While alicubi.com undergoes extensive elective surgery, its editors pen somber, Shackletonian missives from their lonely arctic outpost.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...
...about the Chris Christie GWB thing and its interesting side-effect: A Strange New Respect from rightbloggers who find that, RINO or no, he's still no Obama and that's good enough for them.
Well, if JMM is on to something with that "billion dollar development" in Ft Lee, literally at the foot of the GWB, and to which those toll lanes are indispensable, things may be just heating up. No guarantee Christie is involved, but hell, it's a small state, and really, what are the odds, especially if money is involved? And if it turns out he wasn't, he'll be wondering why, as much as we are...
I have to agree with Libertarian Fonzie on one point: the Robert Gates/Barack Obama scandal. Specifically, it was scandalous that a hack like Gates was kept on as SecDef by Obama, and the administration made it worse by giving that authoritarian asshole (sorry, a**hole) the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"U.S. Attorney Probing Christie Has Donated Thousands to Democrats."
Saw this line earlier, and it still boggles me (OK, I boggle easy). I mean, a U.S. Attorney most likely appointed by a Democratic Preznit, donates to Dem candidates, and this is news? Your average 6th grader would be, like "yeah, OK, so?"
Haven't read it yet, just wanted to say it's weird to see a Cornyn ad about keepin' Texas Prolife appear on your blog. That's hilariously bad marketing if nothing else.
In the VERY unlikely event that Christie comes out of this without being martyred on the pyre of impeachment (or jail, for that matter), his role in the presidential primaries wil still be just to be a huge slab of very tender red meat for Cruz and Paul to gnaw on. But I think politics is finished with him. His optimum future is starring in a reality show -- too bad Everybody Hates Chris has already been used as a title.
I know this is just asking for trouble, but can some explain to me what exactly is supposed to be the scandal surrounding Benghazi? I can understand the basic idea (as idiotic as it is) about the IRS one, but I just don't have any fucking (sorry f*cking) clue about this Benghazi stuff. I follow politics fairly closely, so I wonder if the average American has any clue what these guys are frothing at the mouth about.
Depending on who you ask, the scandal is: that Obama heard terrorists were attacking the Benghazi consulate, yawned and went back to sleep without doing anything that Obama heard terrorists were attacking the Benghazi consulate, and deliberately told a crack team of Marines to stay put instead of defending it that Obama refused to acknowledge al Qaeda had performed the attack that Obama didn't immediately resign and fire the entire State Department that the State Department had closed meetings about Benghazi that Obama himself ordered a false flag attack to hide evidence of weapon smuggling that Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State
-state dept. & administration claimed it was triggered by same outrage over anti-muslim video by rightwing crank that caused rioting in other middle east cities, therefore COVER-UP!!
Wasn't the original beef with everything failure of The One (ever notice no one calls Obama that 'cept folks who don't like him a'tall) to blame the attack on Evil Terrorists rather than some bit of assholery (video or something) designed to, well, get certain groups of Muslim folks highly pissed off, which, coincidently, that very thing happened? It's sort of morphed into a Tom Clancy novel in the meantime. And we'll be hearing about it for years, won't we, like the Clinton Body Count.
This ain't nice of me, but every doofus I see complaining about the de-machofication of the American Male, I immediately think to myself, "Yeah, I could take that guy." Just by dint of a stump-jumper upbringing, I figure I'm more macho by accident than Brent Hume is on purpose. Really can't see him digging many ditches.
Andrew C. McCarthy still sees Islamic supremacists and their enablers every time he opens his eyes and every time he closes his eyes. I'd say "don't ever change" but that would imply he was capable of doing so.
Conservatives will insist forever that there was a COVER UP. A really great one, unlike repug cover-ups, that will never be completely un-covered. This proves Obama is a Kenyan who ate dogs, and Hlllary knew the consulate was going to be attacked and ordered the protecting Marines to abandon it. Or something. The attack sure wasn't caused by some conservative porno-film about Mohammed.
The thing they would all like to gloss over is that whatever crazy shit they believe about Benghazi, they aren't so far gone as to suggest that Obama planned the riot/attack in which four Americans were killed. The bridge cock-up was a deliberate plan put in motion by Christie's staff either with or without his knowledge and/or blessing, which let's face it, there's no fucking way he didn't know about it well before it showed up in the press. But even being generous and taking him at his word, these are his direct underlings who deliberately executed a plan which if it worked as planned, would create a situation endangering public health and safety. He's either a big fat liar or a stunning failure as an executive if he's not even keeping up with what his direct subordinates are doing.
Basically the wingnuts are saying that in any situation which pits incompetence against evil, they're backing evil all the way. Incompetence however is acceptable if there is no evil alternative.
Picture Christie delegates to the 2016 GOP Convention wearing George Washington Bridge hats and carrying signs that say "HE MAY BE A A**HOLE BUT HE'S OUR A**HOLE!"
I always picture all GOP convention delegates generically, like so:
Depending on who you ask Wait, different people hold the above views? From what I've seen it's quite possible for one person to hold all of them at once.
The thing they would all like to gloss over is that whatever crazy shit they believe about Benghazi, they aren't so far gone as to suggest that Obama planned the riot/attack in which four Americans were killed.
Unfortunately, WorldNetDaily and Infowars have decided that Obama ordered his secret al Qaeda buddies to attack the Benghazi consulate because the ambassador had discovered Obama's secret plan to ferry guns to Muslims via the CIA, and a good number of GOP reps have latched onto that idea.
just to be a huge slab of very tender red meat for Cruz and Paul to gnaw on.
From the comfort of their glass houses, one assumes.
