In other words: Since "Nobama and Hitlery murdered Christopher Stevens for Saul Alinsky" isn't catching on with normal people, it'll be repurposed as a mantra for conservative basement services until 2016, by which time it might be retro enough that people will find it cool.
UPDATE. May I quote me? From those days of Republican Hope and Change, when they thought Obama might be impeached over Benghazi:
"It was the cover-up, as history records, that eventually brought about Nixon's resignation in disgrace," said WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh. "Now, Congress is investigating an alleged cover-up of the terrorist attack Sept. 11, 2012..." Unruh cited some prominent conservatives, including Mike Huckabee and Ted Nugent, who predicted Obama's impeachment. Plus in a separate column Unruh revealed WorldNetDaily's exclusive poll showed 44 percent of Americans wanted Obama impeached -- and that was back in March! The numbers must be off the chart by now...
"The last time something of this magnitude happened, a U.S. president stepped down," said Susan Brown of Right Wing News." "Is Benghazi Becoming a Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Both?" asked Victor Davis Hanson at National Review. "May be the biggest federal cover-up since Watergate," said his colleague Deroy Murdock. And in case the association didn't sufficiently excite, there was the all-purpose slogan: "Nobody died in Watergate."Where are the snowjobs of yesteryear?
UPDATE 2. With Goldberg it never rains but it pours -- or, since it's him, I guess we could say it never farts but it sharts. He has a new Goldberg File column out (no link, I get the wretched things by email), in which he gets philosophical and explains how (I swear to God) Curly in City Slickers was wrong that you should find one thing in life that matters because life requires "balance." He makes several lunges at apposite metaphors for this, finally collapsing into the following:
As you get older you change the mix in your portfolio, in the same way people near retirement move more heavily into bonds and away from stocks.There's a man from whom you want to take life lessons. But why did he even bother?
Now I could swear there was a real point I was building up to... Oh, right, politics isn't everything and everything isn't political.This he demonstrates by telling us liberals suck:
The true danger of progressivism is that it is "one thingism" hiding in the camouflage of diversity talk. Every institution is free to do its thing, so long as its thing is defined in progressive terms and guided by the State. Diversity means lots of people with different skin colors and dangly bits, who all think the same way... For conservatives, diversity actually means different people, individually and in communities, pursuing different things.I don't know why he didn't just say "My name is Ima Liberal, I'm a big four-eyed lame-o and I wear the same stupid sweater every day." I guess prominent conservative intellectuals just can't use that kind of shortcut. Farrrt.
you never know what you don’t know
ReplyDeleteStupid fucker. Always writing his own epitaph.
"(though you never know what you don’t know)."
ReplyDeleteOnce again lack of any evidence is simply proof that the cover-up is greater than previously realized.
I also love that he thinks there is a "still-unfolding scandal at the IRS". Dream big, Doughy. Somebody's gotta fuck that chicken.
Where are the snowjobs of yesteryear?
ReplyDeleteNice. +1
I have sufficient distain for this pudding of an Administration that I'd like to think that if they fucked up, I'd even share in the derision. But holy Jeebus, they are speaking in internal contradictions when they aren't speaking in gibberish. I mean they have such a hard-on for this shit that they even admit that Watergate and Iran-Contra were bad. That the Benghazi cockup was bad is true! But Reagan and Ollie North should have been fucking hanged for Iran-Contra, it was a criminal enterprise run by idiots. Even a robot like McFarland tried to ace himself knowing how fucking terrible it was, while the GOP propped up the little fascist North as a goddamned hero.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP has been a terminal shitshow for 50 years and they are getting worse.
Goldberg: The only real accountability for the Benghazi scandal will have to come in 2016.
ReplyDeleteReading through the competing partisan reports and listening to the congressional testimony of various officials this week, it seems fair to say that no actual crimes were committed (though you never know what you don’t know).
There were, in at least a figurative sense, criminal lapses in judgment by senior officials. Many of those lapses are recounted in the Accountability Review Board report.
