Florida Rep. Allen West ripped President Barack Obama’s United Nations speech Tuesday, saying he would have told the U.N. that America would be an “Angel of Death” that wreaks “havoc and destruction” on anyone who attacks the U.S.
“My statement to the United Nations would have been, ‘The future does not belong to those who attack our Embassies and Consulates and kill our Ambassadors. The Angel of Death in the form of an American Bald Eagle will visit you and wreak havoc and destruction upon your existence,'” the Florida congressman wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday….
West-Akin 2016?
Valdivia
Doug is this title a reference to that weirdly provocative French flick?
dmsilev
So, in the case of the Libyan consulate attack, who exactly should we be bombing? Or should we just lob high explosives in the general direction of the Mediterranean and trust to God that they’ll land in the right place?
Mike R
Idiotic statements like that clearly demonstrate that Congressman West has the wisdom of a rabid weasel.
Todd
Gosh, I can’t imagine why the Army would get rid of him. He’s a model of measured temperate leadership.
Gravenstone
Was wondering where the comment I saw earlier about an “angel of death in the form of a bald eagle” came from. Now I know. And knowing is half the battle.
DougJ
@Valdivia:
Yes.
When do you go to Shanghai, btw?
Emma
Someone keep that man away from whatever he’s sniffing.
Baud
I see Allen West graduated from the WWF school of diplomacy.
trollhattan
@Mike R:
Enhanced, for pleasure.
Gravenstone
@Todd: Frightening to realize he made Lieutenant Colonel before they finally turfed him out, isn’t it?
BGinCHI
When asked by a reporter, the bald eagle said, “Allen West is just another chickenhawk who wants to send brave eagles to their deaths.”
West responded that if he could, he would kill “about a dozen motherfuckers a day.”
Valdivia
@DougJ:
I thought I was the only person who had seen that! I always dig your choices.
I leave on the 2nd and will be traveling for almost 24 hours. But I will be back on BJ as soon as I am near a wifi and all settled. Hopefully not reporting that I am getting back on a plane right away ;)
Also too: that formulation about the future belongs to… that is from Obama’s speech and his was so totally awesome this idiot doesn’t have a right to even try and put that sentence together.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
Hmmmm. I’m trying to think of which actor could pull off the angel of death speech and make us believe it was a real speech at the UN given by a leader we had elected. I’m thinking Don Knotts. But maybe Harvey Korman.
Rita R.
Now I finally get it, Allen West thinks he’s Jules from Pulp Fiction. All makes sense now.
General Stuck
Steve M thinks West has what it takes to compete bigtime for the GOP nom in 2016. “Angel of Death”. Now there’s a slogan the nutters can rally around. Personally, I’m cheering for the Rapture by then, to maybe get these crazy fuckers to go someplace else. Well worth the 1000 years of tribulations, give or take.
Hill Dweller
Considering this is a thread about stupid people, why is Elisabeth Hasselbeck on TV?
celticdragonchick
Allen West is auditioning to be a Dalek on Dr Who next season.
Baud
Allen West has had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!
Todd
@dmsilev:
America, Fuck Yeah!
Down and Out of Sài Gòn
“You know who else what an angel of death?”
General Stuck
@dmsilev:
We bomb Australia, of course. Duh.
Mr Stagger Lee
Imagine a Allen West-Todd Akin presidency, add retired general Jerry Boykin as Secretary of Defense with a goal of bringing back the Crusades with nuclear weapons.
BGinCHI
@Valdivia: Val, get thee to WTSO right now and get some of that Renwood zin (if you’re a zin drinker). It’s gigantic and it’s a steal.
BGinCHI
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: That’s Hedley.
MikeJ
@Hill Dweller: You’re surprised that stupid people are on TV?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@General Stuck: We already have the tribulations. Unfortunately, I think we only get to get rid of 144,000 of these motherfuckers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
::dusts hands:: There.
BGinCHI
@Rita R.: Win.
Walking the earth, getting into adventures.
Spaghetti Lee
Oh, Doug, you and your grabbing quotes from random street preachers so you can m-
Wait…congressman? Like, U.S. Congressman? Oh dear.
MikeJ
@DougJ: I assumed you were going with your usual Buñuel and now I learn it’s Brisseau. I don’t know what to feel.