My bet is that most people will have forgotten about this by 2016, and Christie will go all "That was three whole years ago, I'M A CHANGED MAN!" and people who wanted to vote for him anyway will do it.
Not that I'd mind him going down like the Hindenburg, of course, but GOP favorite sons have weathered worse crap than this.
Oh, my goodness. Christie proves that he's an even bigger asshole than these goofs took him for, and now they like him. What's the takeaway on that?
Moreover, do these guys (and gals) really think that changing the subject real fast is going to stop the story? If they do, they're even bigger morons than I think they are (and I think they're big enough that when they go shopping for housing, they're looking at dirigible hangars).
I'm bad at predicting what scandals will and won't stick, but I think for the time being we can all applaud Christie for fulfilling our stereotype of him as a thuggish, corrupt dickhead down to the letter.
Indeed. I'm waiting for the instant replay to see if he momentarily had his hand in some casino developer's pocket while he was rolling ball bearing in the other hand and muttering something about strawberries.
Clinton Body Count? We still have Republicans who think that everything wrong with the country today can be traced back to FDR. Nobody holds grudges like a conservative, and they've got themselves a tasty one. I guarantee not one out of fifty conservative actually cares about-and makes their case based on-the logistics, who should have been where, when, and why weren't they, etc. It's pure symbol now-a byword that represents everything they hate and that they can use as a tribal identifier. I bet if you asked them the right leading question, a solid majority would say that Benghazi was the name of the al-Qaeda guy who Obama worked with.
Actually, I should revise that: you could probably pick any year in history and find a conservative who thinks that's when it all went to shit. 1932 would be a popular choice among the Randians, but there's always classics like 1860, 1787, and 13.4 Billion B.C.
Au Contrare! Closing the bridge was pitch-perfect for the Teahadist base. It was a big thumb in the eye of a Democrat mayor. And it demonstrated once again how government simply doesn't work. Indeed, government was the problem. And the fact that this action also made life miserable for those elitist Democrat voters in Ft. Lee is just icing on the cake. Unless Christie ends up in prison, this whole episode is a plus for his Teahadi cred.
Yes, it's always wonderful to have someone who wears makeup as part of his job, gets regular manicures, and reads aloud words someone else has written for him explain what it means to really be a man. I'll ponder his points when I'm out splitting wood later this morning.
Christie proves that he's an even bigger asshole than these goofs took him for, and now they like him. What's the takeaway on that? That the leader they long for is an asshole to those hated Demoncrats? In the end, their entire philosophy comes down to a combination of Cleek's Law, and working day and night to destroy the government of the country they profess to love.
In ancient times, one would see ads for "Speedwriting" on the subway that went something like "if u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb," which was perfectly understandable, especially to crossword fans. So I've never quite understood the purpose of substituting asterisks in written profanity when it's perfectly clear to anyone literate that "a**hole" means "asshole", and the writer wants it to be perfectly clear or wouldn't have used the word in the first place, but doesn't write it out for some inane reason. So what is that reason? And who decides which letters deserve such masking? Is Erick Erickson is a *ouchebag *otherfucker more or less profane than Erick Erickson is a doucheb*g motherf*cker? Are there people reading words cleansed by magic asterisks who feel better for not having read douchebag motherfucker in its raw, natural state? Do people who enjoy reading Erickson feel more civilized seeing a**hole instead of asshole, despite the fact that they are people who enjoy reading Erick Erickson which is practically the very definition of asshole?
The IRS scandalette, you may recall, was about Tea Party groups having their tax-exempt status delayed because the IRS suspected the guys in tri-corner hats waving OBAMA=HITLER signs were actually running primarily political organizations, for some reason.
" For one thing, "during Governor Christie's 107-minute news conference, he was honest and contrite," wrote Brown. "I've never seen Obama be contrite about anything." Well, there you have it."
Yep... Christie was "embarrassed and humiliated" that he could ever have selected such slimy, vindictive, and dishonest people for his staff, and that those people, whom he trusted implicitly, would have betrayed him so cruelly. I watched his presser with eyes shining with tears and a desire to comfort the poor lamb.
"[The bridge thing] did drown out much of the fallout of former Defense Secretary Bob Gate's scathing indictment of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That's a far more important story, both now and in terms of the future," wrote Nick Gillespie, representing the conservative niche brand Libertarianism and Reason magazine.
Today on Morning Edition:
INSKEEP: I've taken too much time on this part of the discussion, but I want to ask one more question and then move onto a couple of other things and then let you go. The one more question is this: Why did you write that Vice President Biden, in your view, has been wrong about every major foreign policy issue for 40 years? That's a pretty scathing line.
GATES: Well, two things. First of all, I think it's fair to say that particularly on Afghanistan, the vice president was my — he and I were on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. And he was in there advising the president every day. He was, I think, stoking the president's suspicion of the military. But the other side of it is, frankly, I believe it.
Well, there you have it... "I believe it" QEfuckin'D, motherfuckers.
Of course belief trumps reality. Facts, data, and experience are mere illusions. Just remember Reagan explaining Iran-Contra by telling the nation he did it, but he didn't BELIEVE he did it, so that makes it okay. (And it did: Ollie North became a hero, the press fell into line, and there was no great march on Washington demanding impeachment for an attempt to subvert the Constitution.)
i wondered the same thing when Clinton hired David Gergen as his Nixonian in residence.
i guess the logic runs something like " these guys will give us cred among establishment conservatives so we can actually move a piece or two of legislation'".
What Clinton and Obama wound up with was a cabinet level commentator for Meet the Press. My advice would be to appoint someone who's skills were undeniably commensurate with the job, , so that even a token appointee might offer them some useful insights, to counter any political liabilities (Peggy Noonan as liquor taster?).
