“They” in this case refers to the mouthpiece for he whom Charles Pierce indelibly dubbed the C-plus Augustus, one Dana Perino, who complained that in some photographs of President Obama’s visit to Stonehenge, ” he’s standing alone.”
Why is this a problem for the former White House Press Secretary, who, in that job, got to watch her boss amble past a global financial melt down? It’s obvious!
I don’t think that’s a good optic. [via TPM]
You know what’s scariest about this latest Fox News craptasm? Perino was actually the least insane voice in the conversation. The other two hacktaculars on air with her were upset that Obama had the effrontery to stop by the monument at all, where as Perino, at least, thought it OK for a President to get a few minutes at the site.
But dear FSM, give me strength. I take a couple of messages from this bit of foolishness.
First, again, Peak Wingnut lies in Cantor territory:* it infinitely retreats, to be approached but never reached. Second, last time I looked there were actual problems in the world, here at home and abroad as well. Just one or two. Our society formally locates the process of addressing such problems in our political system. It would help if those who interpret politics for the public actually connected their analysis to anything real.
Instead, we get a Stonehengegazi.**
When future historians wonder just how it was we were able to trigger the afterburners in the power dive of our republic, the transcript of this little snippet will give them a clue.
*Georg, not Eric.
**Saw that in a tweet. Wish I’d thought of it myself. Actually, no I don’t.
Image: Ma Yuan, Walking on a Path in Spring, before roughly 1225.
Trollhattan
Am sure they would have prefered he be photographed at Stonehenge clad in an aloha shirt–a really gaudy one–holding a 3-wood.
“Now, watch this drive.”
“Fox News, the network of and for the incredibly tiny.”
scav
Dana’s just confused by a president that has to visit large rocks, rather than carry them about permantly between the ears.
PhoenixRising
…umm. Wait. So I don’t have to sully my beautiful mind watching FOX, can someone help me out with this? Why are they unhappy Obama went to Stonehenge?
Do they believe it has magical ritual powers which will offer him a 3rd term, or perhaps pagan connotations? Do they think the Secret Service gave him an optional add-on to his tour of the UK, and he picked this over personally garrotting an ISIS jihadi in a pub in the East End?
Suffern ACE
I actually went to Stonehenge yesterday for the first time in 25 years. I was just going to post up about how it would have been cool to be there at the same time. I had no idea this was a shitstorm already.
Anyway, the locals are happy.
JPL
How many more gazis before they impeach the President?
Mnemosyne
Lamh37 posted this video welcoming the president to Wales a few days ago. Man, that’s a pretty country. It did freak me out to have a Soviet spy be the first guy shown on screen, though. ;-)
Cacti
Now that BP has been found grossly negligent in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it’s a good time to remember that Rand Paul said criticism of BP was un-American, and that sometimes, accidents just happen.
Snarki, child of Loki
@PhoenixRising: The crypto-islamic acolyte of Rev. Wright was at Stonehenge to perform a secret Druid ritual that would make the US Conservatives completely barking mad.
And see? It WORKED!!
Librarian
Let me guess – they’re objecting because it’s a pagan monument?
Patrick
@Cacti:
Let’s not forget this character:
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the committee, apologized to Hayward for what he described as a “shakedown” at the White House yesterday. He was referring to the deal worked out between the Obama administration and BP to set up a $20 billion fund administered by a third party to pay for damages from the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I apologize,” Barton told Hayward. “I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is — again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”
Ruckus
@Librarian:
No, they are complaining because they think he should be there to clean it, not stand in front of it,
beingacting like the leader of the free world.PhoenixRising
@Snarki, child of Loki: Unless they also used time travel, how would that work? Hypothetically?
shelley
Ya know, at this point, don’t even try to figure it out. Let’s try to keep what little shreds of sanity we have left.
burnspbesq
@Patrick:
Former Rep. Paul is correct that sometimes accidents do just happen. However, the Deepwater Horizon disaster was not one of those times.
On the other hand, Rep. Barton is an absolute ignoramus. In other words, exactly the kind of representation in Congress that the people of Texas both avidly desire and richly deserve. I am so sick of that fucking state and nearly all its inhabitants.
