from shooting yourself in the foot to shooting yourself in the dick, with buckshot. the idea of telling any president that they aren’t welcome at the capitol is just, mind numbing. to have a southern party, whose leadership is so white they glow in the dark, say that to the first black president… i just, wow.
ETA: check that, Washington did it first, Jefferson discontinued the practice (for being too monarchial) and then Wilson revived it in the 1910s… so something we’ve been doing for over 100 years. yeah, that’s going to work out well.
Liberty60
@Belafon:
Just like we all predicted: the Oathkeepers began by solemnly swearing they would not enforce any order from a tyrannical government against American citizens; Yet when the order comes to subdue those same citizens, they are the very first ones to rush to do it.
Mike E
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, that’ll show him!
I hope he brings out that tan suit again for the SOTU, just because.
Barney
Like the actual murder count in the USA? 666,160 murders from 1960 to 1996
KG
@Mike E: i want him to go blue jeans, white t-shirt, and leather jacket. basically full hipster-greaser. fold up the pant legs, wear doc martins, have a lucky strike behind one ear.
beltane
@KG: I’m not sure they would be shooting themselves in the dick. This is still a majority white country, and a majority of the white majority, including virtually all southern whites, would cream themselves at such a show of disrespect. The media, with its “real American” fetish, would pull out all the stops to sell the rest of the country on the reasonableness of it all.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@KG:
I think, rather begrudgingly, that you underestimate just how many people would outright cheer such a decision, plus how many would simply accept it as ‘politics as usual’ rather than something so wildly unprecedented as to be offensive. I bet between those two groups, you’d get at least a majority of the country who’d be willing to see it as ‘a great shot against the darkie’ or ‘both sides, same thing’.
beltane
@Liberty60: They are a fascist paramilitary force just the same as all other fascist paramilitary forces.
KG
@beltane: social media would destroy them. facebook, twitter, instagram would be chock full of memes turning the capitol building into the Woolworth’s lunch counter, Boehner into George Wallace at the steps of the University of Alabama, and the gods only know what else.
ETA: and let’s not forget the idea of Obama delivering the speech somewhere else. Like on the steps of the Capitol, or better yet the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Starting off with something like “My fellow Americans, normally, I would deliver this speech in the House of Representatives before a joint session of Congress. However, the Speaker of the House has decided that I am no longer invited to do so despite more than 100 years of tradition. So, I stand here before the symbols of our great nation to report on the state of our Union.”
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
In the past two centuries and more, has Congress ever refused to invite a President to give the State of The Union address? Would even this one dare disrespect Obama like that?
Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne: @Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: Oh, Christ. Hey, are there any countries that would take an American college dropout with a continuing education certificate in commercial photography? I wouldn’t eat much and I’m housetrained.
@beltane: Yep.
Mike E
@KG: He could theoretically flood the House chamber and recreate the Fonz jumping the shark…because, representational democracy, how does it fucking work?!
KG
@Mike E: if he’s going to take a scene from television, might I suggest, this
beltane
@KG: Yes, they would be pilloried by all decent people. Sadly, decent people are a minority in this country of ours. Republicans and their fellow travelers in the mushy middle are not decent people and they are not intelligent people. They are morally bankrupt losers who feel they are owed a special place in society because they are the unfortunate byproduct of a white lady spreading her legs for a white man. I’m not going to sugar coat it anymore, this is what America has become, or maybe what it has always been.
beltane
@Karen in GA: You could always teach English somewhere.
Citizen_X
@dubo:
I take it this “oath” involves a burning cross and a Hitler salute, right?
shelley
Well, according to Wilson’s own interview, he ‘has a clear conscience.’ Sounds like he’s not exactly suffering.
And he’s also alive.
Bill
@Liberty60: Conservatives keep telling me that the second amendment exists to protect oppressed people from their own government. But now we see a group of oppressed people exercising their second amendment rights against the oppressive government, and conservatives don’t like it.
The conservative mind is so confusing.
cckids
@KG:
Some part of me wishes they would, President Obama could deliver it in front of the Lincoln Memorial, with the Mall filled with people, including every Democratic House & Senate member. Make the R’s look like the small racist asswipes they are.
Edit to add: Yeah, like you said first. Damn left coast time lag.
beltane
@cckids: A SOTU in front of the Lincoln Memorial with an audience in the tens of thousands might be a good way to start reclaiming our country from the Confederates and Koch Brothers. I like it.
John Revolta
@Bill: The conservative mind is so confusing.
Imagine what it must be like to own one.
I mean, in your own actual head!
MattF
“Blowhard”, though true, doesn’t quite work for King. There’s also the thread of vindictiveness and absurd self-regard. Can’t really think of a single word for it.
beltane
@MattF: “Assclown” works for me.
Kathleen
@mai naem mobile: I’m sure Rand Paul has a spare dead ferret he could loan to Trump.
OGLiberal
@KG: Because those “boys” didn’t listen and he wanted to show them who was boss. Completely avoidable, even if Brown did undrepay for some smokes and even if he gave Wilson lip. And, yeah, drawing a sidearm against a person you think is unarmed while seated in a patrol car is stupid and dangerous. Dude acted tough, pulled up right to Brown and his friend, slammed the door open, the door hit Brown – as anybody would expect when you do your bad ass act and pull right up to somebody with your SUV – and bounced back, at which point tough guy lost his shit and started shooting, then misinterpreted somebody stumbling from wounds he caused as charging and shot the kid in the head as he fell. Because Darrin Wilson is a scared pussy…the exact opposite if what he and much of white America thinks he is.
I don’t care if Michael Brown wasn’t a saint…in what world would an apparently not mentally disturbed and, I believe, not on any crazy narcotic (if he did have pot in his system, he’d be much less likely to aggressive), would a kid, no matter how big, charge a cop firing a semi-automatic pistol? Did any of the racist/pussy white folks on the GJ ever ask themselves that question? Was there any signs in the life of Michael Brown that he had a death wish. Dude just left a store with his buddy planning on chilling and smoking some blunts…hardly strikes me as a kid willing to die for nothinv.
Wilson was given a badge and gun with the understanding that he understood when and where to use his authority and power. His white privilege led him to incite an unnecessary situation and his racism (perhaps not overt, but the fact that Brown was black and big made a difference) and cowardice led to the death of an unnarmed kid.
Karen in GA
@beltane: Hmm.
Matt
Cole, you’re more merciful than I am – I want Obama to invite Wilson and McCulloch to the WH, then have one of the Secret Service guys yell “HE’S REACHING FOR HIS WAISTBAND” and gun both the racist fucks down.
Tree With Water
@schrodinger’s cat: They’re all nuts, every single last one of them, no exceptions.