Administrative spokeswoman went on the TeeVee talk show and didn't use the Wingnuts' preferred words. Then she said something else later using those words. This equals Lying. Which equals having gay sex in Vegas while brave Americans die.
That Erick bin Erick is a douchebag motherfucker is without question; giving douchebag motherfuckers like Erick bin Erick the vapors with "rude language" is the cherry on top.
I know--the guy's been through 8 administrations and has had a finger in every corrupt military/cia pie since the very beginning and he's pretending to be surprised that any adult could ever be suspicious of the motives, goals, or communicative strategies of "the military industrial complex" and its shills? Come the fuck on. Bob Gates ain't no boyscout. And he never was.
I love the "17 times more coverage that the IRS!" It has that this-is-science feel of "Rolaids consumes 47 times its weight in excess stomach acidity."
No, there's a billion-dollar development on the Jersey side that Christie's guys don't seem to be getting a piece of. Whether it is a billion-dollar development, or just two empty pieces of land depends on, guess what, easy bridge access.
"I've never seen Obama be contrite about anything." Oh, yes, I like this. In other words, my emotional response to what a public figure says is the yardstick by which we measure objective questions like, "did he make a statement to the press on this topic." Obama made a statement apologizing for the website roll-out, but since I wasn't convinced he was really sorry, the President never spoke to the American people about the website roll-out.
The only way I can make sense of the substance and timing of Gates's book is to guess that he's been diagnosed with a terminal illness and has six months to live, and was told by his agent: "Bobby... we gotta get this thing out there while you can still do some promos."
"[The bridge thing] did drown out much of the fallout of former Defense Secretary Bob Gate's scathing indictment of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That's a far more important story, both now and in terms of the future," wrote Nick Gillespie, representing the conservative niche brand Libertarianism and Reason magazine.
I know this is part of Roy's shtick, but once upon a time, right-libertarians wouldn't have automatically taken the word of a repeatedly mendacious, paid-up member of the military-industrial complex. Even the minarchists might have mustered up a little skepticism.
Oh I actually talked with a conservative who explicitly rules out everything Krugman says because Krugman reminds him of someone he hated in high school. Emotions are incredibly important to conservatives -- and all the wrong ones.
I think they're mainly incensed at her "what difference, at this point, does it make?" comment, based on how often I see it invoked, totem-like, on bad Photoshops of her and Obama.
Conservatives will insist forever that there was a COVER UP. So effective was the cover-up that we don't even know what was being covered. The existence of this ignorance is the proof that the cover-up occurred.
"feminized atmosphere in which we exist today," which counts against "guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct, kind of old fashion tough guys"
I mean, I resent on behalf of my sex the idea that spectacularly incompetent acts of petulance are specifically "masculine," but I'm also not exactly going to say we don't have a problem with that sort of thing, either. I mean, I'm pretty sure Wile E. Coyote was a dude.
I do recall being a child and wondering what certain asterisk'd words were. I think "a**hole" would have been pretty obvious, but there were some I didn't know.
I heard that same interview. To paraphrase the quote about Gingrich, Gates sounds a dishonest man's idea of what an honest man sounds like. It was particularly... interesting that he claimed he spent every single night weeping about dead soldiers. Couldn't help but think:
1) If Obama said that, he'd fall on the "feminine" side of the Brit Hume Line and be excoriated as unfit to lead. 2) Every night you wept? I doubt it. 3) Let's accept it's true! Great. So you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown for a year, two years? Overflowing with guilt, fear, loneliness, but also a certainty about your own importance -- how are you a good judge of Obama or Biden or anyone? In fact it seems like Gates's criticism of Obama comes down to: "I cared more than he did about the soldiers I was pressing him against his will to send to their death -- and he sent them, which was what I wanted, but he didn't have his heart in it, so he's deeply flawed." What?? This is a guy who needs therapy, not a guy with an opinion to trust.
Honestly, he contradicted or undermined himself half a dozen times in the 10-minute interview. He's upset that Obama considers domestic opinion when planning how many soldiers to risk, and upset because we're engaged in "wars of choice" rather than necessity. Maybe his argument is with democracy and Bush? He sounded so dumb and dishonest -- and until last week I'd thought of him as decent and competent.
[Biden] in your view, has been wrong about every major foreign policy issue for 40 years? .... TPM Livewire: Gates Says Biden, Clinton Would Make Good Presidents
And what do I see first thing this morning? The Ft Lee Mayor suddenly remembers a support request from Christie, and some other Dem mayors are saying somewhat the same. Are they anxious for the "BILLION DOLLAR DEVELOPMENT! to drop off the radar? Inquiring minds...
Somebody (I can't be bothered to remember who) pointed out that the "17 times more coverage" talking point is qualified by wingnuts as "in the last 6 months." The IRS "scandal" took place more than 6 months ago, so it would be perfectly logical that there wasn't much coverage over it several months after it happened. They're not comparing apples and apples at all. They're not even comparing apples and applesauce.
He can dish this shit out but he can't take it. Which is too bad because as a douchebag motherfucker he has many capable souls desirous of giving it to him.
I tried to get my wife's brother-in-law to explain it to me, but he really couldn't.
This is the point where they fall back on their ignorance "I personally don't understand how they did anything wrong, so we should have hearings about it until they explain to me how awful Obama is."
My main objection is that "a**hole" is a syntactically-invalid regular expression. It should really be /a[s]{2}hole/ or maybe /a\**hole/ depending on what he actually intends. REGULAR EXPRESSIONS MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
Yeah, seriously. These people lack frontal lobes. It's like expecting the primitive lizard brain stem to take over the chore of thinking and reasoning. Not gonna happen.