We do need a border fence, but we need it along the Red, not the Rio Grande.
Villago Delenda Est
@shelley: Well, I think it’s painfully obvious why they were unhappy.
He was blah while visiting it.
Elizabelle
Did you see this tweet from a British family that posed with Obama near Stonehenge? Found this via the Guardian. It’s a sweet tweet. I bet he loved seeing them too.
And Dana Perino can eat mah druids. If you can’t say anything nice … you definitely have a place in Republican politics.
Patrick
Funny coming from Perino, considering her boss stood in front of that now infamous “Mission Accomplished” sign…
Patrick
@burnspbesq:
Amen!
Mike in NC
Stonehenge? We really haven’t seen “Spinal Tap” in a very long time. Maybe this weekend….
burnspbesq
Pound-for-pound, who is the biggest nincompoop: Joe Barton, Steve Stockman, or Louie Gohmert?
Roger Moore
@PhoenixRising:
Because Obama.
Archon
We laugh at them but I think people have underestimated the damage Fox news is doing to this country. We have a significant percentage of American voters who have a fundamentally different (and insidious) reality then non-fox news watchers.
Elizabelle
Here’s another link to the Brit family tweet. They apparently figured out Obama was likely to visit Stonehenge and hung out in a nearby field.
The earlier link had pics of an Obama motorcade limo, traversing the English countryside.
I am glad he gets to get out a bit and see the world, even under Secret Service conditions.
Wasn’t Perino’s boss Bush the lesser famous for being rich enough to travel wherever he might choose, in his pre-politicking days, but not doing so? That speaks to a real lack of curiosity.
Travel is one of the best uses of money. Evah. Does not have to be that fancy. You just need to get out there.
PurpleGirl
@Snarki, child of Loki: And it was retro-active. He used his time machine again.
PhoenixRising
@burnspbesq: All of ’em, Katie.
Srsly, though, no one can out-stupid Louie Gohmert. Gohmert should be a verb, meaning ‘to expound nonsensically on a topic about which you are both misinformed and spiteful’.
Shakezula
According to the wingnut rules of hysteria, one African-American is a conspiracy. If Michelle had been in the shot it would be a gang. Add the daughters and you have a riot.
Elizabelle
@Archon:
Yeah. I agree. Fox News is nothing to laugh off, because it does encourage unreason, and it’s insidious.
It steals grandparents, makes crazy uncles bolder, and drives polarization that makes this country much harder to govern.
burnspbesq
We need to get a pool going: Guess McDonnell’s sentence, to the nearest month.
I say 30.
maya
Obama just wanted to see the place where Tess of the D’ubervilles was apprehended.
Anonymous Coward
This is very weird, because I was interviewed by Fox News today (about something totally nonpolitical), and I was having deep moral qualms about even being in the building. But I figured that if I can say something worthwhile, there would at least be that.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq: Trick question. The correct answer, IMO, is “Steve King”.
At least Texas is a large state, with a huge & mixed population. Iowa — forgive me, those of you who love it — is a holding pen for white rural geriatrics & christianists whose politicians mistake their “first in the nation” primary status as something other than a feeding tube for consultants and the worst of the Village Media idiots.
SatanicPanic
@Archon: At least they’re old. Unfortunately they vote. Fortunately they aren’t going to start the revolution they keep yapping about.
Elizabelle
@Suffern ACE:
Have a feeling the Raffles have their Christmas card pic for this year!
Uncle Cosmo
Does not. It lies smack in the middle of the Eric Cantor set–the collection of all things unaccountably infinitesimal.
gbear
Jeez, the guy was trying to find a place to take a leak. Sometimes nature calls.
Not everyone can get by with a ‘Who’s Next’ album cover shot…
maya
@burnspbesq: Yes.
Baud
@Archon:
The damage Fox News does isn’t making people crazy. The damage is making crazy people focused and organized against all that is good and right.
Suffern ACE
“Later that day, the president was overheard saying “yeah, I also like Fox’s Golden Crunch Creams better than digestives, and even Oreos.” And thus ended his time as president of the US and began his ascendancy to the world dictatorship.