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
big grin! I bought it as soon as it came into my box! Every bottle I have bought from them has been awesome. Can’t thank you enough for that rec.
BGinCHI
@Spaghetti Lee: If you’re a street preacher and your shit gets too crazy you get asked to leave or you get arrested.
US congressman?
Free health care, nice office, podium from which to act insane until your time expires.
Baud
Hill Dweller
@MikeJ: It was rhetorical. I’m painfully aware of the stupidity in our media, but having just watched a youtube clip of the question she posed to the President yesterday, I still marvel at the heights stupid people reach in our country.
nellcote
Is West speaking in his capacity as Rmoney’s AA outreach leader?
Gravenstone
O/T – Picked up Re-Machined today. It’s an all star tribute to Deep Purple’s Machine Head on its 40th anniversary, as well as a tribute to the late Jon Lord. Muy bueno. I’d recommend it to anyone whose a fan of the band or the genre.
BGinCHI
@Valdivia: That Amador County single vineyard stuff is amazing. 15% though, so…moderation. I never drive my forklift when I’m drinking that stuff.
Have a great trip to China!
hueyplong
Maybe John Lithgow could emerge from the fog machine and treat us to a dramatic reading of Alan West’s words on Colbert.
Maude
Because it worked so well in Iraq.
He, of course won’t be anywhere near his Angel.
Another proud member of the 101st Chairborne.
Yutsano
@Valdivia: I honestly thought DougJ was showing his inner otaku. Oh well. :)
Gravenstone
@BGinCHI: You have to hope he was fitted for the sleeveless coat that buckles in the back right after they gave him the oath of office.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
Kill everyone & let the Cosmic Muffin sort them out!
GOP foreign policy in a sentence.
Chyron HR
Shorter Alan West: “We will bury you!”
Rita R.
@BGinCHI:
Smiting muthafuckas with furious vengeance.
BGinCHI
@Gravenstone: Amazingly he’s not nearly the craziest fuck in that bunch.
Anyone know how West is polling in his race this year?
Jamey
@dmsilev: That, basically, is the Rmoney campaign’s military, diplomatic, AND economic policy…
BGinCHI
@Rita R.: Smite is probably my favorite verb.
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
I will keep that in mind and promise not to drink and fly :) Thanks for the good wishes I am counting on you guys to let me know how Obama does in the debates!
Valdivia
@Yutsano:
You gotta wacth the movie. Netflix used to have it. It’s something else! BTW have a good yom kippur.
mclaren
To quote Doghouse Riley:
Chris
@Gravenstone:
You want frightening? Try this on for size: Douglas MacArthur made general. Curtis LeMay made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And people scarier than both of them have made President.
Schlemizel
@hueyplong:
If I had a say I’d like to see him do it as his character in Buckaroo Bonzi – that would be pure magic!
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
What the fuck? This guy is seriously whacked. I mean, as Kung-fu Monkey put it lo these many years ago, when writing of Alan Keyes, he’s crazy. Batshit crazy. Head trauma crazy.
But the truly scary thing is just how many batshit-head trauma crazy Republicans are in Congress. I’m not even talking about run-of-the-mill nuts like Inhofe, or just plain old sleazy thieves and liars like Ryan or average, everyday asshole aracists like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III, either. I mean people who are praanoid and delusional and angry as hell about the fact that there even are liberals in this world. Allen West. Michele Bachmann. Steve King. Jim DeMint. Todd Akin. Mean Jean Schmidt (she lost her primary, I think, but I think it was this year, not 2010, so she’ll still be there a few months longer.
I mean, hell, there will always be sleazy, corrupt douchebags like McConnell or Cantor and people like that in politics. That’s nothing new or weird. There are always going to be bigoted dickwads like Sessions and creepy, sexually fucked up weirdos like Vitter. People like that will always find some fucked up, benighted state or district where they can win and slither their way into Congress.
But West, et al., these people are a whole other something else altogether. We’ve been dealing with these nuts for so long that we hardly even think about it anymore. But Congressional districts and even whole states are electing people who, even 30 years ago, wouldn’t have broken 10% in a primary in either party. Republicans have made serious mental illness a thoroughly unremarkable, ordinary, even mundane trait in federal officeholders.
I know we could come up with even more specimens of cerifiable lunatics and psychopaths Republicans have put in Congress if we put out minds to it. Who can think of any others?