Hell, I cheered her when she said it, not because I like her but because someone finally had a normal, human reaction to the highly choreographed shit-smearathon/point-scoring that is rethug-led bullshit congressional "hearings of import".
What's amazing is that Clinton was, in essence, saying "Americans died and all you're asking me about is what Susan Rice was saying about it after the fact?" She was attacking the Congressmembers' indifference to the loss of life and yet it's been seized upon as a supreme example of such indifference.
The original, thinly plausible "scandal", as I understand it, is that there was some kind of coordination between the White House and State to downplay the attack's potential association with Al Qaeda (it being 9/11 and all) in order to reduce the political impact during an election season. That's as far as it got during the 2012 election, and Romney infamously whiffed his attempts to capitalize on it. Worse, the only "smoking gun" (more of a damp squib in any case) was an email that turned out to be a fabrication.
It's whelped many subscandals of various levels of paranoia, the most common being that Obama didn't support and/or rescue the besieged embassy due to cowardice, secret Muslimitude, a quenchless thirst for ambassador blood, etc. But at this point it's mostly a part of speech: noun, verb, "Benghazi". And merely to hear it is to know it if you are one of the Enlightened.
Maybe he means it in the same way that Mario Puzo meant it in The Godfather. In Chapter 20 of the novel, we read:
"... the five New York Dons were in the old Sicilian tradition, they were 'men with a belly' meaning, figuratively, power and courage; and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded cheeks."
I know I'm a little late to the party, but regarding "Bridgegate, "shouldn't Robert Penn Warren's "All the Kings Men" on the reading list for anyone writing about politics? It won a Pulitzer, after all. At least the movie? Not the 2006 version with Sean Penn, the one from1949 with Broderick Crawford, who in his Oscar-winning performance so well resembles Christie that it makes me want to mount a dinner-theater stage revival of the story with Christie in the role of Willie Stark.
Hmm. Now that I think about Broderick Crawford, I can imagine that a reality show of Chris Christie's home life would roughly resemble the goings-on of "Born Yesterday," I can picture Christie yelling the question, "What's a fat chist?!"
Well, if JMM is on to something with that "billion dollar development" in Ft Lee, literally at the foot of the GWB, and to which those toll lanes are indispensable, things may be just heating up. No guarantee Christie is involved, but hell, it's a small state, and really, what are the odds, especially if money is involved? And if it turns out he wasn't, he'll be wondering why, as much as we are...
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Libertarian Fonzie on one point: the Robert Gates/Barack Obama scandal. Specifically, it was scandalous that a hack like Gates was kept on as SecDef by Obama, and the administration made it worse by giving that authoritarian asshole (sorry, a**hole) the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
ReplyDelete"U.S. Attorney Probing Christie Has Donated Thousands to Democrats."
ReplyDeleteSaw this line earlier, and it still boggles me (OK, I boggle easy). I mean, a U.S. Attorney most likely appointed by a Democratic Preznit, donates to Dem candidates, and this is news? Your average 6th grader would be, like "yeah, OK, so?"
Haven't read it yet, just wanted to say it's weird to see a Cornyn ad about keepin' Texas Prolife appear on your blog. That's hilariously bad marketing if nothing else.
ReplyDeleteIn the VERY unlikely event that Christie comes out of this without being martyred on the pyre of impeachment (or jail, for that matter), his role in the presidential primaries wil still be just to be a huge slab of very tender red meat for Cruz and Paul to gnaw on.
ReplyDeleteBut I think politics is finished with him. His optimum future is starring in a reality show -- too bad Everybody Hates Chris has already been used as a title.
So to go from scum and Dem in disguise.to martyr, all it takes is committing crimes? Rightbloggers have the weirdest fetishes.
ReplyDeleteI always click it to make. them. pay.
ReplyDeleteI know this is just asking for trouble, but can some explain to me what exactly is supposed to be the scandal surrounding Benghazi? I can understand the basic idea (as idiotic as it is) about the IRS one, but I just don't have any fucking (sorry f*cking) clue about this Benghazi stuff. I follow politics fairly closely, so I wonder if the average American has any clue what these guys are frothing at the mouth about.
ReplyDelete"guys who are masculine and muscular..."
ReplyDeleteAre we talking about jaw muscles?
The HBO series would be The Countertenors.
ReplyDeleteDepending on who you ask, the scandal is:
ReplyDeletethat Obama heard terrorists were attacking the Benghazi consulate, yawned and went back to sleep without doing anything
that Obama heard terrorists were attacking the Benghazi consulate, and deliberately told a crack team of Marines to stay put instead of defending it
that Obama refused to acknowledge al Qaeda had performed the attack
that Obama didn't immediately resign and fire the entire State Department
that the State Department had closed meetings about Benghazi
that Obama himself ordered a false flag attack to hide evidence of weapon smuggling
that Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State
Oh, way ahead
ReplyDeletePlease stop using "GWB." Brings back too many bad memories.
ReplyDelete-state dept. & administration claimed it was triggered by same outrage over anti-muslim video by rightwing crank that caused rioting in other middle east cities, therefore COVER-UP!!
ReplyDeleteWasn't the original beef with everything failure of The One (ever notice no one calls Obama that 'cept folks who don't like him a'tall) to blame the attack on Evil Terrorists rather than some bit of assholery (video or something) designed to, well, get certain groups of Muslim folks highly pissed off, which, coincidently, that very thing happened? It's sort of morphed into a Tom Clancy novel in the meantime. And we'll be hearing about it for years, won't we, like the Clinton Body Count.
ReplyDeleteAdBlock is the shit.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the average American has any clue what these guys are frothing at the mouth about.
ReplyDeleteNo. And above-average Americans have even less clue.