AkaDad
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Funny, he doesn’t look Druish.
dmsilev
Also, the phrase “a good optic” should only be used when describing the quality of an individual lens or mirror element. Maybe a polarizer.
OK, if it’s a polarizer then Fox bots clearly are good optics.
Elizabelle
Ok, I read the TPM link and Dana Perino specifically said she didn’t mind that Obama spent 20 minutes touring Stonehenge. She just thought he should have had David Cameron and others along for the visit. For the “optics.”
And her type will never get it, but maybe some of the Fox News audience at home might.
Some things — like Stonehenge — might be best contemplated alone, thinking of the past and flow of cultures and ages.
I think some of the WWII vets in the audience (if they watch The Five, doubtful) might wonder about how best to revisit a battlefield or other meaningful historical site.
Is it more meaningful with a troupe of constipated seniors bussed in, or might you want to stand there in solitude, with your thoughts.
Perino et al don’t get the value of solitude, and being President has to be one of the loneliest jobs in the world.
I hope the Obamas are laughing at Stonehengegate. It’s predictable, and pathetic.
Iowa Old Lady
Isn’t Perino the one who had to look up the Cuban Missile Crisis because she didn’t know what it was?
bemused
@Baud:
The damage is that Fox gives all the crazies a place they call home, sweet, home.
Dog On Porch
Consider the source (and I don’t mean Perino).
Perino was anointed by GW Bush to represent himself, his administration, and by extension, the American people, to the world. Afterwards– I repeat, afterwards– she betrayed her profound ignorance of recent history, confusing (conflating) the Bay of Pigs fiasco with the Cuban missile crisis.
Someone, please post that picture of Reagan hamming it up by placing his head atop the [decapitated] terra-cotta figure of an ancient Chinese warrior.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Well played, sir.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Dick Armey brags about not having a passport: “I’ve been to Europe, I don’t need to go back”. I think it was in ’02 or ”04 the “proud not to have a passport” thing was a minor part of more than one GOP campaign– the “chocolate-making” countries betrayed us. I must have had at least half a dozen encounters/overhearings of Americans in Europe who feel the need to tell people, anyone, total strangers, just how un-impressed they are with the “buncha churches and museums”
I don’t know if Fox changes many minds, I think it does make people angrier and more self-righteous about things they already think/believe/feel, and their demo happens to overlap with the most reliable voters in the country.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Not sure the payoff was worth the setup, if you get my drift.
Nerd.
scav
OT and the AF Holy Rollers are off again, in one of their non-sexual orgies. Whoops! Somehow in late Oct 2013 they did away with the option of not swearing to a “God” in their active duty oath, but changing it back requires congressional approval or some such nonsense. Nice to know these are the good godly fanatics with weapons (password 00000) only vaguely under govt control. When they feel like it.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Jeez, don’t encourage him!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You get my vote for thread winner
PurpleGirl
@Elizabelle:
Is it more meaningful with a troupe of constipated seniors bussed in, or might you want to stand there in solitude, with your thoughts.
Have you ever the movie 12-O’Clock High? It starts with one of the American officers making a trip to England to the place of the air base his squadron flew out of. As he walks around the concrete pads, he starts seeing the buildings, men and then the actual story starts. The former officer is thinking about the war, the bombers and the men and what the war did to them all. It’s a very good and meaningful framing for the story.
SFAW
@bemused:
Damage? I was just thinking that, if you get them all into one place, a small tactical nuke might solve a shitload of America’s problems. Would certainly save on the expense of allowing Dumbfuckistan to secede.
SFAW
@PurpleGirl:
Dean Jagger, won an Oscar for it. Great movie, great psychological study, great management treatise, worked on a number of levels.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
She claims she was joking. I’m not sure how plausible I find her claim.
Dog On Porch
@SFAW: That response serves to differentiate your world view from today’s typical republican voter. Tactical nukes destroy property. Neutron bombs don’t.
Make no mistake, that is a calculated slander on the intelligence of any American stupid enough to either vote republican, or accord them so much as a shred of aid and/or comfort.