BGinCHI
@mclaren: Doghouse Riley is an American Treasure, an American Hero, and an Indiana Legend.
jomike
@Mr Stagger Lee: Oh hell yes. The nominating convention would be epic. The theme music is already in the can!
Chris
@dmsilev:
Fuck God. It’s the Confidence Fairy that’ll guide those angels of death to their proper place!
ET
Well. I am so glad that man is no longer in the military.
EconWatcher
I cast my first vote, at 18, for Mondale. I’ve paid my dues through a lot of miserable elections. But this one is the most fun I’ve ever had, or ever expect to have. Thank you, Mitt. And don’t ever change. We love you just the way you are.
cmorenc
@Mike R:
Well, that explains how West successfully got himself elected to congress. He has a district whose demographics run heavily to rabid weasels. Particularly unwise rabid weasels at that, the greatest concentration of them in all of south Florida.
Bago
@BGinCHI: I am smitten.
Lev
@Chris: To be fair, Macarthur did win the Pacific Theater of WWII, and did an excellent job overseeing the reconstruction of Japan, which was inspired by New Deal principles. Only when it came to reds was he nucking futs.
hoppipolla
@MikeJ: WTF? Buñuel directed The Exterminating Angel. It’s about an haut-bourgeois dinner party that no one can leave. Really weird and funny.
DPS
That death eagle would make a sweet tat.
El Cid
Well, that sounds like a reassuring thing to say to the neighbors — “Hey, great to see you all again, oh, and did I tell you? I am the Angel of Death, destroyer of worlds, here to wreak havoc and destruction upon any who oppose me. Oh look – spinach and artichoke dip!”
Lurking Canadian
@dmsilev: Any raghead that runs is AQ. Any raghead that stands still is well-disciplined AQ.
lamh35
OT, and really late to the thread, but DougJ I figured you’d know the answer to my question
I’m watching Love Actually on Cinemax, a movie BTW that I have on DVD, but I love too much not to watch when it comes on.
Is it just me or is Love Actually the movie that kinda started all these recent slew of movies where there are like 20 A-B list actors all in one ensemble piece centered around a certain holiday? I mean there was that Valentine’s Day movie, that New Year’s Eve movie… Looking back on it now, Love Actually had alot of established big “British” film/tv names and up and comers (Keira Knightley was in it, it was the movie she was doing before she did the Pirates of the Caribbean movie) and even some American established A-listers and up and comers (Elisha Cuthbert and January Jones both had bid parts in it)
I am too young to remember, but what other older movies have there been that involved all as many big named stars in it prior to Love Actually that was a rom/com and holiday themed movie, that wasn’t like a period piece or something?
Maude
@Lev:
There was that strange time right after Pearl Harbor when e didn’t move military equipment out of the way.
He pleaded with LBJ not to go to Vietnam.
Lurker
@Gravenstone:
The other half is made up of red lasers and blue lasers.
Anne Laurie
@Chyron HR:
Actually, when Khruschev sait that at the UN, it was a literal translation of a Russian proverb that meant “We’ll dance on your grave” (outlast you). What Alan West is saying would be the exact opposite — ‘We have no faith in our own staying power, but we can take you down before we blow it all to hell.’
Patricia Kayden
Who cares what West would say anywhere about anything? Has he ever said anything remotely sensible? So egotistical.
I hope his Democratic challenger (I believe a Mr. Murphy) wins in November.
Noah Brand
Yeah, when you start talking about being the Angel of Death, it’s probably a sign that you are not one of the good guys.
MikeJ
@hoppipolla: Yeah, that’s the one I assumed DougJ was talking about. He uses Buñuel a lot (not that I’m complaining). Then Valdiva brought up that french flick, so I assumed that it was Jean-Claude Brisseau’s Les Anges Exterminateurs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Watching Rachel Maddow interview Jose Diaz-Balart. Does anyone ever mention that his brother is a right wing congressman, and a third DB brother is a former right wing congressman?
raven
Braves clinch!
DougJ
Sorry I did mean Bunuel, not the French guy.
mai naem
I’m pretty sure Josef Mengele was called Angel of Death at Auschwitz because you knew you were going to die if he picked you. Anyway, is Allen West representing one of those primarily Jewish retiree from NY/NJ areas in Florida? If he is I don’t think they’re going to be happy with this moron comparing the US to the Angel of Death. Dumbfcuk.