This ain't nice of me, but every doofus I see complaining about the de-machofication of the American Male, I immediately think to myself, "Yeah, I could take that guy." Just by dint of a stump-jumper upbringing, I figure I'm more macho by accident than Brent Hume is on purpose. Really can't see him digging many ditches.
ReplyDeleteAndrew C. McCarthy still sees Islamic supremacists and their enablers every time he opens his eyes and every time he closes his eyes. I'd say "don't ever change" but that would imply he was capable of doing so.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Attorney Probing Christie
ReplyDeleteNot a job I'd want.
Conservatives will insist forever that there was a COVER UP. A really great one, unlike repug cover-ups, that will never be completely un-covered. This proves Obama is a Kenyan who ate dogs, and Hlllary knew the consulate was going to be attacked and ordered the protecting Marines to abandon it. Or something. The attack sure wasn't caused by some conservative porno-film about Mohammed.
ReplyDeleteYour average 6th grader would be, like "yeah, OK, so?"
ReplyDeleteYou may have said more than you realize here.
No really, we're talking about a movement of people who know exactly as much as they care to know. That ain't much.
The thing they would all like to gloss over is that whatever crazy shit they believe about Benghazi, they aren't so far gone as to suggest that Obama planned the riot/attack in which four Americans were killed. The bridge cock-up was a deliberate plan put in motion by Christie's staff either with or without his knowledge and/or blessing, which let's face it, there's no fucking way he didn't know about it well before it showed up in the press. But even being generous and taking him at his word, these are his direct underlings who deliberately executed a plan which if it worked as planned, would create a situation endangering public health and safety. He's either a big fat liar or a stunning failure as an executive if he's not even keeping up with what his direct subordinates are doing.
ReplyDeleteBasically the wingnuts are saying that in any situation which pits incompetence against evil, they're backing evil all the way. Incompetence however is acceptable if there is no evil alternative.
Picture Christie delegates to the 2016 GOP Convention wearing George Washington Bridge hats and carrying signs that say "HE MAY BE A A**HOLE BUT HE'S OUR A**HOLE!"
ReplyDeleteI always picture all GOP convention delegates generically, like so:
The scandal is black president, woman SOS and OMG Ay-rabs!!!
ReplyDeleteHaving read Kurt Vonnegut at an impressionable age, I just read "a**hole" as "a asshole asshole hole."
ReplyDeleteDepending on who you ask Wait, different people hold the above views? From what I've seen it's quite possible for one person to hold all of them at once.
ReplyDelete"guys who are masculine, oiled and muscular like that in their private conduct, turgid, kind of old fashion tough guys"
ReplyDeleteActually I made up part of that quote, but I bet you didn't notice right away.
You bet your wetsuit they do!
ReplyDeleteThe thing they would all like to gloss over is that whatever crazy shit they believe about Benghazi, they aren't so far gone as to suggest that Obama planned the riot/attack in which four Americans were killed.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, WorldNetDaily and Infowars have decided that Obama ordered his secret al Qaeda buddies to attack the Benghazi consulate because the ambassador had discovered Obama's secret plan to ferry guns to Muslims via the CIA, and a good number of GOP reps have latched onto that idea.
just to be a huge slab of very tender red meat for Cruz and Paul to gnaw on.
ReplyDeleteFrom the comfort of their glass houses, one assumes.
My bet is that most people will have forgotten about this by 2016, and Christie will go all "That was three whole years ago, I'M A CHANGED MAN!" and people who wanted to vote for him anyway will do it.
Not that I'd mind him going down like the Hindenburg, of course, but GOP favorite sons have weathered worse crap than this.
Oh, my goodness. Christie proves that he's an even bigger asshole than these goofs took him for, and now they like him. What's the takeaway on that?
ReplyDeleteMoreover, do these guys (and gals) really think that changing the subject real fast is going to stop the story? If they do, they're even bigger morons than I think they are (and I think they're big enough that when they go shopping for housing, they're looking at dirigible hangars).
"BREAKING NEWS: 200+ Congressmen, doing Obama's bidding in congress, are Democrats. IMPEACH! IMPEACH!"
ReplyDeleteI'm bad at predicting what scandals will and won't stick, but I think for the time being we can all applaud Christie for fulfilling our stereotype of him as a thuggish, corrupt dickhead down to the letter.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. I'm waiting for the instant replay to see if he momentarily had his hand in some casino developer's pocket while he was rolling ball bearing in the other hand and muttering something about strawberries.
ReplyDeleteClinton Body Count? We still have Republicans who think that everything wrong with the country today can be traced back to FDR. Nobody holds grudges like a conservative, and they've got themselves a tasty one. I guarantee not one out of fifty conservative actually cares about-and makes their case based on-the logistics, who should have been where, when, and why weren't they, etc. It's pure symbol now-a byword that represents everything they hate and that they can use as a tribal identifier. I bet if you asked them the right leading question, a solid majority would say that Benghazi was the name of the al-Qaeda guy who Obama worked with.
ReplyDeleteWhich is kinda funny, since you're in that probing business....
ReplyDeleteSpelled "bin Gauzy."
ReplyDeleteActually, I should revise that: you could probably pick any year in history and find a conservative who thinks that's when it all went to shit. 1932 would be a popular choice among the Randians, but there's always classics like 1860, 1787, and 13.4 Billion B.C.
ReplyDeleteBut would rob my day of much unintended comedy.
ReplyDeleteAu Contrare! Closing the bridge was pitch-perfect for the Teahadist base. It was a big thumb in the eye of a Democrat mayor. And it demonstrated once again how government simply doesn't work. Indeed, government was the problem. And the fact that this action also made life miserable for those elitist Democrat voters in Ft. Lee is just icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteUnless Christie ends up in prison, this whole episode is a plus for his Teahadi cred.