WereBear
Yes. So I would think she is not good at history. Much less the concept of contemplation.
PurpleGirl
@SFAW: Yes, I really like that movie and can rewatch it over and over. It had a great cast and they all performed very well. One of the movies that influenced how I view life and war.
skerry
@WereBear: Worse than that.
She didn’t look it up – that would have taken effort. She asked her British husband. He told her about it.
SFAW
@Dog On Porch:
Reasonable point to make. I had considered it, but decided that it would be OK to destroy the property of those treasonous/seditious bastards, if for no other reason than to set an example.
OK, well, I didn’t really think that, but it’s the best ex post facto rationalization I could come up with.
Poopyman
@Anne Laurie: The longest decade of my life was my year of grad school at U of I.
bemused
Fox and fans are really one huge insane asylum but the inmates are scattered all over the country concentrated heavily in the South. That would call for drones.
SFAW
@PurpleGirl:
Yeah, I watched it (again) a few weeks ago. About a week after that, I was tooling around near a regional airport, and one of those traveling air shows had a B-17 open to the public. (“Traveling airshow” in this case meant they will give you a ride in one for $400-$800, although it costs more if you insist on dropping one or more bombs while you’re up there.) So of course I had to stop in. (They wouldn’t take my IOU for the bombing-run payment, unfortunately. And I thought I heard the flight engineer say something about “the psycho-lookin’ bastard” when he was pointing at the guy next to me.)
dmsilev
@SFAW:
I’ve long since come to terms with that.
Cervantes
@Tom Levenson:
Actually, “gazi” is an old Arabic word for “gate.”
SFAW
@bemused:
Bullshit. You just announce an Obama-flaying Party in Houston or Dallas or Armadillo or Irving or Louie Gohmert’s home town. They’ll flock to it like something-that-flocks-to-a-single-location-but-I-can’t-think-of-what-at-the-moment.
I mean, you can use drones (or DROONNEZZZZ) to herd them dogies into a sufficiently small area, if you really feet the need, I guess.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Me too (re: my own nerdiness). Of course, I’m pretty sure you’re significantly higher on the technical/scientific/engineering expertise continuum than I am, so at that level, it’s OK. My level, not so much.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
I can’t tell if you’re being serious.
AkaDad
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I couldn’t pass up on a good Spaceballs reference.
Cervantes
@Patrick: The “Mission Accomplished” foolishness took place in 2003. Perino became Deputy Press Secretary in 2005.
Cervantes
@SFAW: That’s good.
(I wasn’t.)
Cervantes
@AkaDad:
!
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
I would recommend poisoning the water supply instead to minimize the property damage. You could also play a recording of gunshots to convince them to start killing each other.
Bill E Pilgrim
Wait, what are they unhenged about now?
Elizabelle
@PurpleGirl:
Have not seen 12-O’clock High. It goes on the viewing list. Thanks for the head’s up.
ETA: And it does have Gregory Peck, as I thought. TCM runs it a few times each year. From 1949.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_O'Clock_High
WaterGirl
@burnspbesq: I’m going with “not long enough”, and I’m pretty sure I’ll win.
Roger Moore
@Dog On Porch:
This is actually a piece of old Soviet propaganda; they were trying to portray neutron bombs as a capitalist weapon that killed people and let the capitalists come in and claim the property. What neutron bombs were designed to do was to kill the occupants of things that were highly resistant to nuclear blasts, like bunkers and tanks. Neutrons could pass through the walls and kill the occupants even though the blast wasn’t enough to destroy the structure. But that was for things that were deliberately nuclear hardened; ordinary buildings would be leveled by the blast.
Mike G
“I said 18′ !”
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq:
85% of 30 months would be about 2 years. That sounds good. I think our former Governor might get the point, with a sentence that long.