Less than 100 words in and he's already undermined whatever fucking point he was trying to make. If no actual crimes were committed, what the fuck is the only real accountability in 2016 going to account for? Figuratively criminal lapses in judgement?
(The stuff in italics is just a little reminder that this is the author of The Tyranny of Clichés, now on sale in paperback. )
I was never even that sure what the outrage was. The conservatives pushing the issue were always plenty vague on what, exactly, the President did or didn't do. By design, I assume.
ReplyDeleteThat picture of William Buckley on the interstitial that the National Review makes you stare at for 30 seconds before you can see the article is terrifying. It looks like Bat Boy grew up in an area with non-flouridated water, then really let himself go in middle age.
ReplyDelete"Because of him. Because of you. We're in this together." Or to put it another way, because of The One, Yes We Can.
"Nobody died in Watergate."
ReplyDeleteDorothy Hunt's briefcase would like a word.
Lest we forget Elliott Abrams, a guy who should be cooling his heels in Den Haag rather than drawing a paycheck from the Council on Foreign Relations. (His critiques of Hillary Clinton at NRO are hilarious, especially considering his demonstrated antipathy towards the value of human life; his is an especially long career in depravity and deranged indifference thereto. Too bad the only piffling crimes of which he'd ever been convicted were pardoned in Bush the Elder's lame duck term.)
ReplyDeleteFuck Godwin., Wasn't that printed in Fraktur over the door of the bunker?
ReplyDeleteI can find something to admire in nearly everyone. In Jonah's case, it's his ability cram nearly anything down the memory hole, so it won't interfere with whatever numbskull point he's trying to make. Today he's managed to shove the 241 servicemen killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing down there, because mumble mumble Reagan something.
ReplyDeleteOn second thought, that's not really admirable. More just obscene.
For conservatives, diversity actually means different people, individually and in communities, pursuing different things.
ReplyDeleteWhy does this bring to mind a bunch of guys on horseback chasing the Scottsboro Boys, or George Zimmerman looking for his dick?
Darrell Issa. The horse's ass pulling the square wheeled wagon to better enhance a good ol' right wing circle jerk. Because when you find something you're really, really good at...
ReplyDeletehe gets philosophical and explains how (I swear to God) Curly in City Slickers was wrong that you should find one thing in life that matters because life requires "balance."
ReplyDeleteLater, Goldberg pontificates on how Bill and Ted were also wrong, since "be excellent to each other" encourages indiscriminate praise and therefore a weakening of America with liberal pieties.
"Is Benghazi Becoming a Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Both?"
ReplyDeleteYes. Both. It has become a scandal perpetrated entirely by Republicans.
Diversity means lots of people with different skin colors and dangly bits, who all think the same way... For conservatives, diversity actually means different people, individually and in communities, pursuing different things.
ReplyDeleteIs this even true in the alternate reality he's posting from?
"Tyranny of Cliches" was a how-to manual, right?
ReplyDeleteGoldberg told me to stay away from that crazy old man Ben Kenobi. Said Kenobi is wrong about the Force; said any "force" that surrounds us and penetrates us and binds us together would be an utter tyranny, destroying Freedom and Empire. Then he talked for 15 minutes about how everyone with a decent midichlorian count is pro-Empire.
ReplyDeleteWe had a nice lunch in Mos Eisley but there's a reason I avoid Tatooine, and it ain't the heat.
Whenever they bring up some ancient, irrelevant film to discuss the finer philosophical points of some random line of dialogue, I always have to either go back and re-read it, or see it quoted in a comment here before the sheer stupidity of it fully sinks in. Is this what conservatives consider scholarly research, as opposed to, say, reading a damn book?
ReplyDeleteOnce again lack of any evidence is simply proof that the cover-up is greater than previously realized.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, like the fact that we've spent years unsuccessfully searching for Saddam's WMD's is actually incontrovertible proof that those stockpiles exist.
Given that society seems to have no use for it I feel like those logic classes I took in college were a huge waste. Shoulda studied marketing or COINTELPRO instead.