That last number should be 4004 BC.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's always wonderful to have someone who wears makeup as part of his job, gets regular manicures, and reads aloud words someone else has written for him explain what it means to really be a man.
ReplyDeleteI'll ponder his points when I'm out splitting wood later this morning.
Christie proves that he's an even bigger asshole than these goofs took him for, and now they like him. What's the takeaway on that?
ReplyDeleteThat the leader they long for is an asshole to those hated Demoncrats? In the end, their entire philosophy comes down to a combination of Cleek's Law, and working day and night to destroy the government of the country they profess to love.
Ferrying guns to Muslims via the CIA? So, like Reagan?
ReplyDeleteIn ancient times, one would see ads for "Speedwriting" on the subway that went something like "if u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd jb," which was perfectly understandable, especially to crossword fans. So I've never quite understood the purpose of substituting asterisks in written profanity when it's perfectly clear to anyone literate that "a**hole" means "asshole", and the writer wants it to be perfectly clear or wouldn't have used the word in the first place, but doesn't write it out for some inane reason. So what is that reason? And who decides which letters deserve such masking? Is Erick Erickson is a *ouchebag *otherfucker more or less profane than Erick Erickson is a doucheb*g motherf*cker? Are there people reading words cleansed by magic asterisks who feel better for not having read douchebag motherfucker in its raw, natural state? Do people who enjoy reading Erickson feel more civilized seeing a**hole instead of asshole, despite the fact that they are people who enjoy reading Erick Erickson which is practically the very definition of asshole?
ReplyDeleteI will never understand this sh*t.
Government can work just fine, if your goals are to punish your enemies and reward your friends.
ReplyDeleteThe IRS scandalette, you may recall, was about Tea Party groups having their tax-exempt status delayed
ReplyDeletebecause the IRS suspected the guys in tri-corner hats waving
OBAMA=HITLER signs were actually running primarily political
organizations, for some reason.
I am so stealing this....
:-)
" For one thing, "during Governor Christie's 107-minute news conference,
ReplyDeletehe was honest and contrite," wrote Brown. "I've never seen Obama be
contrite about anything." Well, there you have it."
Yep... Christie was "embarrassed and humiliated" that he could ever have selected such slimy, vindictive, and dishonest people for his staff, and that those people, whom he trusted implicitly, would have betrayed him so cruelly. I watched his presser with eyes shining with tears and a desire to comfort the poor lamb.
"[The bridge thing] did drown out much of the fallout of former Defense
ReplyDeleteSecretary Bob Gate's scathing indictment of Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton. That's a far more important story, both now and in terms of the
future," wrote Nick Gillespie, representing the conservative niche brand Libertarianism and Reason magazine.
Today on Morning Edition:
INSKEEP: I've taken too much time on this part of the discussion, but
I want to ask one more question and then move onto a couple of other
things and then let you go. The one more question is this: Why did you
write that Vice President Biden, in your view, has been wrong about
every major foreign policy issue for 40 years? That's a pretty scathing
line.
GATES: Well, two things. First of all, I think it's fair
to say that particularly on Afghanistan, the vice president was my — he
and I were on opposite sides of the fence on this issue. And he was in
there advising the president every day. He was, I think, stoking the
president's suspicion of the military. But the other side of it is,
frankly, I believe it.
Well, there you have it... "I believe it" QEfuckin'D, motherfuckers.
Of course belief trumps reality. Facts, data, and experience are mere illusions. Just remember Reagan explaining Iran-Contra by telling the nation he did it, but he didn't BELIEVE he did it, so that makes it okay. (And it did: Ollie North became a hero, the press fell into line, and there was no great march on Washington demanding impeachment for an attempt to subvert the Constitution.)
ReplyDeletei wondered the same thing when Clinton hired David Gergen as his Nixonian in residence.
ReplyDeletei guess the logic runs something like " these guys will give us cred among establishment conservatives so we can actually move a piece or two of legislation'".
What Clinton and Obama wound up with was a cabinet level commentator for Meet the Press. My advice would be to appoint someone who's skills were undeniably commensurate with the job, , so that even a token appointee might offer them some useful insights, to counter any political liabilities (Peggy Noonan as liquor taster?).
How could one be suspect of the military? That's just crazy talk
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that they did the same thing to lieberal groups...
ReplyDeleteAKA pretty much every Republican platform since Grant.
ReplyDeleteAdministrative spokeswoman went on the TeeVee talk show and didn't use the Wingnuts' preferred words. Then she said something else later using those words. This equals Lying. Which equals having gay sex in Vegas while brave Americans die.
ReplyDeleteWell, what about the Chicago comptroller?
ReplyDeleteThat Erick bin Erick is a douchebag motherfucker is without question; giving douchebag motherfuckers like Erick bin Erick the vapors with "rude language" is the cherry on top.
ReplyDeleteI know--the guy's been through 8 administrations and has had a finger in every corrupt military/cia pie since the very beginning and he's pretending to be surprised that any adult could ever be suspicious of the motives, goals, or communicative strategies of "the military industrial complex" and its shills? Come the fuck on. Bob Gates ain't no boyscout. And he never was.
ReplyDelete"Fox News Military Correspondent General James Mattoon Scott is up next to comment on the Gates book, after this break"
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that Gates himself was tapdancing away from his involvement in Iran-Contra just as fast as his stubby little legs would take him....
ReplyDeleteUnlike Reagan's clever diversion of money to the Contras, Obama DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO MAKE A PROFIT.
ReplyDeleteThat's how you can tell he's a communist.