Patrick
@Cervantes:
Yes, I know that very well. Here’s once again what I wrote:
Funny coming from Perino, considering her boss stood in front of that now infamous “Mission Accomplished” sign…
Kyle
Whereas Dan Peroxide’s whiny, insecure, egotistic old boss would never be photographed next to something bigger than himself unless it was a weapon to kill furriners. Bush would only stand next to a Stonehenge monument model in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
Mike in NC
@SFAW: Courtesy of our financial planner, we got to fly in the B-17 ‘Aluminum Overcast’ twice, for free.
SFAW
@Mike in NC:
Neato. You get to bomb anything? If so, what? If not – why not?
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
It’s true that “ordinary” buildings would be leveled by the local detonation of a neutron bomb — but it’s also true that the devastation due to blast and heat would be relatively confined.
Just One More Canuck
@Mnemosyne: dammit I was hoping it was this guy
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5L213Ip_Dg4/Sl9lr3M8PGI/AAAAAAAAEvg/TscEFJCHneo/s400/Boris+Badenov.jpg
Dog On Porch
@SFAW: Random life experiences with war and America:
The infamous big lies that perpetuated the War in Vietnam.
Americans being reassured that neutron bomb “research” will not be tolerated. Never. Next question.
The war to divert attention from the slaughter of Marines in Beirut.
Green light, red light with the CIA’s man in Baghdad, Saadam.
Slightly off topic– the infamous Admiral Poindexter being fired by GW Bush, for the sailor’s laughably simplistic allusions to our National Security Inc. racketeers.
Finally, the treason of March 2003.
The above mentioned breed of cat are today itching to shed even more blood, unleash even more slaughter. They can taste it, it’s so close.
Cervantes
@Patrick:
Yes, that is, again, what you wrote.
I don’t much care for Perino. Did you know that in 2010 the president appointed her to the federal Broadcasting Board of Governors, at the urging of Mitch McConnell?
Jebediah, RBG
@Cervantes:
Well, I am sure it was done in good faith. I am sure that, in all the land, she was the most qualified for the position.
bmoak
@burnspbesq: Blake Farenthold.
Cervantes
@Jebediah, RBG: Hence the title of the post.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Outstanding, wish I had thought of that one.
I think a holygram of Cleavon Little (“Hey, where are the white women at?”) would add to it. Or it would, if there were any racist Tea Baggers, which I’m told there aren’t.
SFAW
@bmoak:
Dean Wormer admonished the wrong guy.
Emma
@Elizabelle: If you’re staying at a friendly b&b the first thing they tell you is to get to Stonehenge while everyone else is still having breakfast. Go in at the earliest time you can. Having it to yourself with a tour guide must be amazing.
Digital Amish
Next up on Fox. “Obama, Secret Druid?”
jl
Yeah, well Perrino, or that pompous bald doofus pop up kibbitzing and what do expect? If Obama is alone he is a megalomaniac, and if had people with next to him it would not be intrepid brave and presidential and missed photo op that might turn into a make or break presidential crisis.
At least Perino is more pleasant about it than whathisname, and so can provide some amusement.
katie5
“Peak Wingnut ….infinitely retreats, to be approached but never reached” I dub thee asymptotic wingnuttery.
Groucho48
12 O’Clock High is a great movie. For folks who like it, I’d also recommend The Dawn Patrol, which is kind of a WW1 version of 12 O’Clock High.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_Patrol_(1938_film)
bad Jim
What’s the meaning of Stonehenge?
Eric
@JPL: Not until he has a real “gate” to his name.
Eric
“I don’t think it’s a good optic”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/optic
*slow clap*
Fred
First he wears a tan suit on TV and now he stands alone, by himself, with nobody around (besides a mob of Secret Service, news hounds, onlookers, etc.) and he does it in a foreign country too. America hides her head in shame.
Thank God he wasn’t wearin’ that awful tan suit while he wuz doin’ wut he wuz doin’.
SFAW
@Fred:
Good point. Had he done so, the laws of physics might have been breached (or not), and a blah hole created. Which would only be fitting, given who we’re talkin’ ’bout, IYKWIMAITYD.
sm*t cl*de
I don’t think that’s a good optic.
In UK pubs, an ‘optic’ is the whisky / spirits dispenser that the bottle screws into. That’s probably what Perino was thinking of.