In a mind clouded with farts:
ReplyDeleteThree thousand Americans die in a terrorist attack in a major American city: Republican President is the Defender of the Free World!
Four people killed in Libya: The Negrocrat is a criminal!
I think that some of the smarter people in the GOP caucus (I mean smarter by the standards of their cohort) might have figured out that the whole "accountability" thing might be a two-edged sword. As far as Doughy is concerned, of course, accountability is, like transvaginal ultrasounds, something bad that happens to other people.
ReplyDeleteThey are not cliches when they come from Goldberg. They are fine ringing phrases, never before used with such elegance or force.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, as long as they all worship Christ and hate gays, poors, immigrants, women, etc. As long as the different people are invisible and voiceless, conservative diversity works like a charm. Reminds me of a baseball game I once attended where the supposedly nondenominational blessing ended with "In the name of all people of all faiths, we pray to you, Christ Jesus!"
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that their ongoing attempt to redefine believing that all people are created equal as intolerant fascist groupthink is, well, breathtaking. Their evil geniuses definitely have ours beat by miles.
The true danger of progressivism is that it is "one thingism" hiding in the camouflage of diversity talk.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I realize that this has been a key part of Goldberg's routine for the better part of a decade, but...seriously dude, which side is it that's bringing politics into everything? The obvious place to go would be entertainment, with dozens of conservative culture blogs devoted to assigning partisan meaning to every television show ever aired, but I think education is a better example. There's a recent trend of conservative education reform advocates taking fairly arcane issues of pedagogy and trying to make them into partisan issues, which can become downright surreal at times. I can't tell you how many times I've heard some loon go off on a tear about how whole word language being a part of some grand liberal philosophical scheme. It's weird.
Goldberg's go-to issue on this is public health - y'know, because liberals think people would be healthier if they exercise and eat well. It's especially funny in light of last week, when the First Lady gave a very common sense, not remotely partisan piece of advice and the response was "LIBERALS WANT PEOPLE TO DRINK WATER UNTIL THEY DIE ARGLEBARGLE!" Honestly, if the blue team says "A healthy, balanced diet would be good for everyone," and the read team says "Oh, that's what they want you to think," then which side is it that's politicizing the issue?
Is "As you get older you change the mix in your portfolio," Goldberg's way of saying he's stopped eating bacon at every meal?
ReplyDeleteBecause cover-up. How the hell are they supposed to know what to impeach him for if he keeps covering everything up? Now that 44% of Americans responding to an exclusive poll want him impeached, they're feeling a lot of heat to find a way to get it done with less than 3 years left to do it. Tick, tick, tick... so damn nerve-wracking being a rightie.
ReplyDeleteIs that where the dangly bits come into play?
ReplyDelete"Now I could swear there was a real point I was building up to..." and subsequently undercut and abandon.
ReplyDeleteNRO's having a fund raiser. The comments below the pitch reminisce about the bleached magnificence of John Derbyshire, Martyred White Man. Until he is returned to NROdum, some cannot contribute dollars. Lowry would be wise to substitute Kim du Toit so that he can reclaim at least 30% of his screen real estate from the advertisers.
ReplyDeleteWell, when you see what he did to the word "fascism," redefining "criminal" as "no actual crime committed but I don't like it" is pretty tame.
ReplyDeleteSort of. It's his way of saying his doctor told him to do so, but because his doctor isn't the boss of him he's eating twice as much.
ReplyDeleteIt won't kill him, it'll just make him drive everyone else's premiums up.
As expressed by David Levine for the NY Review of Books:
ReplyDeleteA 7.5x10.5 art print on heavy white archival paper with matte black wood-composite frame and acid-free archival mat is yours for only $150.
well...the evil part, anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for "all liberals are totally different except they all think alike (presumably politically), so they must be crazy, stupid, evil hypocrites" is a bit like claiming that the conference hall full of international mathematicians may seem to be culturally diverse, but they all think 2+2=4!!!ZOMG--GROOPTNIHK!!