Is this the same multi-Eric who called Justice Souter a "goat-fucking child molester"? Why the sudden attack of internet Ms. Manners?
ReplyDeleteWhy should he change? He's fulfilled the dream of every fifteen year old boy and figured out how to earn a wage from his wanking.
ReplyDeleteI know, and it's just an innocent bridge and it's getting so I don't even want to cross it. Good thing I'm on the other coast. Poor bridge.
ReplyDeleteOne and the same (Former Tail-End Charlie of the Macon Georgia City Council).
ReplyDeleteObama's Chicago thugs have already put Gates in a neck brace.
ReplyDeletePass it on!
I'd like to solve the puzzle, Pat.
ReplyDeleteI love the "17 times more coverage that the IRS!" It has that this-is-science feel of "Rolaids consumes 47 times its weight in excess stomach acidity."
ReplyDeleteRighties have a hard time telling the difference between muscle and fat.
ReplyDeleteNo, there's a billion-dollar development on the Jersey side that Christie's guys don't seem to be getting a piece of. Whether it is a billion-dollar development, or just two empty pieces of land depends on, guess what, easy bridge access.
ReplyDeleteAnd for a decent show, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd palpating. Every time I go in, the guy palpates something.
ReplyDeleteIt may be that Christie's pals on the R side, weren't getting a big enough slice of the D deal, and made a preemptive proactive move.
ReplyDeleteIf I may pay homage (French for "ripoff") to Victor David Hanson:
ReplyDeleteA big gut can add gravitas to the bully's strong-arming in a way impossible to achieve at the gym.
The state of Illinois is the only state in the union where "being appointed city comptroller" is an approved form of the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteIt's like 'Wheel of Fortune' you have to buy the vowels, but you can guess the consonants for free.
ReplyDelete"I've never seen Obama be contrite about anything."
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I like this. In other words, my emotional response to what a public figure says is the yardstick by which we measure objective questions like, "did he make a statement to the press on this topic."
Obama made a statement apologizing for the website roll-out, but since I wasn't convinced he was really sorry, the President never spoke to the American people about the website roll-out.
As a friend says, "When I need a random number I use seventeen. "
ReplyDeleteI thought people did it so that the results wouldn't show up (and he wouldn't then also show up) after vanity-Googling himself.
ReplyDeleteI would watch a series called The Countertenors.
ReplyDelete/choir geek
The only way I can make sense of the substance and timing of Gates's book is to guess that he's been diagnosed with a terminal illness and has six months to live, and was told by his agent: "Bobby... we gotta get this thing out there while you can still do some promos."
ReplyDelete"[The bridge thing] did drown out much of the fallout of former Defense
ReplyDeleteSecretary Bob Gate's scathing indictment of Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton. That's a far more important story, both now and in terms of the
future," wrote Nick Gillespie, representing the conservative niche brand Libertarianism and Reason magazine.
I know this is part of Roy's shtick, but once upon a time, right-libertarians wouldn't have automatically taken the word of a repeatedly mendacious, paid-up member of the military-industrial complex. Even the minarchists might have mustered up a little skepticism.
Oh I actually talked with a conservative who explicitly rules out everything Krugman says because Krugman reminds him of someone he hated in high school. Emotions are incredibly important to conservatives -- and all the wrong ones.
ReplyDeleteThey think Clinton did something in the aftermath? I tried to get my wife's brother-in-law to explain it to me, but he really couldn't.
ReplyDeleteThe executive version boils down to, "The attack was somehow intrinsically different from the multiple embassy attacks under Bush, and therefore worthy of impeachment."
ReplyDeleteI think they're mainly incensed at her "what difference, at this point, does it make?" comment, based on how often I see it invoked, totem-like, on bad Photoshops of her and Obama.
ReplyDeleteConservatives will insist forever that there was a COVER UP.
ReplyDeleteSo effective was the cover-up that we don't even know what was being covered. The existence of this ignorance is the proof that the cover-up occurred.
"feminized atmosphere in which we exist today," which counts against
ReplyDelete"guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct,
kind of old fashion tough guys"
I mean, I resent on behalf of my sex the idea that spectacularly incompetent acts of petulance are specifically "masculine," but I'm also not exactly going to say we don't have a problem with that sort of thing, either. I mean, I'm pretty sure Wile E. Coyote was a dude.
I do recall being a child and wondering what certain asterisk'd words were. I think "a**hole" would have been pretty obvious, but there were some I didn't know.
ReplyDeleteThat was a fun game.
I heard that same interview. To paraphrase the quote about Gingrich, Gates sounds a dishonest man's idea of what an honest man sounds like. It was particularly... interesting that he claimed he spent every single night weeping about dead soldiers. Couldn't help but think:
ReplyDelete1) If Obama said that, he'd fall on the "feminine" side of the Brit Hume Line and be excoriated as unfit to lead.
2) Every night you wept? I doubt it.
3) Let's accept it's true! Great. So you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown for a year, two years? Overflowing with guilt, fear, loneliness, but also a certainty about your own importance -- how are you a good judge of Obama or Biden or anyone? In fact it seems like Gates's criticism of Obama comes down to: "I cared more than he did about the soldiers I was pressing him against his will to send to their death -- and he sent them, which was what I wanted, but he didn't have his heart in it, so he's deeply flawed." What?? This is a guy who needs therapy, not a guy with an opinion to trust.
Honestly, he contradicted or undermined himself half a dozen times in the 10-minute interview. He's upset that Obama considers domestic opinion when planning how many
soldiers to risk, and upset because we're engaged in "wars
of choice" rather than necessity. Maybe his argument is with democracy
and Bush? He sounded so dumb and dishonest -- and until last week I'd thought of him as decent and competent.