KCinDC
West has switched from the 22nd district (which has become much more Democratic) to the 18th. Larry Sabato rates the race as “leans Republican”.
Yutsano
@lamh35: Well…Forget Paris was kinda like that. But it centered around an engagement rather than a holiday.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s why he was so douchey when he was interviewing the president. He basically used GOP talking points and with an attitude.
Why was Maddow interviewing him?
trollhattan
@hoppipolla:
“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”?
Spaghetti Lee
@KCinDC:
Doesn’t that mean he’s taking on Ros-Lehtinen in a primary? Or did she retire?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: his take on the two candidates and Latino voters as a whole. I didn’t think he came off as overly partisan, but I can’t imagine another case of a journalist being interviewed, as an expert, with such strong personal, and partisan, political connections, and its never mentioned. His aunt was Castro’s first wife, which I guess is just trivia, but he’s definitely from the hard-core anti-Castro, Reagan worshipping Florida Cuban community.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wow. Politco reports that Ryan is referring to Romney, in private, as “the Stench”? L O’Donnell just now.
Bubblegum Tate
Hey, West is behind the curve. A couple of days ago, a wingnut posted this beaut:
Naturally, West is just throwing out the wingnut fapbait.
Lurking Canadian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m hoping that in about eighteen months, we’ll get an E! True Hollywood Story about the Romney campaign.
ChristianPinko
@Down and Out of Sài Gòn: Slayer?
Jibeaux
I think that line was cut from the script of Red Dawn for being too fivking stupid.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lurking Canadian: Judging by the Emmys, we’ll get an HBO movie. Let’s start casting. Wink Martindale and that dark-haired guy from Modern Family? What about Ann? Jessica Lange?
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If Larry said the sky was blue I’d walk outside to check.
Mike E
@raven: :-P
burnspbesq
OT but potentially really interesting, from the Fish Out Of Water Dept.: Brad DeLong is on sabbatical this year, as a fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, which bills itself as “The Foundation of Entrepreneurship.” I’m sure there are places more different than the Cal economics department, but I’m hard pressed to think of one.
Since the Kaufmann Foundation is a major supporter of NPR, I’m hoping this means that DeLong will get the opportunity to sit in for E.J. Dionne occasionally on Friday afternoon and give Bobo the whacking he so richly deserves.
Turgidson
@Chris:
I admire Dougie’s exemplary work in World War II and at Inchon and all that, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that we dodged a gigantic bullet that it was Ike and not him who decided to aspire to the presidency.
Polar Bear Squares
I’m starting my own Apology Tour. The first apology is to John Cole if I came off harsh today about the Steelers (sorry I hate them fervently). The second is for whenever Allen West opens his mouth. I feel like any black man with a grey flattop needs to be apologized for. Constantly.
DougJ
@burnspbesq:
I hope you are right.
protected static
@Turgidson: Oh, Mac *aspired*. He definitely aspired.
J.D. Rhoades
For some reason this reminds me of the great scene from Season One of “The West Wing” where President Bartlett, after finding out that a friend has been killed in a terrorist attack, loses it and demands that the Joint Chiefs throw away any idea of proportional response and bring down the “Wrath of God” on the perpetrators. John Amos, as Chairman of the JSC, doesn’t bat an eye. He says “give us a minute.” A few minutes later, he comes back and calmly lays out a plan of a massive cruise missile attack on Damascus Airport, then just as calmly lays out the human and civilian cost, saying Bartlett “will have doled out five thousand dollars worth of punishment for a fifty buck crime.” Bartlett sighs, clearly realizing he can’t do that, and goes, “okay, what else we got?”
Sadly, Rep. West would have ended the scene with the Chairman’s plan.
YellowJournalism
Are they sure it wasn’t Adam West in character saying this?
Oh, wait, it wouldn’t sound as crazy.
Dennis SGMM
West is making REMF noises.
mumbly_joe
You know, this sort of statement doesn’t really have *quite* the desired impact unless you punctuate your remarks by banging a shoe on the podium.
Yutsano
@YellowJournalism: Adam West has made a living at mocking his best known role and very clever self-deprecation. Plus, well, he has better hair than Allen.