This is just the old "you're intolerant of my intolerance" gag; only this time it's I'm the independent oppressed thinker because your notion of diversity is now commonplace, and my asshole notion that different people suck is now the only diversity left in the realm of diversification. Mwahahahahah...gotcha now liebruhls! the Logic of Pantload is irrefutable!
Well, as Jonah the Fail famously pointed out after publication of his first Magnum Dopus, Liberal Facism, the fact that the dictionary says he's wrong is central to his point.
ReplyDeleteAlternate shorter: "Sure, I undermine the points I'm trying to make, but that's only because those points are not supportable! And that proves how right I am!"
Evidently Issa is a cheap date. It only costs $40,000 to buy congressional time investigating whatever you would like to be a scandal.
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously beginning to wonder if he's a performance artist. The Star Trek obsessiveness seems like a possible tell.
ReplyDeleteDamn, that captures his sorry ass perfectly.
ReplyDeleteThere you go with your Groupthink that "words" are supposed to mean something specific, and not just fill the gaps between my name and The End, so I can get paid.
ReplyDeleteWingnuts always Blame America...it's never the terrorists' fault
ReplyDeleteStop calling me a crypto-Nazi, you queer, or I'll suck the last thistle seed out of your bird-feeder!
ReplyDeleteAs you get older you change the mix in your portfolio, in the same way
ReplyDeletepeople near retirement move more heavily into bonds and away from
stocks.
Yes, I was just commenting to Mumsy how positively ghastly it is to spend hours on the phone with the broker managing my inheritance.
Isn't "Unruh" what Scooby-Doo says when he's pretending to listen to what you're saying?
ReplyDeleteSetting aside Johan's skeevy attempt to flatter his audience with the implication that they all rely on the interest from their investments (it is so infra-dig to work for a living), does his investment advice make any sense in its own terms?
ReplyDeleteGreat Bizarro cartoon, big snake coiled up atop the microwave: "They say you shouldn't put metal in the microwave. Why don't they want you to put metal in the microwave?"
ReplyDeleteYes. People move investments to less risky places when the closer they are to retirement.
ReplyDeleteIf you're 22 and your nest egg is $1000, you might as well swing for the fences and put it in a high risk/potentially high return investment. If you're 70 and you have several hundred k+, you don't want to put everything into a marmot farm.
My god, it's Maggie Thatcher. . .
ReplyDeleteGoldberg just wanted the chance to say "dangly bits". He's seen it on TV and on liberal blogs, and he thought it was both funny and knowing, and damn, he wants a piece of that....
ReplyDeleteDuly noted.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I thought his whole "portfolio management" point had to do with who you have as friends, and that at some point you have to cut some of those dogs loose before they make you look bad down at the clubhouse.
ReplyDeleteSince he makes as much sense as he usually does, I'm going to stand by my assumption and dare anyone to prove me wrong, or prove that Jonah makes any sense at all.
"Every institution is free to do its thing, so long as its thing is defined in progressive terms and guided by the State."
ReplyDeleteHis distraction has defeated him. What he meant to say is, "Every institution is free to do its thing, so long as its thing is defined in conservative terms and guided by the Market." Points for trying and a trophy for Participation. Good job!
If you're gonna do it Jonah-style, you need to ask if there's anyone out there who'd be willing to dare to be proved wrong, because you're too busy washing Cheetos dust out of the dog's fur to do it.
ReplyDeleteFor conservatives, diversity actually means different people, individually and in communities, pursuing different things.
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ, they have purity purges on a weekly basis, and a chorus of "no true Scotsman" fallacies accompanies the drumming out of the apostates. Conservatives don't even have a hive mind, they have a hive ass that they pull their bullshit out of.
I think he's just a dumbass who's out of his element as soon as he strays from pop culture.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the nutria teeth.
ReplyDeleteThey must know that nobody takes this crap seriously any more. My hypothesis is that saying "Benghazi" is the signal that replaced foot tapping and wide stances after Larry Craig ruined it for everybody.