[Biden] in your view, has been wrong about
ReplyDeleteevery major foreign policy issue for 40 years?
....
TPM Livewire:
Gates Says Biden, Clinton Would Make Good Presidents
Well OK then...
Over and over and over, Liberal: "fact!"....Conservative: "feelings!", and we're the fuzzy-minded, out-of-touchy-feely ones. Whaddayagonnado?
ReplyDeleteAnd what do I see first thing this morning? The Ft Lee Mayor suddenly remembers a support request from Christie, and some other Dem mayors are saying somewhat the same. Are they anxious for the "BILLION DOLLAR DEVELOPMENT! to drop off the radar? Inquiring minds...
ReplyDeleteSomebody (I can't be bothered to remember who) pointed out that the "17 times more coverage" talking point is qualified by wingnuts as "in the last 6 months."
ReplyDeleteThe IRS "scandal" took place more than 6 months ago, so it would be perfectly logical that there wasn't much coverage over it several months after it happened.
They're not comparing apples and apples at all. They're not even comparing apples and applesauce.
Just their own.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. interestinger and interestinger...
ReplyDeleteNo idea if this is connected with the BDD! but it's...interesting.
Sounds like they're comparing horseapples...
ReplyDeleteThe asterisk DOES look particularly puckery in that position.
ReplyDeleteWithout the patriotism and love of America that Reagan possessed.
ReplyDeleteHe can dish this shit out but he can't take it. Which is too bad because as a douchebag motherfucker he has many capable souls desirous of giving it to him.
ReplyDeleteShe'd still judge Obama to be totally insincere - in comparison with Honest John Christie - if he stripped naked and whipped himself until he bled.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I lost whatever respect I thought you could have for Gates--what a pissy, whiny, little toady he sounded during his NPR interview.
ReplyDeletethat link isn't working for me. Can you put it up again?
ReplyDeleteI tried to get my wife's brother-in-law to explain it to me, but he really couldn't.
ReplyDeleteThis is the point where they fall back on their ignorance "I personally don't understand how they did anything wrong, so we should have hearings about it until they explain to me how awful Obama is."
My main objection is that "a**hole" is a syntactically-invalid regular expression. It should really be /a[s]{2}hole/ or maybe /a\**hole/ depending on what he actually intends. REGULAR EXPRESSIONS MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
ReplyDeleteWe still have Republicans who think that everything wrong with the country today can be traced back to FDR.
ReplyDeleteHell, I hear on a disturbingly regular basis how the real problems of this country today can be traced back to Lincoln.
How arbitrary.
ReplyDeleteYeah, seriously. These people lack frontal lobes. It's like expecting the primitive lizard brain stem to take over the chore of thinking and reasoning. Not gonna happen.
ReplyDeleteIf you all were here in my office you could see and hear how I do a pretty good Burt Lancaster. Next time?
ReplyDeleteHell, I cheered her when she said it, not because I like her but because someone finally had a normal, human reaction to the highly choreographed shit-smearathon/point-scoring that is rethug-led bullshit congressional "hearings of import".
ReplyDeleteThey're comparing apples and _imaginary_ apples, which is pretty much par for the course here, I think.
ReplyDeleteHopefully it's something uncomfortable and/or embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteLinkee fixee.
ReplyDeleteAll day I've been trying to put my finger on something. Then it hit me:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eemJfruOvz0
If searching for "asshole" doesn't bring up Erick Erickson in the first page of results, I think Google needs to work on their algorithms a bit more.
ReplyDelete"rippling" and "meaty" would fit in nicely too.
ReplyDeleteWhat's amazing is that Clinton was, in essence, saying "Americans died and all you're asking me about is what Susan Rice was saying about it after the fact?" She was attacking the Congressmembers' indifference to the loss of life and yet it's been seized upon as a supreme example of such indifference.
ReplyDeleteThe original, thinly plausible "scandal", as I understand it, is that there was some kind of coordination between the White House and State to downplay the attack's potential association with Al Qaeda (it being 9/11 and all) in order to reduce the political impact during an election season. That's as far as it got during the 2012 election, and Romney infamously whiffed his attempts to capitalize on it. Worse, the only "smoking gun" (more of a damp squib in any case) was an email that turned out to be a fabrication.
ReplyDeleteIt's whelped many subscandals of various levels of paranoia, the most common being that Obama didn't support and/or rescue the besieged embassy due to cowardice, secret Muslimitude, a quenchless thirst for ambassador blood, etc. But at this point it's mostly a part of speech: noun, verb, "Benghazi". And merely to hear it is to know it if you are one of the Enlightened.
They prefer the term "extraordinarily blessed with myelin".
ReplyDeleteHe benefited tremendously simply by the contrast with Rumsfeld.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he means it in the same way that Mario Puzo meant it in The Godfather. In Chapter 20 of the novel, we read:
ReplyDelete"... the five New York Dons were in the old Sicilian tradition, they were 'men with a belly' meaning, figuratively, power and courage; and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded cheeks."
I know I'm a little late to the party, but regarding "Bridgegate, "shouldn't Robert Penn Warren's "All the Kings
ReplyDeleteMen" on the reading list for anyone writing about politics? It won a
Pulitzer, after all. At least the movie? Not the 2006 version with Sean
Penn, the one from1949 with Broderick Crawford, who in his Oscar-winning performance so well resembles Christie that it makes me want to mount a dinner-theater stage revival of the story with Christie in the role of Willie Stark.
Hmm. Now that I think about Broderick Crawford, I can imagine that a reality show of Chris Christie's home life would roughly resemble the goings-on of "Born Yesterday," I can picture Christie yelling the question, "What's a fat chist?!"