Hob
A bald eagle? That’s the one that weighs about ten pounds and eats fish, right? I’m sure evildoers everywhere are overcome with fear.
freelancer
@Valdivia:
At first I thought it was a Who reference. Don’t Blink.
1badbaba3
@BGinCHI: De Mo-Nay! De Mo-Nay!
lamh35
Late night posting, looks like Wisconsin will be sending the first openly gay member to the Senate, if this video has anything to do with it!
Bonus Quote of the Day
Lavocat
Is this dude compensating er what?
Also, too: Lighten up, Francis!
Another Halocene Human
Speaking of people progressives love to hate, I went to Act Blue’s BlueAmerica12 page which has challengers for Cantor, Ryan, and Alan Grayson, who has raised assloads of cash. However, there is someone on the page who has raised very little. Can anyone tell me about:
Aryanna Strader
PA-16
I chucked in a little change to the NC lady. Should I add her, too?
casey
“The Angel of Death in the form of an American Bald Eagle will visit you”
What happened is a stagehand in an old Slayer t-shirt stumbled in front of the teleprompter and West was forced to describe what he saw instead of his prepared remarks.
danielx
Allen West…Alan Keyes…I’m detecting a trend here. What is it with these guys?
Also, too…Rep. West’s frothings probably aren’t exactly a surprise to anybody. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but for the past ten years the powers that be have made it pretty clear that anybody who looks at the U.S. funny is considered a legitimate target. One percent doctrine and all that good shit.
1badbaba3
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.): Virginia Fox, asshat out of (North) Carolina. And the secretary of the he-man woman-haters club Joe (not the cool one) Walsh.
I’d come up with more but, you know, projectile vomiting.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Also Bunuel, but the mirror image of “Exterminating Angel.” In “Discreet Charm,” they can’t get to the dinner party and end up wandering. In “Exterminating Angel,” they mysteriously can’t leave the dinner party and it essentially turns into a surrealist’s version of Lifeboat.
Joel
@lamh35: Dazed and Confused had a veritable who’s who of the nineties. For rom-coms, Singles was of the same era, presaged the grunge era and had a Pearl Jam cameo…
hells littlest angel
West should friend Ahmedinejad on FaceBook. They’d get along great.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@General Stuck: I think Revelations has many interpretations and fuckers like West ARE the tribulations. There’s certainly no rational explanation for the crazy shit they say.
JR in WV
@Chris:
Dude,
No one is scarier than Curtis LeMay. No one.
Preemptive nuclear war?
Oh, yes! No one!
mai naem
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Annette Bening would be a good Anne Romney – just imagine her with longer hair and Warren Beatty actually would make a good Mitt. Jake Gylenhaal would make a good Paul Ryan.
Brachiator
@lamh35:
Didn’t realize that Kiera K was in Love Actually before Pirates. Interesting. She was in an earlier low key holiday Brit ensemble movie called New Years Eve.
I’m sure that others can come up with more related films, but there must have been cycles of all star holiday extravaganzas. I suppose also that Love Actually may have a sideways cousin in a film like Four Weddings and a Funeral.
And I suppose that one of the grandaddy’s of the all star ensemble film has got to be Grand Hotel.
Hob
@mai naem: Jake Gyllenhaal is about 10,000 times more attractive than Paul Ryan. That’d be like casting Matt Damon as Howdy Doody.
Hob
@Another Halocene Human: Funny you should ask – that’s my hometown district and I haven’t lived there for many years, but I was just catching up on that race the other day.
The incumbent, Joe Pitts, is one of the most nauseating creatures the GOP has to offer and he’s had that seat for 15 years. Strader is a 29-year-old Iraq vet who runs some kind of technical consulting business, no prior political experience; she’s running on a pretty standard Dem platform with an emphasis on veteran’s issues and reproductive rights. I sure wouldn’t mind seeing her in Congress, but I have to say it’s an incredibly long shot– Pitts is very skilled at pandering equally to social conservatives and amoral Chamber of Commerce types, both of which are very strong around there, and he’s raised an absurd amount of money while Strader’s campaign is so close to penniless that it seems to be barely operating these days and isn’t being taken seriously in the press. But a commenter here recently convinced me not to give up preemptively, and the dream of sending Pitts back to his demon dimension is very appealing, so I gave her some dough.
patrick II
@Brachiator:
“The Big Chill”
The holiday that brought them together was Costner’s funeral.