ReplyDeleteHe would have killed that spider just by looking at it....and then eaten it!
ReplyDeleteWhat is an "exclusive poll" anyway? One where they only ask rich, trendy or well connected people what they think? Or one where they only ask people who agree with them? Even then, they couldn't get a majority to go along with their bullshit!
ReplyDeleteBut he's never seen any in person, except maybe his own (if his belly is not in the way).
ReplyDeleteIt's not as if WND has the money to pay a pollster... it's safe to bet that here 'poll' means 'invitation to the readers to click on a button'.
ReplyDeleteHe makes several lunges at apposite metaphors for this, finally collapsing into the following
ReplyDeleteSo society requires true diversity, "different people ... pursuing different things." Therefore it is mistaken for any one individual to focus on a single goal.
FATAL COHERENCE ERROR DETECTED
I will take your word for it, but I am not seeing the logic. Were I approaching retirement, and I had no retirement fund because I had invested half in a tech bubble and bet the other half on the zero, it would make little difference whether I had lost it six months ago or 45 years ago. An investment with an unacceptable returns / risk ratio is unacceptable at any age.
ReplyDeleteIn the interests of full disclosure: I am risk-averse and only bet on sure things.
The blood is the life!
ReplyDeleteIn the parallel universe where Gore was president on 9/11, the Republicans would have been drafting impeachment proceedings before the second plane hit.
ReplyDeleteDiversity means lots of people with different skin colors and dangly bits, who all think the same way
ReplyDeleteOh, honey, no.
W'all, shit, if there's any covering up in the Benghazi business, it's probably at the behest of the CIA, because they were up to things that they certainly didn't want made public. That's something of which, under a Good Strong White Daddy Republican President, Der Pantload would have heartily and vociferously approved.
ReplyDeleteBecause he knows this, Doughy instead sort of drifts off into vague arglebargle about diversity, which is his standard fallback when his arguments end up in a puddle on his shoes, as they invariably do.
I don't think it's a secret these days that all that's required of a conservative public intellectual to receive praise and continuing wingnut welfare is to pay attention to the spellchecker and to avoid obvious grammatical errors and to attempt some sort of name-calling. Actual transmission of the product of considered thought has nothing to do with it, whatsoever. Our Jonah is the poster boy for this particular conservative illness. When the NRO has a fund drive, they might as well call it "Buckley's Kids."
What Jonah and his sandbox-mates don't realize is that if they keep tugging on the Benghazi ball of string, they will uncover CIA activity in Libya. Given that the Agency notoriously played all sides (and had alumni who worked for Khaddafi--see Edwin P. Wilson), I don't think they're going to find much Hillary hilarity there.
ReplyDeleteOh, they wrote up articles of impeachment for non-President Gore as it is. You can never be too safe.
ReplyDeleteI also love that he thinks there is a "still-unfolding scandal at the IRS".
ReplyDeleteWatching rightbloggers prop up the IRS scandal is like that firth "Weekend at Bernie's" movie, the one where Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman tell everyone that Bernie's grey-green skin and empty eye sockets are just a result of his new diet.
Oh, Jonah's not likely to uncover anything. He's got all the investigative skills of Barney Fife. This is a guy who couldn't find his own ass with both hands, a map, a flashlight, GPS, a homing beacon and an anatomy professor. And, it's pretty damned big target.
ReplyDeleteBut, point taken, as I suggested. If there's anything that got things boogered up in Benghazi, it was likely some manner of CIA bungling due lack of situational awareness and institutional arrogance. The one thing they simply do not do is admit error.
Nevertheless, it's almost a truism today that Doughy and his ilk willfully prefer to see a Clinton as the target, even though the blame surely lies elsewhere, and the most obvious place to look for it is among the spooks.
and damn, he wants a piece of that
ReplyDeleteHow unfortunate for him.
I would like to echo this comment in unthinking liberal conformity.
ReplyDeleteWith his insistence that "when liberals say 'diversity' they really mean 'uniformity', and their 'tolerance' is really the worst form of intolerance'," Goldberg is what happens when you combine epistemic closure with the Paranoid Style.
I think that already came out in Issa's hearings. US intel activities lost their cover. Anyone else would have been embarrassed.
ReplyDeleteRoy had me at ubi sunt.
ReplyDeleteA perfect mashup between Gollum and Peter Pettigrew from the Harry Potter books.
ReplyDeleteJonah did once try to write something that involved reading a couple of books without pictures. He honestly believed it was a staggering work of heartbreaking genius, and the fact that American intellectual history wasn't immediately divided into pre- and post-LIBERAL FASCISM eras seems to have permanently soured him.
ReplyDelete"It never farts but it sharts" ManOManOMan. THAT is one for the Ages.
ReplyDeleteSad but true, public health is a favorite whipping boy of wingnuts in general. I took a public health class a few years ago and on the first day the professor was acquainting us with the field. She showed a slide of great historical public health successes and I realized it was basically a laundry list of things wingnuts oppose: fluoridation, public education about nutrition, etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteThere were some things on there that you see opposed from the left side, too, such as pasteurization of milk and vaccinations, but I lay the blame for the anti-science roots of that horseshit at the wingnuts' feet too.
"...dangly bits"
ReplyDeleteAww... that's just so PRECIOUS...
Just working on my own experience here, but ladies don't dangle much, do they?
ReplyDeletehe is definitely on the same side...
ReplyDelete...if inadvertently.
"...though you never know what you don't know."
ReplyDeleteNot true. "There are the known unknowns," remember?
"...though you never know what you don't know."
ReplyDeleteNot true. "There are the known unknowns,", remember?
"Today's Best Hits Without The Rap" is more Goldberg's variation.
ReplyDeleteDIVERSITY!!! BLACK BLACK BLACKITY-BLACK OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!!!
ReplyDeleteAttention Goldberg et al: Feel free to cut and paste the above, since it is the substance of every fucking thing you have ever written or ever will.
Zuzu i love you.
ReplyDeleteFor conservatives, diversity actually means different people, individually and in communities, pursuing different things.
ReplyDeleteAnd the knowledge that one of these things is correct and the rest are murder-worthy heresies. But at least conservatives don't express mild disapproval.
Playing all the hits, you say? well i was going to parody "Losing my religion" but damn!
ReplyDeleteConsider this
The hint of the century
Consider this
The slip that brought me
To my knees failed
What if all these fantasies
Come flailing around
Now I've said too much
That is your actual Goldbergensis right there
They're a bunch of hive-ass turkeys.
ReplyDeleteThe central thesis of that book seemed to be "If you assume these things that are *totally not true*, then there's no way I'm wrong." Watching him get shirty and snitty while a hundred academics shredded that book was one of the highlights of my online reading to date, right up there with Richard Lenski shredding Andy Schlafly over evolution.
ReplyDeleteUpvoted for the ass stuff.
ReplyDeleteMaybe YOU don't, but I like to live life on the edge.
ReplyDeleteNitpick: While the Nationalsocialists initially pushed Fraktur, they later turned towards other typefaces like Antiqua.
ReplyDeleteAn investment with an unacceptable returns / risk ratio is unacceptable at any age.
ReplyDeleteYes, but I guess the point THE CLICHE speaks to is that the ratio of what is acceptable slowly changes over time.
If that meant he were swearing in a court of law, he just perjured himself.
ReplyDeleteNot really. I had to move all my 401(k) money out of bonds when interest rates started going up. The problem is, the bond funds all had positions in low-interest bonds, which became unattractive investments once higher-interest bonds became available.
ReplyDelete(Sorry if that's clear as mud. You don't invest directly in bonds, you invest in the market for bond purchases.)
i agree with you!! why always the terorist problem is less important... and Americas need of war is most proper to talk about!
ReplyDelete__________________
braila anunturi
Someday, if we're lucky, Goldberg will emit such a mighty fart that he launches himself into the sun.
ReplyDelete